"A Gentleman Always Leads"
Well, I'll say one thing: This is the first time in recent memory I've heard the phrase, "Recorded in front of a live studio audience" outside of a 20-year-old rerun. In fact, it made me think I was too hard on last week's episode. It's a retro show in its own way, and perhaps I needed that jolt of perspective that Kelsey Grammer's little intro gave me.
The newsroom of WURG certainly was all a-twitter this week. After Chuck overheard some network brass (who were in Pittsburgh for a program at Carnegie Mellon on "The changing face of network news") talking about how he's gone from one of the biggest markets in the country to being Kelly's sidekick - even going so far as to say, "I'd put a gun to my head" - Chuck decides to take the lead story for the day's news: A family that went missing while camping was finally found. To say he steals it out from under Kelly's nose wouldn't even be an overstatement, and he leaves her with the less enviable, "Building on fire!" headline. Chuck manages to convince Kelly to switch when that looks like it'll be the lead, only to have the story collapse out from under him (bodies become burned mannequins and a freak rainstorm puts out a fire that was really only "five percent out of control").
In the end, of course, Kelly finds out about the network guys and offers the missing-family story, now complete with a bear attack and a wounded father in the studio for an exclusive interview, to Chuck. The only problem? The man's voice is so high-pitched that Chuck refers to him as a dolphin in a wheelchair. Well, Ms. Carr, you've won this round.
The whole thing was sweet and well-paced, but it was the secondary story that had me smiling. Marsh's inadvertent hiring of elderly intern Troy for Montana yielded several of the night's best lines, including Troy and Chuck's exchange: "Rome wasn't built in a day"; "Well, if anyone would know." I also laughed, and laughed hard, in the final, post-credits scene when Troy mentioned that all of the other interns were coming over to his place to "spark up some of [his] glaucoma medicine." But even that line came in second banana to my absolute favorite piece of dialogue this week, courtesy of Chuck and Kelly:
" "I had a rough childhood"
" "In Greenwich, Connecticut?"
" "When you never have to ask for anything, you never learn how."
So on the plus side, it was a funny episode. But imagine how much funnier it would have been had Gary been there. Speaking of which, where was he? I had to go back to rewatch the opening credits (which, I don't believe I've mentioned, I absolutely love) after the episode was over to make sure Ty Burrell was still on the show, which he is. Maybe Gary was down covering the "inferno"? Here's hoping he's back next week.
