Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place (later known as Two Guys and a Girl) is one of those shows that has for a long time seemed rather bipolar in my research about it.  Some people rave about it as being one of the best shows they've ever seen, but many others tend towards 'It's good, but not amazing'.  This is quite evident when you look at the ratings on IMDB (7.7/10) vs TV.com (9.1/10).  It's the difference between being a solid show that passes the time well and something that takes your socks and blows them away from their usual location inside your shoes.


It was enough to make me curious about the show, and so I researched a little and found out that it starred Ryan Reynolds, or as I like to call him 'The man who made Blade 3 watchable', Traylor Howard - from Monk and some guy called Richard Ruccolo who I recognise, but didn't know too well.


Two Guys and a Girl is a light hearted twenty minute sitcom created by Rick Wiener, Kenny Schwartz (both now involved in American Dad) and Danny Jacobson (Rosanne, Mad About You) about the trials and tribulations of a trio of twenty something friends living in Boston and "working" in a pizza place.  You have Michael 'Berg' Bergin (Reynolds) an aimless drifter through life who isn't sure what degree/career he wants, he's effortlessly brilliant but endlessly lazy, his flatmate is Pete Dunville (Ruccolo) a more regular guy, if a little highly strung and their friend from university (and upstairs neighbour) Sharon Carter (Traylor - side note: who calls their little girl Traylor?  Don't get me wrong, she's a fantastic actress, her work in Monk replacing Sharona was excellent - she filled the void admirably - but Traylor?  It's rather masculine and it also sounds a lot like trailer...) who works for a chemical company that 'kill the environment'.


Also joining this triplet are the regular supporting characters of Pete's girlfriend Melissa (Jennifer Westfeldt - 24), the pizza place owner Bill (Julius Carry) and the oddball Mr Bauer (David Ogden Stiers) who compulsively claims that his life is whatever movie he watched most recently.  Mr Bauer, for me, was the character who softened my opinion to the show, he's almost a one note character but I've loved Stiers' work since he played the is he evil or isn't he Reverend Purdy in the 'cancelled one season too soon' Anthony Michael Hall show 'The Dead Zone'.  It was his Jedi impression that swung me over, I guess despite falling out with Star Wars (over fiddled with these days) I still have a soft spot for a good Alec Guinness/Obi-Wan quote when applied correctly.  However, from what I've gathered so far, none of these characters make it into the second season.  So don't get too attached to them.


Two Guys and a Girl is a pretty lighthearted affair, unlike the traditional sitcom it does occasionally carry on the consequences of events from one episode to the next, but for the most part each episode is standalone.  That makes it easy to pick up and put down, but it can still be a tad confusing if watched in the wrong order.


Guess who watched the first season in the wrong order?


Despite this, I did enjoy the show, it has a humour that grows on you the more you watch it, initially I didn't see what the fuss was about, but having watched the first season I can say that I have adopted a few funny lines/quotes here and there (especially Pete's fish impression) and I am looking foward to watching the second season.


So I think I'd call that a bit of a success and I'll leave it at that until I take a look at the second season in a few weeks time.


(Incidently... Searching for pictures to this show is a minefield - even with Google images set to 'Moderate'.  I guess that's what happens when you go for such a provocative/risque name.  Git writers/creators!)
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Sometimes I feel that my watching of television is an endless quest to find replacement shows for old favourites.  I've tried out shows like Boardwalk Empire and Treme to replace The Wire and Southlands to replace The Shield and each time I've only found middling success.  However, Community has filled one hole - the one left be the ending of first Seinfeld and later Arrested Development.


Community's first season was a magical journey of realisation about how superb comedy is still out there being produced.  It was a season that mixed bitter cynical humour with optimism and light hearted comedy.  The second season had one hell of a bar to reach.


Spoilers:  It raised it.  In fact it raised the roof and threw it into the neighbours garden.  Crushing a small shed in the process.


