There were a few tweetie tweets coming from Alan Sepinwall’s Blackberry at the TCA (Television Critics Association) meeting earlier today that suggests Better Off Ted may go the way of the Conan bird. Sepinwall quotes ABC President Steve McPherson:
McPherson: “We have obviously been disappointed” with the way Ted & Scrubs have performed. Doesn’t feel they’re compatible with Wed shows. link
McPherson hopes Scrubs/Ted have potential to grow, “but I’m not going to lie and say the numbers have been really encouraging for us.”link
Oh boy. NOT GOOD. OPPOSITE OF GOOD. You know what the problem is? It’s too hilarious. Yeah, that’s it. But you know, maybe this show can have a second life on Showtime. At 3 AM (When you let Hillary Clinton answer your phone). Check out the outtakes for tonight’s first episode which is NSFW, if W is totally S.
How the hell do Malcolm Barrett (Lem) and Jonathan Slavin (Phil) not crack up? Those are some talented poonguzzlers!
Anyway…communication is important, Ted tells us as we begin “The Impertence of Communicationizing”. A faceless nameless woman types out a memo saying “Employees must NOW use offensive or insulting language in the workplace” which immediately leads to excessive use of the word “buttmunch” from Veronica and Linda. Ted tries to convince upper management lady Janet this is clearly a typo, but she insists it isn’t. They also insist the Casual Furbsday memo and the Carpoop memo were not mistakes either. (Thankfully the carpoop wasn’t mandatory.) Predictably it doesn’t work out, and eventually Ted goes back to the upper management woman whose name turns out being Janet S. Crotum, who surprisingly enough has issues with the memo too. (They set that joke up perfectly – when she complains people are taking advantage by making fun of her name we see her name plate on her desk for the first time.) She acquiesces. Then Ted and Linda flirt a little bit, which is only fair because Ted and Veronica flirted at the end of the last episode.
Veronica, after some insults, starts to feel, what’s the word? Feelings. Yeah, and her mind wanders to Walter, played by the perennially underrated Chris Parnell. Walter lost out to Veronica on a promotion and Veronica keeps feeling guilty and lets him get all kissy and touchy feely. She wants to stop this so Linda suggests scaring him with commitment talk. It doesn’t work, but Veronica doesn’t feel guilt anymore when it turns out she got the promotion because upper management wanted to “break the glass ceiling so they can look up her skirt.”Parnell doesn’t rap at all, or actually do anything besides act mopey. Waste of talent.
Lem ends up helping Phil with insults, or as he calls it, “Lem-basting”. Phil ends up getting in my opinion the best insult of the night by calling Asian Woman Whose Name I Forgot that “Your breasts should be on display at the Swiss Museum of miniatures.” (We learn that when Phil Lem-basts someone you in fact get Phil-a-busted.) They stop once Phil insults the huge water guy before realizing that the big black dude is NOT a Veridian employee and did NOT get the memo.
In the “The Long and Winding High Road” Ted explains that its best to take the high road, unlike Pete who totally steals other people’s lunch which is like, a real problem at offices. Okay I worked at an office for two years this one time and that really was never an issue. But I can see it happening in “real life”, whatever that is. Veronica is sick of Pete’s management team always undermining them with crude humor, and dammit if the high road doesn’t “lead to pansytown”, so she gets Linda to sabotage Pete’s product test. Ted ends up equally fed up and bribes a man with a signed first edition of a book on ethics. “I would do anything to get that book” says the practically salivating guy. We see this coming a mile away but Linda and Veronica get Ted’s daughter Rose to just say she hates whatever product gets thrown at her, but it turns out its Ted’s product. Veronica wants to keep going, but Ted and Linda are against it.
Phil and Lem need a furnace fixed and end up tricking Patricia into thinking she broke it. When they admit she didn’t do it she makes them fight each other. As Lem insists they’d never do that Lem enjoys a nice delicious knuckle sandwich.Mmm left cross.
Lines to pass off as your own
“When I get nervous, I get repeaty. Repeaty.”
Insults: “Big eyed stick insect.”, “Back alley crab muffin.”, “Rat faced nazi.”
“I’m sorry, the naggedynagbitchybitch is right.”
“Well we’re not doing it in here Pudburger. What? That’s his last name.”
“I hate all of the name calling, and it’s not just because my mother IS fat and sits around the house all day.”
“We really should have read all of these memos.” “We didn’t have to work on Thanksgiving!?”
“This is like the most depressing Penthouse letter ever.”
“Has waving your hands in the air EVER worked?”
“Never smoke a cigarette: If you smoke a cigarette Santa kills an elf.”
“Don’t ever do that either or the tooth fairy will put other people’s teeth in your mouth.”
“I can’t promise that Ted. You never know when you might need an elderly dwarf.”
“I’m not proud of that.”
“You guys have more brains than a zombie Thanksgiving”
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