rainn wilson

(S06E16 / S06E17) Remember how the one hour Pam/Jim wedding episode was considered by many -- including me -- to be 'The Office's' best episode of the season? Well, the one-hour Pam/Jim baby episode definitely isn't in that category.

Why? Because, through a lot of the episode, Pam and Jim displayed none of the charm that made us fall in sitcom love with them in the first place. To compound the situation, they're being written into situations that would make fans of 'Yes, Dear' cringe. But we'll get to that later.

As usual with most one-hour 'Office' episodes, the first half was better than the second. But even the first half of this one had some problems.

(S06E16) Ahhhhhh.... order has finally been restored to the universe.

Can you feel it? The air is cleaner, food tastes better, and the two feet of snow outside my window is a fluffy dream instead of an icy mess.

It seems like the producers of 'The Office' realized things weren't right in their world and they decided to rectify things. And in the process they made one of the more satisfying episodes of the season.

On last week's 'Parks and Recreation' we saw Ron Swanson prove to Leslie how much of a tolerance he has for alcohol: he finished building a small harp in his woodshop while downing a bunch of whiskey. Power tools, precise measurements, minute tuning, the whole works. He even showed her photographic evidence (above).

When I spoke to Nick Offerman at the press tour, he told me that the show would be getting a look inside Swanson's woodshop. When he talked about the prospect, his eyes lit up and said, "I'm very excited about it." Well, now we know why: Offerman owns his own woodshop, and has a website full of examples of his and his crew's work. They make some very nice furniture, and they also build small structures and canoes.

(S01E15) Why has this season of 'The Office' been so off-kilter? There have been promising episodes but very few that hit the mark. In fact, the only episode that can hold its own with classic 'Office' episodes is the Pam-Jim wedding, and I'm starting to fear that the show really is trying to figure out where to go from that high point.

And Jam may be the big problem here. They're not interesting anymore. But I'll get to them later.

So Dunder Mifflin is now owned by a company called Sabre. We don't quite know what they're all about except that they sell printers and they have a feisty CEO played by Kathy Bates. And in exchange for saving the branch's ass, they've asked for a few very reasonable changes. You'd think that even Michael Scott would embrace those changes. You'd be wrong.

It may not have seemed that Sarah Silverman was busy in 2009, especially since the last time we saw 'The Sarah Silverman Program' on Comedy Central was December of 2008. But she was busy behind the scenes.

Silverman filmed 'Saint John of Las Vegas' with Steve Buscemi, which played the festival circuit last year and gets a wider release this year, 'Peep World' with Michael C. Hall and Rainn Wilson, and wrote her memoir, 'The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee,' which is due in April.

Silverman was also negotiating with Comedy Central for 'The Sarah Silverman Program.' Comedy Central wanted to cut her budget from $1.1 million per episode to $850,000, which was a non-starter for Silverman and her partners.

(S06E14) A clip show? Really?

After being gone for six weeks, and teased by the no good louts at the NBC publicity department that we were getting a "new Office," we get handed a clip show. Not cool.

And... and... when was the last time you saw a sitcom do a clip show, anyway? Friends, maybe? I thought in this new era of "creativity" in the sitcom world clip shows were more mocked than embraced.

Ok, ok. Enough bitching on my part. I guess this will be the shortest Office review ever, because there wasn't all that much new material to talk about.

You can be forgiven if you thought The Sarah Silverman Program was done. The last time new episodes aired on Comedy Central was December of 2008, and in an era where some shows clock two seasons a year, that's an eternity.

Take heart, Silverman fans, the show returns for a third season on February 4, paired with last year's surprise hit, Important Things with Demetri Martin. And if you miss the season premiere, you can catch it again on the LOGO network on February 9, the day The Sarah Silverman Program: Season Two, Volume Two comes out on DVD.

I'll admit that I wasn't swayed by the allure of Twitter at first. As someone who tried Facebook for three weeks a couple of years ago and then quickly canceled the account, I didn't want to get on a social networking site that was like Facebook but only had status updates. Why would I want to do that? But then I started using Twitter and then I got it. I got why it's so great (note: I'm on Facebook again, but only because Facebook is the new phone book - even if you don't use it that much, it's good to be listed).

Twitter haters always say the same thing when they explain why they're not on it: "Why would I care when someone's eating a sandwich?" It's so much more than that. I even think it has evolved into something the creators of Twitter could never have imagined. Sure, it's social networking, but not social networking in the sense that Facebook is. It's a whole different thing. It's like getting a stream of e-mails or IMs or breaking news posts throughout the day from people you're actually interested in hearing from.