I don't know how the third season is going to manage to top the second one, the season managed to introduce exciting new support characters, continue running jokes, bring new ones in and provide not only a stop motion episode but also a zombie movie, a western, Star Wars and more besides.


Starting with the gang returning to Greendale after the summer break we follow on from the events of the last season.  Senor Chang is no longer a teacher, Jeff and the guys are now studying Anthropology together instead of Spanish and things have both changed and stayed the same.  Jeff's relationship status is 'resolved' and everything kicks up into a higher gear.


There are just so many highlights in this season; "Basic Rocket Science" provides a superb space film homage; the superb "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design" features good old Dean Pelton in a story so twisty that you'll stop caring about understanding what's happening and just enjoy the fun and "Paradigms of the Human Memory" puts a fresh spin on the clip show.


But the personal favourites for myself were "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons" and the two part season finale which built on the brilliant paintball episode of the previous season ("Modern Warfare") with a first part that homages the Western Genre and a second part that just gives up pretending to homage and rips huge sections of Star Wars off - the best sections I might add.


As before, performances are class throughout - While Chevy Chase is known to be a bit of a handful off screen, his delivery on screen is spectacular and the use of Pierce as a villainous foil to the group works exceptionally well.  Likewise Senor Chang's new role is possibly better than his original one, the mixture of adoration and hate he has for Abed and Company is something to really relish.  But for me, the best part is the increased role Professor Ian Duncan has John Oliver is a class act all the way, and he's just perfect in Community, rating alongside
Professor Eustice Whitman (the brilliant John Michael Higgins) as one of my favourite characters in the show outside of the main cast.


I dared to hope that the second season would surpass the first one, and it did.  Last time I wrote about Community I called it the best sitcom on air right now.  I feel justified in this opinion, it's sheer class.
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Spoilers, I've come to the conclusion that NBC's half hour sitcom Community was at the very least the best new comedy show of 2009 and it's possible that it was the best sitcom of that particular year. The show completely caught me by surprise last Autumn with just how good it was and most recently I caught up with the entire season in a marathon weekend session that solidified the shows place amongst my all time favourites.

The premise behind Community is based on the creator/writer Dan Harmon's personal experiences in community college. He found himself gradually becoming attached to a group of disparate people who had very little in common apart from the subjects they were studying. "...I was in this group with these knuckleheads and I started really liking them," he explains, "even though they had nothing to do with the film industry and I had nothing to gain from them and nothing to offer them." (read more here).

In the show it's currently disbarred lawyer Jeff Winger (Joel McHale - The Soup) who plays Dan's analogue. Jeff is a cynical, independent, disdainful, womanizing individual who's only come to Greendale community college in order to gain a proper law degree and return to the job he loves. The attractive Britta (Gillian Jacobs - Choke) catches his eye and he invents a Spanish study group in order to get close to her. Unfortunately for Jeff Britta invites Abed (Danny Pudi - Greek) to the group and he in turn invites Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown - Drake & Josh), Troy (Donald Glover - writer, 30 Rock), Pierce (Chevy Chase - you should know where he's from) and Annie (Alison Brie - Hot Sluts - seriously, check it out here, it's in the category 'so intentionally bad it's kinda good' and of course Mad Men). This study group is not what Jeff wanted from community college, he was looking to just coast through on the bare minimum, sleeping with hot women and avoiding as much human interaction as possible. Instead he finds himself the head of a group of people devoted to passing Senor Chang's (Ken Jeong) Spanish class together.

Community is a phenomenal comedy show, it's a creation that's partially driven by the excellent cast, partially driving be pop culture references that are both nostalgic and on the pulse, partially by excellent plotting (especially in the genre of sitcom) - but it's mostly driven by a layered core of morals. Jeff is an excellent protagonist lead and the show plays up to his faults and strengths with exceptional skill. The show delivers moment after moment that at first appears hopeful and optimistic, but then you realise Jeff is doing it for selfish reasons, so it becomes cynical, but then he can turn around and just do something selfless that compromises his original intentions. It's rare you find a character who can turn around on the spot and alternate being sympathetic followed by being a complete arse without feeling like a flip-flopper or a detestable shrew. Joel McHale nails the role and gives you an exceptionally complete and rounded character with a lot of complexity.

