Community, the tv show

himym is super ambitious in its narrative structure(s)! esp considering its not one-camera

not the same kind of 'ambition' as community but no less ambitious

I never actually said it was as ambitious Dan, just that Community wouldn't be able to do what it does so well without Buffy in the first place.

Well, more like it wouldn't have been given a chance without Buffy IMO.

I haven't watched that many episodes of HIMYM because I don't think it's funny so I can't really remark on how it tells stories. I do know that the episodes I've seen have basically been sub-"Friends" with a reverse "Wonder Years" narrator; I'm willing to believe the show is more than that, but I haven't seen it.

Well, actually the microdate with Sarah Chalke was awesome and clever, and the whole thing that spun out of that with the movie written about Ted was great, so I do see where the show is doing shit that is above and beyond; my problem is that most of the time I don't think it's funny.

its ok if you dont find it funny i wont be mad

wait what's so ambitious about himym? i've seen two episodes and thought it was just NPH braggin about straight sex (~irony~) with a lovable doofus and his girlfriend from american pie

It's the ongoing narrative; the central conceit of the show is that it's an older dude reminiscing to his kids about his life as a young(ish) man in NYC, his circle of friends, and the events that led him to meet their mother. Some of the stuff they do to advance that overarching story is actually quite cool but you won't really see it without watching a series of episodes (and even then, you have to catch the right ones).

well the entire narrative arc of the show is pretty interesting/ambitious--a multi-camera sitcom told entirely in flashbacks w/ a definitive endpoint being constantly deferred--but tons of episodes (in s2/s3 it felt like nearly every episode but its less frequently now) the narrative structures of each individual episode are done in pretty "ambitious" (i feel weird about this word but since were using it) ways--flashbacks w/in each episode, trick reveals that change the nature of the story, chronological, uh, weirdness

xp dan is right but i think the single episode narratives are just as ambitious as the big overarching story

ha that feeds into my "have to catch the right episode" point; I've seen some funny fantasy sequences but nothing I thought especially remarkable

i guess this is all driven by their script director and theres a whole word they use on set for the narrative trickery

yeah i mean if you dont find it funny the other stuff wont convince you

I'd argue that LOST's ambition was more in production scope than in storytelling; that was an attempt to do labyrinthine comic-book stories in a television drama (again, comic book familiarity hurts the show's scope for me) as opposed to what's happening in Community, which is a series of genre pastiches that weave into an overarching narrative re: the characters and their relationships.

― Tina Tina Cheneuse (DJP), Friday, December 17, 2010 12:36 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark

i dunno, the way the show had no status quo at all was pretty amazing - i mean ffs one of the seasons was set in the 70s! that's ambitious.

sure, but compare that to, for example, the last season of Roseanne (or really, the way that show changed from season to season, and the way it ended)

yeah Community is totally ambitious by sitcom standards, as is HIMYM.

(again, I'm not saying LOST wasn't massive in scope, it just happened to be massive in scope in a way I'd seen before and was slightly less impressive as a result)

enh, i think LOST was ambitious not just because of the scope, or the narrative weirdness, but because it was a show, marketed to mainstream america, that was like a comic book/sci-fi/soap opera/action movie fever dream. shows like that are usually obsesso backwaters like star trek and dr who and the finale was a fucking national TV event

yeah Lost was definitely ambitious in storytelling AND production scope, but probably more in the latter. you knew it was going to be a big deal from the pilot on out, whereas Community's been growing the beard gradually.

yeah I am underselling LOST somewhat, partially because the ending was a letdown

i hate lost

yeah probably best to leave Lost alone...Abed said it all.

growing the beard! my favorite of television tropes!

totally missed "I'm so sick of the dean jamming his PCness down my throat" first time round

max otm, about himym. this is what i was trying to say last night. even this week's episode of an allegedly fallen-off show (it's still funny 'actually') was quite unusually put together. i mean 'quite' the way americans mean 'quite'.

well yeah seems kinda silly arguing whether himym and community are "unusual" or not in a world with according to jim or whatever

according to jim went off the air two seasons ago, technically we're living in a post-according to jim world

we're living in a "Rules of Engagement" world

never forget

@danharmon you're the twitting twat sniffing twink snarfer. make an show where Troy gets ashamed of gay around Abed. Pierce tries to be Troy

he didn't reply.
screw this twitter thing

okay that made me lol harder than anything else I've read on ILX today

hahahahaha

that is truly streets ahead

dying

just caught up on last 2 eps. was that paul f. tompkins as the farscape/gay dude? the animation episode was awesome, i wonder what the budget is for something like that

yes re pft

just caught up on last 2 eps. was that paul f. tompkins as the farscape/gay dude? the animation episode was awesome, i wonder what the budget is for something like that

Seriously, the way they're able to wrench cash out of NBC's cold, dead hands for a consistently low-rated series is kind of remarkable. I mean, "Layla" in the mob movie episode? Shit ain't cheap.

i dunno...i'm sure one-offs are more costly per episode than if that was what they did every week, but it's not like the stop motion shows on Adult Swim have huge budgets. and pop music licensing is something most network shows shell out cash for constantly.

got the s1 dvd for xmas, the out-takes are wonderful, esp troy & abed...

on 2nd viewing i really do love the bar episode

haha. i watched the two rerun episodes tonight too. they were both great. zombies + bar episodes.

I think they were positioned as opposite ends of the spectrum for any potential new viewers. Begin with the over-the-top crowd pleaser, close with the quiet character piece and watch how we pull both off with ease.

^^ agree that that's how they came off, but apparently they were going to show the conspiracy episode instead of the zombie one until the network remembered that the conspiracy one is full of people fake-shooting each other.

did they show rape episodes of all the cop shows that usually feature murders, too? or one of the occasional 'we handle child abductions too' episodes?

idk u would have to check with their showrunner on twitter.

finally, a direct line to air my grievances

malcolm jamal warner is playing shirley's husband!

saw Shirley on a Two And A Half Men rerun, first time i've seen her act in anything else

She's done a lot of commercials over the years.

GUYS GUYS GUYS

Brown Jamie Lee Curtis

i'm sirius fm