Community, the tv show

i really liked the feel of this episode, had some seriousness around the edges without a lot of shrill arguing like some episodes, and the characters were grouped together in ways that you don't usually see and some of them (Annie and Chang in particular) got out of their usual niches, and Abed was still Abed in a good way without Troy. i was mildly dreading an instant turn into "Abed misses Troy" plots.

kinda weirded out by the lukewarm reaction i've seen to this episode, loved this episode and thought it was the first one this season that felt like it was doing something fresh instead of revisiting something that had worked in a better episode a previous season. sepinwall bitched that they didn't do anything w/ the guest stars or whatever (though man paget brewster and brie larson, these motherfuckers are reading my mind) but i thought the episode in general had a ton of hilarious lines. they did a good job of fat dogging for midterms imo.

also, again, and i'm probably gonna say this every week but jonathan banks is just killing it.

yeah it was our first glimpse of the post-troy/pierce show and that novelty was exciting and promising but i'm not shocked people aren't BEST YET over an episode with a "more than this" montage of unclear ironic distance.

oh and yeah SO GLAD this episode wasn't about troy at all - Suburgatory spent the first three episodes of this (Godawful so far) season having half the cast talk about how much they miss the guy who's on Enlisted now.

balls otm re: Banks. No weird adjustment period, dude just slotted right in.

I read some accusations of stunt casting wrt Nanjiani and Fillion, but they were both perfect, and didn't strike me as the least bit stunty.

"Daughter soccer. Got it."

i mean, it is "stuntcasting" in the sense that a bunch of recognizable actors with varying degrees of nerdlove zipped past us in the episode, but it's not like there wasn't an amusing plot w/ good dialogue they were taking part in.

kept thinking about tv shows within tv shows: an ocd thread for jaymc and nabisco because Nathan Fillion showed up in character a mere week after Chang yelled out the actor's name as his same sex celebrity crush.

suburgatory :(

i'm actually quite impressed Banks is doing so well on this show, never would've thought him to be a good fit

don't forget Paget Brewster lol

my hopes weren't exactly high after omar never really paid off

yeah, exactly

Great episode, this season is killing it for sure.

I can also see how the whole internet culture around this show can get clowned though, I mean fretting over "stunt casting" as if there were millions of Americans waiting to check out this Community show to quench their thirst for a Kumail Nanjiani guest appearance.

the only one of these massive guest stars I recognised was Robert Patrick, I thought he was funny, I also thought the other people I didn't recognise were funny.

i've only seen it talked about in the AVClub review - but yeah, very silly hang up

I am basically hate-reading AVClub at this point

speaking of meta, weird that both Parks and Rec and Community both had main plots about chains of political favors. less so for P&R, but...

kept thinking about tv shows within tv shows: an ocd thread for jaymc and nabisco because Nathan Fillion showed up in character a mere week after Chang yelled out the actor's name as his same sex celebrity crush.

― some dude, Friday, January 31, 2014 6:25 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Firefly is also been a big thing for Abed and Troy and where 6 seasons and a movie comes from.

Pretty sure that was from "The Cape":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXqLCM0d0Os

it was definitely The Cape

lol I don't remember the context of that episode at all, but as a standalone scene it's brilliant.

Ok surely firefly fans going crazy was pre-cape?

Firefly fans going crazy definitely predated The Cape by 8 or 9 years, but I don't remember "six seasons and a movie" ever being tied to Firefly. The show was shuffled around the schedule seemingly at random (and nearly week-to-week), episodes were aired out of order, and then of course it got cancelled. It barely lasted a full season, but Serenity still somehow managed to get made.

six seasons and a movie was a tag i heard quite a bit post-cancellation/pre-serenity. (i was a big whedon nerd at the time.)

oh ok i guess it was never said on tv until abed from a small amount of googling.

I am basically hate-reading AVClub at this point

I can't even hate-read it anymore.

my hopes weren't exactly high after omar never really paid off

Worth it for this scene alone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVCOAFKjaoY

idiot youtube uploader missed the 's' in 'Legos'.