But, whilst Jeff is the lead, Community is an ensemble show and without great performances from the rest of the cast and the supporting characters the show just wouldn't hold up. Fortunately just about every other character in the show is memorable and fun to watch. Abed is a wonderful portrait of Asperger's Syndrome and just a fantastic character and possibly my favourite (I also adore Jerry Espenson from Boston Legal, but I myself display many traits of Asperger's and fall just short of 'qualifying' - so it's no wonder I have such a connection with these two characters). Abed is a lot of fun, especially thanks to his film knowledge resulting in close to fourth wall breaking moments, describing situations in the form of television tropes and even saying that he was going to 'lay low for an episode' at one time.

Donald Glover's performance as Troy is one that takes a little time to warm up, he's a character that is very controlled and almost prim due to his lack of experience amongst people who don't idolise him. Now it did take a bit for me to warm up to Troy, but his connections with Piece and Abed really shine out and the various end of episode sketches he performs with Abed/Danny are without exception brilliant. Yvette Nicole Brown is instantly adorable as Shirley, she displays a mixture of mother-ish traits combined with an almost girlish glee that comes from someone reconnecting with the world and themselves. You can often count on Shirley to provoke the unexpected response from others (and herself) and when she squeals in delight at something you just can't help but smile.

Britta and Annie are two other characters that take a while to bloom, Annie grows a lot faster than Britta and thanks to Alison Brie's obvious talent. Annie's repressive and barely restrained nature results in some excellent inappropriate outbursts and she's a character who just grows in strength from one episode to the next. Britta on the other hand is a little uneven, she's fun and snappy but she's stuck mostly in the role of the group's spoil sport/kill joy - functioning often as the 'straight man' of the show, but the occasions where she gets to go off the page are great and Gillian Jacobs shows her comedy chops well at times.

The huge piece of the puzzle is Chevy Chase's role as Pierce, Pierce is outright the funniest and most outrageous member of the group. He's set in his ways, closeted, inappropriate, mildly racist, delusional and at times downright offensively ignorant. But there's a vulnerability to him that keeps him from turning into a complete toad, he genuinely wants to connect with other people - he's just lacking the right tools at times to do so (a bit like Michael Scott from The Office). His outbursts are almost always hilarious and the moments where he genuinely connects with other members of the group helps humanise him. The most impressive thing is his total lack of fear about making a fool of himself, he makes a lot of poor choices and then commits to them wholeheartedly (something he has in common with Chevy himself) and it's this trait that's the most endearing part of him.

Edit: Matt Murrell (@mattmurrell) quite rightly pointed out that I've done Senor Chang a crime by not writing about him in detail. Senor Chang rocks very hard and is frankly hilarious, I could go into this with more detail, but instead I shall share the youtube video Matt used to educate me with a gentle reminder on why Senor Chang rules.


In the supporting cast there are three notable members who deserve a great deal of praise, the first is Jim Rash as the sexually ambiguous and often inappropriate Dean Pelton, John Michael Higgins as the brilliant Professor 'seize the day' Whitman (John is almost always great in everything I've seen him in, I love his performance as Mentok the Mindtaker from Harvey Birdman) and John Oliver as Jeff's friend Professor Ian Duncan.

The episodes are often brilliant, considering it's a show about the low end of the education system and a small group of disparate individuals there's a remarkable scope in the situations and style of episodes that are employed. The show even manages to lampoon Die Hard and war movies in one excellent episode in a way that hasn't succeeded since Spaced did it. It's a show with some genuine talent behind the writing and it's always a delight to see each new episode.