And that list of people just might include TV personalities.

(S06E13) After the cringeworthiness of "Scott's Tots," seeing an episode where Michael merely acts like a petulant child is almost refreshing.

But Michael's petulance had a purpose. Dunder Mifflin is in trouble. Office morale is at an all-time low. So, while Michael was still acting like a baby, he was doing it because he wanted to be the one to lift everyone's spirits. Still, it's funny to watch childish Michael, especially when we can see big ol' Kevin act indecisive while crushing Michael's lap.

I loved seeing Phyllis as Santa. She's right; she has the temperament, the figure, and she's got bad-ass Bob Vance to back her up in case anyone objects. And to think, at one time Phyllis Smith was a cheerleader for the NFL's St. Louis Cardinals.

(S06E12) This episode had one of those "oh, this is not going to end well" vibes to it. And how could it not? Somehow Michael Scott got himself into a situation that transcended mere embarrassment. He made a promise that he couldn't keep, and it affected a lot of lives.

"Of all the empty promises I've made, this is by far the most generous," Michael said, and he was right. The whole time I was watching the Scott's Tots storyline play out, I was cringing, waiting for the moment of truth. But, surprisingly enough, things didn't turn out as bad as we thought. And for that, we have Erin to thank.

(S06E11) You know a company is doomed when it parades Michael Scott in front of its shareholders as an example of its best and brightest. But, as we saw from Michael today, his sales skills only take him so far.

You really, really wanted to see him pull a plan out of that savantish mind of his that would have saved Dunder Mifflin. At least I did. But, thankfully for the show's writers, that was never going to happen.

The interesting thing about this episode, though? The shareholders meeting plot was just OK. What I really wanted to see was more of Jim devising ways to assert his authority around the office. That was much funnier, and it was a small reminder of what attracted people to the show to begin with: small, real-life situations everyone who's ever sat in a cubicle could relate to.

(S06E10) This week we had a bit of a head-scratcher. I want to like this episode because of how it pushed the corporate end of the story along, and I want to like it because it showed Michael in a bit of a different light than we expected, especially at the end. There were also a couple of laugh-out-loud moments (especially one involving Creed... but, then again, Creed is guaranteed laughs).

But overall, the episode felt tentative. The writers set up the murder mystery part of the episode to offset some of the bad news at DM, but didn't seem to go far enough.

(S06E09) There was so much comedic potential in this week's episode, that I ended up coming away from this one unsatisfied. It played out as essentially two mini-episodes, and while the second one was better than the first, neither was particularly funny.

Michael Scott is always funnier when he produces cringe-worthy moments via his cluelessness. Cruelty just doesn't suit him well, and the only time it really works for him is when he's dressing down Dwight. What I was expecting to see during his and Helaine's double date with Pam and Jim was some blissful obliviousness on Michael's part and seething anger on Pam's part. What we got was a Michael that was about as cruel as he's been to anyone in quite some time.

(S06E08) You know, as a solitary episode, "Koi Pond" was incredibly satisfying from beginning to end. Outside the office, you had Andy and Pam making cold calls, while back at the office you had the aftermath of a different sales call Jim and Michael had gone on.

It was the perfect blend of everything that makes The Office work, when it's on its game. There were plenty of laughs, great lines and little moments for everyone in the office. We got some developments on the dramatic side, and most important of all -- an incredibly awkward moment with Michael Scott.

As for Jim, he's really struggling with aspects of his new position, and it's adding a whole new dimension to his character. He's always been a little insecure about his leadership ability, but now we're seeing that he's about as ineffective in controlling the Scranton branch as Michael ever was, thus realizing many of his worst fears.

Halloween is just around the corner and if you're anything like me (first of all, you have my deepest sympathies), then you haven't done squat to get ready for for it. And what a to-do list that is! The shopping list alone can send Martha Stewart into an early coma: eggs, shaving cream, toilet paper, paper bags, lighters, dog poo. That last one makes it even more difficult when you realize stores no longer sell dog poo.

But don't worry, Rainn Wilson is here to help. In order to "Earn His Plug" on his recent appearance on Jay Leno's new show, he gave the audience a crash course in Halloween vandalism by messing with a special celebrity's house, someone who I normally thought wouldn't have a problem with bologna shingles on his walls.