A Televisual Feast

It’s Ned versus another ad guy this episode, which brings up some more of the show’s implicit problems. Ned’s dilemma is solved through sleazy but moderately believable means, which puts the episode back in that “reality” realm it functions so poorly in.

A lot of the episode–until Ned goes to Hawaii for a commercial break–is great. There’s Rico revolting, Ned and Amanda bickering, Ned acting real scary. Quite a few of the series’s memorable one-liners are from this show–the scene with Stacey chastising Ned for being sensitive is fantastic.

The additional problem comes from the lack of focus–it’s not really about Ned versus the new guy or Ned on a strange, sequestered vacation or Ned on a real vacation. It’s also not about Stacey home alone for a week and wrecking havoc on the once beautiful apartment. Instead, the episode tries to be about none of them, just a sequence of events and, though it’s an interesting approach to not really having a plot, it doesn’t work. The jokes work for the most part, but come the end, when it gets “real,” everything falls apart.

I can’t even remember the last scene.

2.5