TV comedy

The Newsroom (Season Two). Dramas get most of the love in this golden age of television, but the comedies deserve notice—and The Newsroom qualifies in that category: it’s a hilarious show trapped inside a lousy drama. Aaron Sorkin’s latest slice of romantic realism in the workplace spent its first season Monday-morning quarterbacking the news media. In its second season, the show wisely adds a fictional story arc. It remains a pretentious and casually sexist neoliberal fantasy world, populated by flat types who occasionally deliver stirring speeches. (All this was true of Sorkin’s The West Wing at its worst, too, though it wasn’t at its worst nearly as often.) Still, Sorkin is a virtuosic writer of smart, old-fashioned repartee, and the Jeff Daniels–led cast delivers it expertly. The jokes alone make an otherwise insufferable show downright likable.

Veep (Season Two). If The Newsroom is The West Wing’s pale shadow, Veep is its nemesis. Armando Iannucci’s series offers another not-terribly-realistic inside look at Washington, but instead of leaning toward romance and patriotism, Veep is 100 percent cynical. The show feels like an extended comedy sketch, both because its characters are thinly drawn and because it runs on two basic ideas about Washington: no one takes the vice presidency seriously, and everyone is horrible. The premise is more misanthropic than funny, but it’s fertile ground for endless farcical situations and pointed zingers, which are usually cruel, often tasteless and generally hilarious. And the actors spew them with terrifying skill—especially star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who finally has a vehicle worthy of her comedic skills.

Parks and Recreation (Season Five). Washington doesn’t come up much on television’s best and warmest show about politics, outside a running joke about Joe Biden’s sex appeal. Parks and Recreation takes a local focus, and there’s no mockery in its portrayal of Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and her limitless enthusiasm for public service. Yet the show is delightfully silly, its main characters ridiculous as well as sympathetic—from Aubrey Plaza’s sharp-tongued underachiever to Rob Lowe’s upbeat health nut. Even the recurring characters are perfect, in a Coen brothers sort of way; they’re hilarious precisely because they’re barely written caricatures. As the show ages, it’s been “Liz Lemoning” Leslie a little, doubling down on her wackiness and her reliance on the men in her life—especially nerdy husband Ben (Adam Scott) and former boss/libertarian zealot Ron (Nick Offerman). Still, she’s a true original, performed with great subtlety. Parks and Recreation would be great even without a star to carry it, but Poehler carries it brilliantly anyway.