Community, the tv show

you're right or you're wrong. if he saw abed as a pathetic spazz he was wrong. simple as that

Spaz US or spaz UK?

he's usually not. squealing and then going catatonic because of a TV show being on hiatus is not really typical of the character in earlier episodes is all i was saying.

I rarely suggest ban anyone but there you go I gave you one a long time ago

high five?

http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/10/25/128694183290570328.jpg

I loved it. Then I read everyone being all "stop being all about the dynamics of the group and shit" and I loved it a little less. On reflection, they should do that.

British people don't pronounce Deirdre like "deir-drah" though. We say "deir-dree". At least, I do.

considering that the s2 finale was basically a cliffhanger about pierce leaving the group, i took it as a given that they'd have to address that in the premiere. if we get three or four episodes into the season and the group dynamic stuff is still dominating the stories, then i'll complain.

people who dont think this episode sucked, mb you are just humourless &/or have bad taste? something to consider. imo community s2 was a terrifying yet ultimately v successful navigation of the limits of decreasing marginal utility of mining your own self-referential universe of jokes, & i feel like the reason it succeeded was due to a solid amount of new material and imaginative new ways to spin ongoing jokes, whereas this was all stark reiterations of old jokes (i named him annie's boobs, after annie's boobs--smh s1/s2 troy would have never) or pathetic attempts at updating old ones (funniest part of chang in the vents was when he was like "MONKEY GAS!" but they really dragged his descent 2 low--actually relieved to see him back in a position of power, best chang moment was "have you MET ME?!"). it was just a slog thru every community trope w/ terrible momentum, jeff's inspirational speech came like 2 minutes in, chang was barely funny. srsly the whole experience made me want to cry & rewatch season 1

i hope it's just the pressure of plot overload, setting up new characters & devices, that weighed it down (s2e1 was inarguably weighed down by untying the jeff/britta/annie unresolved love triangle but importantly differs from this in that it 1) successfully & neatly establishes the new equilibrium 2) is actually funny if you rewatch it), but this felt more unjustly self-assured and winking than any community yet, and i really think that will, if not now inevitably, be what turns it to unwatchable shit

Man if you think this ep "sucked" and is leading the show towards becoming "unwatchable shit", the problem is more with you imho. This was definitely nowhere near the top 15 eps of this show, but it was still funny. The tying up of loose ends from last season is what kept it from being top tier, that's for sure.

I do take contention with one of your examples though, Troy's "after Annie's boobs" is 100% something he would have said in any other season.

ya idk my roommate has a theory that troys jokes were getting worse thruout the second half of the second season but i am yet 2 be convinced

John Goodman is so great at yelling.

Considering Troy's best joke ("notches") was in the 2nd half of the 2nd season, I definitely don't think they were getting worse.

notches is possibly my fav community joke of all

stark reiterations of old jokes (i named him annie's boobs, after annie's boobs--smh s1/s2 troy would have never)

yeah i mentioned the starburns thing but this was the one that really hit me as "jeez they're really trying hard to catch up new viewers, or perhaps overdoing it to mock whatever suit asked them to catch up new viewers"

John Goodman is so great at yelling.

― polyphonic, Saturday, September 24, 2011 9:09 PM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what accent was he doing? it was fantastic. get the feeling we'll only see him for a few episodes though.

also the idea that the college's moneymaker is their A/C repair school is amazing.

Workforce programs are a CC's bread & butter tho.

i know, but that it would be something as specific as the A/C repair unit (w/ their own wing and fiefdom) is pretty funny.

My CC devoted all their attention to the nursing and police officer training programs, and very little attention to anything else. A/C tech is the same kind of specialized tech program as those two, and quite believable.

you don't think they chose it for its humor value at all?

(i mean the idea that the entire college would be overshadowed by an A/C repair department? obv it's taking off from reality but it's just absurd enough to be funny, no?)

my only complaint is that abed was just wrong

he wouldn't flip out like that, he would know about brit tv's short runs and he would already know all seven inspector spacetimes' favorite brand of knickers

absurd? i thought it sounded 100% factually accurate.

British people don't pronounce Deirdre like "deir-drah" though.

They must have been hanging in my neck of the woods.

You realise that if they were pandering to new viewers, you would have seen Magnitude wheeled out for six solid minutes of "POP-POP!"

Unless that's happening next week.

i'm cool with that

the monkey gas was called "Chimpan-Zzz's".. surprised jeff didn't attack the table with a femur.

Yeah this was totally like a second pilot. It was kinda embarrassing but fuck it, if it gets them more viewers then I'm cool w/ it. Harmon and co deserve success and then can go from there. I think it would be severely unwise to write off a show who did a My Dinner W/ Andre parody episode of just going for some commercialised (sp?) turn. It was a one-off to introduce star-burns as star-burns, britta as the buzzkill, abed as the tv-freak etc. It may not have been done well but after masses of hype it has introduced new people to what the character tropes and settled them in for what Community should be, then thats ok.

Yeah xpost I think that may have been a big reason on why I hated the dr. who shit. How would Abed not know about Dr. Who/whatever-it-was-called? TV is like breathing to him and yet it takes Britta for him to be introduced to one of the most famous shows of all time that is also nerd bait? Hope this doesn't become a running thing, it won't work as well as Cougar Town did.

ratings were not good btw

*abed scream*

imo one of the funniest unspoken jokes about Abed is that he's not like a hardcore nerd with discriminating taste, he nerds out about like Farscape or The Cape

a hoy hoy otm--it sucked but i'll give them the benefit of the doubt because there's such a strong sense that some producer told them to reintroduce every single character and rehash the dynamic. to me it seemed like Troy's delivery was affected by this more than anything else: there was so little conviction in "Annie's boobs" and "opposite of batman" that you basically get the impression that he's just steaming about having to say this stale shit at all, where in season 1 those would've been passable Troy lines.

xp always felt that abed was so far into nerddom that his taste transcended any notion of popular trends and he could see shows like cougar town and the cape for the genius they truly are. also that s301 was out of character.

Whenever I think about this show transcending comedy I think about the Who's The Boss plotline and I've never wanted to watch that show or What's Happening

im not sure annie existed bar many jokes about her boobs

this was a p terrible episode

Saw this again. I liked it more. Disliked the return to a "Jeff and the gang" feel, but I saw good bits here and there, more than I did on my initial viewing.

i know who sean penn is, i seen 'milk'

one thing i loved:

JIM RASH MADE THE OPENING CREDITS :DDDDDDDDDD

also chang having a ham to throw at jeff

not amazing, but i enjoyed it. totally see the glee parody/obvious callbacks as ploys to catch up new viewers, which is pretty acceptable to me

Not a classic, but funny. Goodman's character showing way more promise than Williams'.

Yeah, this was weak overall, but it had lots of brilliant little moments. Even though 2001 homages are played-out, the one in this ep was so good it gets a free pass. And even though Abed was definitely way out of character, it did give us "Inspector Spacetime" which was hilarious, especially in his concluding after like 10 seconds that it was the best thing he'd ever seen; it was like, *of course* somebody like Abed would react that way to Dr. Who.

Always amused by Americans doing poor English accents.

Abed not knowing *Doctor Who* perhaps isn't that unlikely - has he ever shown any awareness of British TV or films?

Not sure any of this will matter when the show gets axed mid-season.

Were the ratings that dire?

on the contrary, interminable pedantry will be all we have to hold on to.