Community has fast become one of my favourite shows, one of my top ten sitcoms and the best new show I saw in 2009. It's a quality piece that deserves to be trumpeted from the rooftops and I hope it runs for many years to come.
You'll enjoy Community if you like Arrested Development, The Office, Spaced, Black Books, How I Met Your Mother and 30 Rock.
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When The Inbetweeners aired on British television I cunningly managed to miss every single episode, so when I recently received the first two series as a gift from a family member I was finally able to rectify this oversight on my part. When I was given the set both my brother-in-law and my father warned me that "[You] find it a little hard to get into at first. [You] ask, why should I watch something with these horrible people?" But that, "It's worth it, because it's brilliant, revolting but brilliant."

Now I usually take television advice from my father with a pinch of salt; it's not that he has bad taste (he did watch the Survivors remake, but even he admitted how awful that was - and I still recall the incredibly amusing comments he made while we watched the Doctor Who special The Voyage of the Damned - a story redeemed only by "friend of this blog", the awesome Clive Rowe) it's just that he prefers quite a lot of different shows to the kind I like. My main genres are the US Sitcom and the non-procedural police show - his are Science Fiction and gross out British comedy (Mongrels for example). My brother-in-law on the other hand was introduced to The Wire and The Shield by myself and my brother; since then he's embarked on a journey of all that is great in television - I intend to lend him The Sopranos next.

So I wasn't exactly sure what I'd make of The Inbetweeners; but the general consensus seemed to be 'Stick with it, it's really good once you get used to it'. And that's good enough to make the show worthy of a watch, especially when it was a gift.

So what exactly is The Inbetweeners - well if you've been living in a bubble for the past couple of years (a bubble that hasn't been popped by George and Susan of course), it's a half hour situation comedy centered around four friends in their last few years of school. The principle/narrator is Will (Simon Bird) a public school boy transferred to Rudge Park Comprehensive school after his parent's divorce resulted in his mother not having sufficient funds. Will integrates himself with a trio of young lads; Simon (Joe Thomas) a relatively normal, if unpopular, young man; Neil (Blake Harrison) best described as a cross between a boy and large slightly slow puppy and Jay (Joe Thomas) resident pervert and world class overcompensator.

They form a somewhat unpopular, lower rung, clique - not the absolute bottom of the school pecking order (that would be the Freaks and Geeks of coruse), but certainly a long distance away from being near the popular kids. Nowhere to fit in, sort of in between everyone else (oh, I see what they did there - very clever, I guess). And what follows is two series full of hopes being dashed, unpleasant situations, unwelcome advances from a suspect teacher, vomit, pee and teenage fumblings towards the opposite sex. It's simultaneously hilarious and cringe worthy - just like all of the great British comedies.

Performances are solid throughout, but of particular note in the cast is the completely apathetic and child hating Mr Gilbert (Greg Davies) the lovely Belinda Stewart-Wilson as Will's mum Polly and the school bully Mark Donnovan (Henry Lloyd-Hughes). It's also worth saying that Blake Harrison's performance as Neil is consistently outstanding, he brings a naive charm and pleasant attitude to the role that makes him both fun and likable - even when he's admitting to ejaculating all over the interior of Simon's car.

So The Inbetweeners is another great British sitcom; it's charming and unpleasant, fun and painful, nostalgic and fresh. It captures the essence of the teenage wasteland and takes a pretty shrewd look at the British youth. It might be a little easy to shrug off many of the events in the show as being outlandish and unlikely, but a lot of what happens in it reminds me of my latter day school years and the quite frankly outrageous things we did at times - and just like the teenage injuries that have left scars on myself, The Inbetweeners will have lasting impact.
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While Science Fiction/Fantasy is a genre I only dip into to watch occasionally Sitcoms are on the other hand an entirely different beast. They are pretty much my default genre for watching when I want to relax and unwind without engaging too much in the program I'm watching - demanding shows like say The Wire and The Shield are great, but sometimes they're a little overwhelming. Sitcoms on the other hand are just relaxing.

There's a particular note to make about this, you won't see any British sitcoms in the list, this is because I've decided to dedicate an entire section of this feature to British shows and British shows alone. Why? Because I can - but this does mean that the vast majority of shows on this list will be American, mostly because I haven't managed to acquire many Canadian or Australian sitcoms so far.

