We've only had one outing with the new judging panel on American Idol, but we can already see just how this season is going to pan out with the likes of Keith Urban, Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj joining Randy Jackson. And frankly, we're not all that impressed, though we never imagined a big fight could erupt over who knows more about Mean Girls. Here are our initial thoughts:

We're big fans of Jason Mantzoukas here at TWoP, in no small part because of his character Rafi on The League, Dennis Feinstein on Parks and Recreation and his musings on the How Did This Get Made? podcast. When we first learned he'd be playing Haley Dunphy's boyfriend in "Party Crasher," it was the most we've looked forward to an episode of Modern Family in a long time. It should come as no surprise, then, that after watching this mess, we're a bit more disappointed than usual.

Next season: Who killed the people behind The Killing?

"One Step Forward, Two Steps Back" just didn't do it for me. At first there was a lot of potential in the screen time allotted to Camille and Amber, but the story was stretched between so many characters that I mostly felt bored just waiting for the pieces to fall where we knew they would. I think there's a ton of potential for the season -- or, at this point, possibly the series -- finale, but I wish the set-up wasn't at the expense of the penultimate episode. The pacing felt especially off, which isn't usually a problem for Parenthood. Let's see what else was at play:

Forgetting the oddness that was Sunday's episode, let's move on to this way better episode ("The Ex Factor") that not only seemed like it was aired in the right sequence (since Penny was dating Pete and Dave had moved out of Max's place) but it also featured the talents of one Mr. Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) as Max's new roommate, Chase, who had zero tolerance for the gang. In fact, this whole episode served to show just how bizarre this group of friends are by exposing them to more normal people. But what's the fun in "normal"? Let's get on with the weird! Also, bonus points for giving Miss Kim Bauer a chance to make a CTU reference. And speaking of weird, did anyone else catch Leslie from the current season of The Bachelor as one of Pete's friends?

"A Father's Love" just felt like an off episode after some great outings. Not to totally fault Dennis Farina as Nick's cantankerous con man father, because he seems like perfect casting to play one of Nick's parental units, but he does bring a certain gravitas to the otherwise light and frothy show. So the episode went for more of an emotional take, instead of stupid comedy, which isn't an entirely bad thing if the B plot is up to snuff but, well, it wasn't. The crazy win-back-Cece capers with Schmidt and Robbie were fun for a second, but their act quickly wore thin. If not for Schmidt's muttered threats on Robbie's life, we'd have tuned out entirely. Still, there were a few redeemable moments, though we'd probably never play Feel the Cup with these people.

Maggie Smith holds court again.

"No, Ricky! I'm not going to star in The Invention of Lying: Part 2!"

Is this the end of Klaroline?

As if the burning off of double episodes twice a week wasn't enough of a slap in the face to those of us still holding out hope we might get another season of this show, now ABC is airing episodes completely out of order and branding them as "new," and we're supposed to just happily play along. They're doing the same thing with Don't Trust the B---- in Apt 23 as well. It's really annoying, especially since in the "KickBall 2: The Kickening" episode of Happy Endings, Penny didn't know how to pronounce Xela, when she spent last week promoting it, and Dave and Alex clearly aren't together as they are both still living in their old houses. A quick Google search tells me that this episode was filmed for last season, and maybe even aired in the UK last spring (if you trust the internet). While I can still watch reruns of Friends out of order, and think that a lot of these episodes can stand alone, as a Happy Endings fan, I would like a little bit of a sense of continuity if I'm watching a show in first-run. It makes it hard to really engage in an episode when you know that Penny flirting with a hot football player amounts to nothing. It would be like if Monica and Chandler were married, and yet NBC showed a "new" episode where she's hooking up with Tom Selleck. Anyway, clearly none of TPTB are concerned about my feelings on how this show should be shown, so on to the North Side Kickball classic.