Post the 4th

And now for something completely different.

Actually, it's shockingly similar to the first post.

Not as similar as this though.

Anyway, it's another acronym organization's "Green Week." This time, it's not the National Basketball Association, it's the National Broadcasting Company. The premise of NBC's Green Week is simple; for a certain week every year, all of NBC's programs have a "Green" theme, be it a storyline in a sitcom, or special green activists as guests on a talk show. Or both, like on 30 Rock:


It's funny because he recycled a joke from his previous Green Week appearance! AHAHAHAHA! (Seriously though, 30 Rock has sucked this season.)

While this is a great idea, and it worked out decently in a few shows, overall I can't say it's been a success. It usually just comes down to a recurring joke about the Green Movement throughout an episode, or a quick bit, punctuated by marginally useful facts about "conservation."

Like this one, from The Office:



AHAHAHAHAHAHA! (The Office has been pretty hit or miss this season. But I guess that's better than the abject failure of every season since season 2)

The problem with most of NBC's Green Week programs is that there is just a mandate handed down to the writers, forcing them to put "Green Themes" in episodes. This ends up getting in the way of both storytelling and the message of sustainability, leaving viewers with a week of bad, uninformative (unless you didn't know recycling was a good idea) television.

Maybe giving the writers a little more of a heads up about when Green Week is coming could help them work outside themes into ongoing storylines with a little more grace. As it is now, it's generally considered contrived to have characters yelling out a line like, "That's aerosol spray! It's terrible for the environment!"

Here's a clip from NBC's rookie sensation, Community:



(Give it up for Community for being surprisingly watchable. Who would've thought that ol' Chevy Chase still had anything left in the tank?)

It also boasts the best outcome of Green Week, because it provides some mildly scathing commentary on the hypocrisy of Greenwashers. By actually pointing out a problem with the Green Movement, Community introduced some (sort of) discussable material which contrasted nicely with the pandering, forced themes in other shows.

The fact that the best thing to come out of Green Week was practically mocking the Green Movement? Let's call it equal parts critique and omen.