Additionally, animated shows aren't present here, they've got their own section as well.



Spawned from Cheers and almost equalling the success of it's parent, Frasier is a rather unusual sitcom in that it tends to avoid the low brow humour which many other sitcoms fall back on at times. Kesley Grammer is (almost literally) in the role of his life as Doctor Frasier Crane, who's left the bar to pursue a career in radio.

It's a tightly written and exceptionally clever show, but the reason it appears so low on this list is because of it's tendency to rely on the same style of gag over and over in the later seasons. Essentially things become one big long 'misunderstanding' with Frasier either trying to conceal the issue or making it worse.

Don't get me wrong, I still dig the show and I just adore Peri Gilpin who is all kinds of hot. But at times it's a little much to watch.


It's pretty low on my list because in all honest time hasn't been that kind to the original 20/30 something in New York sitcom. The later seasons in particular suffered a lot from a drop in quality and at times were just plain not funny.

But, it was a huge part of the 1990s and you've probably seen every episode more than once. The earlier seasons in particular are still an absolute delight to watch, when the show is on form it's so funny it's right up amongst the best. For myself it's Matthew Perry's performance as Chandler which remains the high point of the show, he's fantastic and remains so throughout.

Let's get the bad out of the way first. Yes, around the fifth, sixth and seventh season or so Scrubs did become rather tired and a smidge unfunny. But the first four and the eighth one were just superb and I for one am looking forward to the revitalised and remade show, allthough I do hope they change the name to something like Scrubs: The Next Generation - to distance it from the original a little and turn it into a spin-off.

This is the show which made a star out of Zach Braff and brought us comedy which could hilarious, utterly bizzare and exceptionally thoughtful and touching at the same time. It's nearly the very definition of 'bitter-sweet television' (another show pips it at the post, but more on that later).

Now if you'd asked me during the sixth or early seventh season, Scrubs might not have got a look in, as it was struggling a little then, but after that superb eighth season finale, which really should have closed the curtain on J.D. for us, I can say at the moment it's one of my favourites. Which is as it should be, because Scrubs is one of the shows which set me on the track of watching American television.

I just hope this ninth season slash spin off doesn't spoil it for me.


A relative new comer to this list and practically a baby compared to the other shows, 10 Items or Less is something which I've only watched over the past month or so. But wow, it's an absolute gem. Like Curb Your Enthusiasm the show is loosely scripted with main plot points and then the scenes are improvised.

It's set in a small fictional grocery store (supermarket for we Brits), Leslie Poole inherited the place after his father passed away and is now the manager (and owner) of the Greens & Grains. He's a well meaning chap who tries hard but is a little dim and rather unethical. His staff is small, but loyal - even if they're not willing to put up with his larger eccentricities at times.

The first season is pretty good, gets going fast and has some great moments. But the second season is better and the third season is just fantastic. This is a show which gets better and better with each (short) season.



The brain child of the lovely SNL alumni Tina Fey, 30 Rock follows the back stage antics of the staff and stars of the fictional "Girly Show". It's an energetic and fun show with masses of laughs and great performances from most of the cast. Tina Fey is superb as Liz Lemon, likewise Alec Baldwin is in the role of his life as Jack. In fact just about every cast member is nothing short of great in this.

My personal favourites are Kenneth - the NBC page with a heart of gold and the naivety to match, Jenna the self centered and insecure star of The Girly Show and Pete Hornberger, the producer and sounding board for Liz's issues (played by the woefully underused Scott Adsit).

A great show which is something you should catch up on, pick up the first and second season combined today!

Why You Should Watch 30 Rock




Heading towards it's seventh season, the hugely improvised sitcom about the fictional version of Larry David's life is just sheer brilliance. It's not for everyone, because this is a show genuinely about cringe worthy comedy and misunderstandings (like Fawlty Towers). But it's just so brilliantly paced and acted that at times it's almost staggering to think that it's mostly improvised.

