Community, the tv show

I haven't seen the new Doctor Who shows but i imagine this was a parody of that. Was it really close, stylistically?

If anything it's a parody of old Doctor Who but not a particularly closely observed one.

I agree that Abed's whine is an annoying character development, as is his being borderline aggressive in his obstinacy. I prefer the Abed we saw in the Christmas episode and the first season or so. But I still don't think the writers are doing what Thomp and others are claiming with his character.

@Danharmon As we say on twitter: Squee! RT @KarenGillan2 Haha! Loving #inspectorspacetime on #community brilliant.

matt i think yr reading (oy) would be fine without abed's monologue at the end where he explicitly states he has 'learned how to enter the minds of others'

How did "Abed doesn't want other people to tinker with group dynamics because he's afraid everyone will outgrow him" get interpreted as "Abed is incapable of meeting or talking to women"?

― I need new, hip khakis (DJP), Saturday, 21 April 2012 16:27 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

stuff like: the sight gag here which hinges on his being unable to visualise what a couple making out would look like. i would go back and look for other evidence of how they've done this but i mean, then i'd be a person who went back and looked for evidence to argue a point about the sitcom community on the internet

Abed's ability with women was demonstrated in S2, he just never decides to use it.

with eliza coupe, no less

I completely forgot that episode with Coupe!

(But, really his ability was demonstrated in the "billiards" ep in s1.)

[ / pedant]

i forgot about that bit with Coupe also. also never realized it was her! damn those shades.

Looking forward to a future flashback where Zardoz will feature prominently.

Imagine tuning in halfway through the episode, thinking you'll just try to get up to speed?
--Evan

This seems like an odd metric

the sight gag here which hinges on his being unable to visualise what a couple making out would look like.

Less a sight gag based upon inexperience and more a sight gag based upon the impossibility of showing a couple making out when you're playing both characters.

stuff like: the sight gag here which hinges on his being unable to visualise what a couple making out would look like. i would go back and look for /other evidence/ of how they've done this but i mean, then i'd be a person who went back and looked for evidence to argue a point about the sitcom /community/ on the internet

You mean the part where Abed was alternating playing the two people making out and was representing making out in an exaggerated manner because he thought the two of them together was a stupid idea?

Imagine tuning in halfway through the episode, thinking you'll just try to get up to speed?
--Evan
This seems like an odd metric

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, April 21, 2012 7:59 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My comment was just referring to times that I've come into an episode late and had no clue what was happening. This one would have been no hope.

― Evan, Friday, April 20, 2012 11:49 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You mean the part where Abed was alternating playing the two people making out and was representing making out in an exaggerated manner because he thought the two of them together was a stupid idea?

i meant the awkward patty-cake stuff imaginary troy and britta are doing when they start that scene, before abed is playing either of them

i hope they don't turn that whine into Abed's catchphrase, and that last little speech to the camera was clumsy to the point where I wonder if it was tacked on (possibly as a sop to the folks who worry about new viewers wanting clarity and lessons and whatnot), but otherwise I liked the ambition of the episode a lot and saw the whole abed/annie thing as Matt DC did.

I know the "empathy" thing hits all the "wait is abed autistic or not" buzzers, but in context the lesson for abed could just be that his self-righteousness is not necessarily more valid than Annie's.

Abed's catchphrase is "cool" x 4 or 5

Abed isn't autistic, he's just weird.

You mean the part where Abed was alternating playing the two people making out and was representing making out in an exaggerated manner because he thought the two of them together was a stupid idea?

I couldn't really follow what was happening by this point but I'd assumed that one of them was Annie and the other was Abed and they were both still half-heartedly in the Dreamatorium and would have actually made out under those circumstances. But you might well be right.

WouldN'T actually have made out, I mean.

I think it's fairly clear that Abed was playing both of them. You can hear his voice when he mimics 'make out' sounds from each one. Both of them talk to Annie (still in her "Constable Leela" costume) when she asks "You think this is what I want?" (Britta asks "What do you want?")

Abed actually shows remarkable insight into Annie's own thoughts and feelings in this episode so, yeah, I don't really know what to make of the "empathy" speech.

One part I found affecting is when he reveals he thinks everyone's going to get sick of him. It's that thing where people feel free to act judgmental and superior because they can't imagine anyone being hurt by what they think. He plays mind-games with Annie to try and teach her lesson, comes away realizing he can be a dick. The speech is awkwardly written - I don't always get the difference between sympathy and empathy right either - but I think the episode was nuanced enough that I don't need to damn it for ruining Abed or anything.

It's that thing where people feel free to act judgmental and superior because they can't imagine anyone being hurt by what they think.

to be clearer, I mean people feel free to act superior because they can't imagine one cares what they think. It's self-loathing, not sociopathy.

ha actually i have no idea if that made anything clearer, sorry

what do u feel about the part where abed cuts annie off financially bc he wants to buy a lake house?

i feel u could have written the joke better

what a poorly formed analysis

buttered noodles

This episode sucked. How many "we're lost in Abed's immutable subconscious fantasy world" eps will we get?

pretty mutable imo

Ya more or less the definition of

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Oh, I just immutable in the sense that when something shifts in Abed's world, he shuts down. We've seen this before - Christmas ep, introduction of "Inspector Space Time" primal scream ...

Clearly Abed can change because he is a TV character. Anyway, this ep was spinning wheels, which is <<< spinning plates, which this show does better.

They've been teasing a Dreamatorium episode for awhile now, though. I think they thought fans wanted this. (And a lot probably did.)

fans are idiots

Does this mean we are guaranteed an Evil Abed kidnaps Abed in the Dreamatorium and Troy has to lead the group through it to rescue his friend episode? Perhaps confronting Evil Troy in the process?

Shhh! Dan Harmon might hear you.

i miss the days when the show's idea of fan service was Alison Brie running in slow motion

STOP TRYING TO MAKE MULTIDIMENSIONAL COMMUNITY HAPPEN

some dude otm

the only dimensions i care about are alison brie's, am i right!!!!!!!

anyway this last episode sucked, all their nerd ambitious shit sucks, except for the first paintball episode, just be a funny regular sitcom please

I like their nerd ambitions. No one else is going to do quantum theory or My Dinner With Andre

max otm

i kind of think abed is my least favorite character

some of the great ambitious old episodes feel like a scathing critique of where the show is going now imo

Abed: We need a Jesus movie for the post-post-modern world.
Shirley: Like… Jesus as a rapper?
Abed: No. I want to tell the story of Jesus from the perspective of a filmmaker exploring the life of Jesus.
Shirley: That sounds… very appealing to filmmakers.
Abed: See, in the filmmaker's film, Jesus is a filmmaker trying to find God with his camera. But then the filmmaker realizes that he's actually Jesus and he's being filmed by God's camera. And it goes like that forever in both directions like a mirror in a mirror because all of the filmmakers are Jesus and all of their cameras are God. And the movie's called ABED - all-caps. Filmmaking beyond film. A meta-film. My masterpiece.
Shirley: … I don't like it…
Abed: You're reacting the way the world did to Jesus.
Shirley: I'm reacting the way the world does to movies about making movies about making movies! I mean, come on, Charlie Kaufman, some of us have work in the morning, damn!

i thought this ep was pretty amazing so haters to the left

i remembering finding the casual reference to Charlie Kaufman to be pretty questionable, but what the hey, it was funny

I found this episode kind of embarrassing to watch.

that's what happens when your audience is 98% hulu- and smartphone-based, all concern for the shame of a livingroom-based audience goes out the window.