I am basically hate-reading AVClub at this point

is it my imagination or is Todd VanDerWerff much much worse than he used to be? Of course he was never good but I feel he used to do a reasonable job for someone who had to have thoughts about things with no time for reflection, but now, eesh.

sooooo did anyone else catch the news ticker at the end of the latest episode?

I think he's just rushing out the reviews so that people can read them within an hour of the show airing. Which seems weird to me, as I have no problem waiting until the next day to see how wrong and sloppy he is.

xp

I did not catch the news ticker at the end of the latest episode

Levar Burton and non-celebrity companion captured by pirates in the gulf of mexico

wut

omg

haaa

where/when is the news ticker? i don't see anything in my uuuuuuuh paralegally acquired copy.

ah right, on the TV during the 'More Than This' montage.

sepinwall bitched that they didn't do anything w/ the guest stars or whatever

Sepinwall is consistently off the money

btw, that makes two episodes this season that make a gag on Gary Oldman's classic line from The Professional. i can only hope this trend continues.

idiot youtube uploader missed the 's' in 'Legos'.

uploader can spell Lego better than TV writer and/or Michael K Williams

kept thinking about tv shows within tv shows: an ocd thread for jaymc and nabisco because Nathan Fillion showed up in character a mere week after Chang yelled out the actor's name as his same sex celebrity crush.

― some dude, Friday, January 31, 2014 6:25 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

holy fuck that thread

one of those "oh so that weird thing i've obsessed about since i was six, there's a whole ilx thread on that" moments

also re avclub you guys gotta realize that 95% of their ad revenue comes from breaking bad/community and they're all out of breaking bad* so community is basically their only real responsibility

*(lol jk they can still milk it for a few more years)

Return of Eddie Pepitone and Jerry Minor playing a janitor named "Jerry"

Everyone reacting to the bear tragedy reminded me of something I liked from earlier years, usually involving insults to Leonard: the feeling of this strange world full of off-camera shot they all live in which we only get to see 22 minutes of each week.

There were lots of individual bits that made me laugh in this episode but it still felt oddly flat and devoid of a centre. Show is going to be totally different now there's no Pierce and no Troy and that the study group is no longer a thing.

I can see where they're going with the Save Greendale Community but it still felt a bit weird to see them all sitting round the table with Buzz Hickey and Professor Duncan and Chang, like there's a dynamic that needs to be established all over again, and this is a show that has made group dynamics its thing since the start.

We're basically back at a Season One point where they need to re-establish the relationships between pairs of characters and that's kind of what they were doing here but the various storylines were all totally separate from one another, and the central conceit wasn't inherently funny. Episode probably needed more Jeff.

I hope we see more of Brie Larsen though. Also did Dan Harmon actually spoiler-not-spoiler the next season of Game of Thrones there? Like out of pure malevolence? I hope so.

Chang's dance at the end was awesome though, and I like what they're doing with Britta this season.

Also did Dan Harmon actually spoiler-not-spoiler the next season of Game of Thrones there?

No, he was just making fun of Game of Thrones.

There were lots of individual bits that made me laugh in this episode but it still felt oddly flat and devoid of a centre.

hmm. This is the second episode in a row in which Jeff was not a major player in the A-story. Wonder if that's what feels off.

Yeah but the last episode was entirely built around the Troy-Abed-Britta relationship that has been established for years, whereas I couldn't really get a handle on how Annie was supposed to be feeling about Buzz and vice-versa. Banks is great in this but his character still feels underwritten beyond the occasional glimpse of his family life, which is problematic given he's basically part of the group now.

I have the opposite opinion of basically every single sentence in Matt DC's post. The show being obsessively devoted to hashing out the group's relationships became really tiresome after a while. They've amply demonstrated that they care about that stuff more than other sitcoms, at this point I'd rather them just keep trying to do funny new things with the characters they've got instead of laboring further over the THEMES and MYTHOLOGY. xp

It's part of what makes the show funny, things like Shirley constantly snipping at Britta.