Curb Your Enthusiasm will be giving us the Seinfeld reunion in it's next season. Which is such a fantastic move in my opinion. Bringing back Seinfeld without actually bringing it back. I have no hesitation in saying that I think the next season of Curb will be nothing short of amazing.



Frankly I can't stand the British version of this show, it's cringe worthy tripe of the highest order and I will always turn the television off or change the channel when it's on. But the US version somehow manages to keep that cringe factor, but dials it down just enough to allow for the shows other virtues to shine through.

I attribute a lot of this to Steve Carrell, who's just a fantastic comedic actor, he made the decision from the start to model Michael Scott not after David Brent but as he felt the scripts read. So he avoided watching the British version of The Office before starting this. The result is that the manager of the Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin is still headed by a gigantic dufus who manages to offend and upset people almost every time he opens his mouth, but he's also far more sympathetic and human.

To me David Brent just comes across as a petty, self-centered jerk with no redeeming features what so ever, but Michael Scott on the other hand is a caring human being who just can't relate with others correctly. It really changes the tone of the entire show and as such the entirety of the thing has become a show I'm very fond of.



I wrote yesterday that Neil Patrick Harris (NPH) would be making another appearance in this list, and for those of you who've seen HIMYM it shouldn't be a surprise at all why.

How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) is a fun story which bills itself as 'A love story in reverse'. Father of two, Ted sits down with his children and gradually unfolds the story of how he met their mother. A story which must be absolute agony for the children to sit through, because it's due to start it's fifth season this year.

While the kids might be stuck there being tortured by their boring dad and his overly long story, we as the viewer have a far more exciting treat. We get to watch the events unfold as Ted and his four friends - Marshall, Lily, Robin and the frankly awesome Barney (NPH) - experience them. It's a show which has some mild parallels with Friends; there are five of them, they're in New York. But these superficial similarities are just not important, the show is so funny, clever and original that it's great fun to watch. Especially NPH who is without a doubt the star turn in the show as the frankly awesome Barney.

Lighthearted, fun and filled with just good old laugh out loud comedy it's one of the best sitcoms on our screens at the moment.

The second entry from the mind of Larry David and possibly the most significant sitcom of the previous decade, a show which in essence is about about unpleasant people doing unpleasant things to each other and other innocents who just happen to enter their lives. All of it's nine seasons are great, though it's the third/fourth season where it really starts to hit it's stride, and it's a show I can watch repeatedly without getting tired of it.

The entire cast is fantastic, the stories are hilarious and the guest stars are astounding. It bucked the trend that most sitcoms followed during the 1990s and paved the way for Curb and more importantly my favourite sitcom.

At some point I'll probably put together a Seinfeld tribute week in order to celebrate it's return to the screens via Curb Your Enthisuasm. , I adore the show that much.



Make no bones about it, Arrested Development is my all time favourite comedy show bar none. In many ways I look on it as an evolution of the sitcom and also the spiritual successor to Seinfeld. It's (again) a show about unpleasant people doing unpleasant things to everyone in reach, but this time it's presented in the subtle form of a documentary narrated by Ron Howard.

It centers around the Bluths, a wealthy family who built their fortune around developing properties. But at the start of the show George Bluth Senior is arrested for various counts of fraud (and possible light treason). Leaving the entire company and family in the hands of the middle son, Michael Bluth.

Unusually for a sitcom, Arrested Development features an ongoing storyline which not only builds on previous events but makes extensive use of both callbacks to previous moments/jokes AND significantly it also foreshadows upcoming events as well. This, combined with the sheer quantity of short and subtle jokes makes Arrested Development such a deep, layered show that you can watch it multiple times and still find new things to laugh about.

And what other show has an aged Henry Winkler doing the Fonzie thumbs in the mirror and jumping over a shark before being replaced by Scott Baio?

Unparalleled brilliance and excellence in comedy.

Why You Should Watch... Arrested Development
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