January 12, 2007 - Last week The Office was the funniest show on television ("Back from Vacation"), this week My Name Is Earl confidently takes that title, with an episode that had us laughing from beginning to end. While Scrubs put up a top notch offering with "My Friend With Money," My Name Is Earl cranked up the comedy to a level which is rarely seen on the show. And although the episode was without the signature lesson which has become a mainstay of the program, "Buried Treasure" went all out with a Rashomon-like multiple perspective narration to this week's story.

"Buried Treasure" may have had a simple plot, but the method of storytelling made the episode's happenings fresh and funny. The plot for the episode followed Earl, Randy and Joy two years back when they robbed and ransomed off historical artifacts (local Civil War cutlery) from a library, only keep them and wait till they were more valuable. Since they never got around to actually selling the cutlery, Earl has decided to cross off #52 from his list: Dig up and return the buried treasure. The problem is that the library's artifacts are no longer there - but Randy, Joy and Darnell know more then they originally were letting on. This leads to each character getting their own opening to the show and their portion of the story narrated by them, much like Earl. This story was hilarious and done in a way that had us laughing as we saw each situation from multiple perspectives.

NBC Everybody had their own opening this week.

Much like last week ("Our 'Cops' Is On"), My Name Is Earl took characters and scenarios which are familiar to the series and made multiple inside jokes which were hilarious to fans of the show. By bringing in small characters that we have seen once or twice before (i.e. Kenny's old boyfriend showing his 'stuff' to Randy), bringing up past phobias (i.e. Randy's fear of birds is shown with the peacock), and re-using the show's intro with different characters (including the librarian Dotty) we were all treated to laughs that were apparent on the surface, but funnier for those that watch Earl every week.

On top of the hilarious story and the multileveled jokes, was the pitch-perfect acting. It is said that comedy is the toughest form of acting, and if that is so, than the crew on My Name Is Earl deserves a hand, as they make the characters seem so natural - and when you are referring to trailer court white trash that isn't easy. Characters like Earl, Randy, Darnell and especially Joy could very simply be seen as boring and borderline offensive caricatures of 'trailer trash' but instead are seen as simple and humorous folks living in adverse conditions. We always state how great Jaime Pressly is as Joy, and how fun Randy is at the hands of Ethan Suplee, but in "Buried Treasure" we were able to see Earl from another perspective - as he wasn't the main character. Slipping from focal character status after the first quarter of the story was told, we instead got to watch as Jason Lee got to make Earl the good-intentioned schlub that he is.

Not that we want to see too many episodes like "Buried Treasure" and the three before it ("South Of The Border, Part Uno," "South Of The Border, Part Dos" & "Our 'Cops' Is On"), but it is nice to see My Name Is Earl creating hilarity outside of the box that the show has created. Simply put, Earl has proved that they can mess around with the formula of their show as good as any other program out there, and we have enjoyed the results.