Community, the tv show

fwiw this is the FIRST time i've stopped in on this thread to have that mindnumbingly tedious argument

The posts of people saying "Community jumped the shark" is outnumbered by the posts of people saying "Why are all these people saying this show jumped the shark?" by at least 20 to 1. 10 to 1 if you count anybody saying anything bad about an episode.

Community could get worse, but truly jumping the shark - producing episodes that have NOTHING to do with what people watch the show for - would be pretty hard. Whether the show gets too caught up in character romance, or devolves to Family Guy parody, people do watch the show for both shipping and parody.

i need to stop reading ilx tv threads, they seem populated with dudes who are itching to be the first person who noticed when a TV show 'jumped the shark' and its affecting the discourse negatively.

― I accidentally sonned your dome (stevie), Sunday, April 15, 2012 4:41 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah as much as people around here decry the new school of TV fanboy culture, "their first album was better" syndrome manifesting itself in TV convos is even worse.

ehh who cares

sometimes things get better and sometimes they get worse, esp in tv, ppl will always be around to point that out, that shouldnt preclude any discussion imho

Community has gotten worse, then better, then worse, then better so many times it's pretty unlucrative to keep charting it. It's not like on one particular week everyone involved with the show is going to stop knowing how to write a joke. But will they get tired and uninspired from time to time? Of course.

Some of us don't see it that way. To me, it does seem that there has been a drop in quality this season that has gotten worse since the mid-season break. Even some of the stronger recent episodes are missing some of what drew me to the show previously. I have the DVDs of s1 and watched them quite recently so I don't think it's just nostalgia.

It's not like on one particular week everyone involved with the show is going to stop knowing how to write a joke. But will they get tired and uninspired from time to time? Of course.

You've never known e.g. of a band that got worse over time even though they still remembered how to play their instruments?

But a band suddenly starts to suck from the beginning of recording one album until the end? Also, a band with like 25 equally good songwriters? Never heard of such a thing.

Also, the ssn 3 episodes are funnier to me than the ssn 1 ones--so this might be a subjective thing. Anyone who says the craft was there in ssns 1 & 2 but not in ssn 3 is I think a bit on their own planet.

oh god guys i'm sorry i gave you the "first album" metaphor to play with, i should've known it'd be dangerous

Of course my whole point was that comparing such things is dumb, so lump me into the idiocy.

imo the craft and the humor are still there as ever, but what i loved about the show early on was the light touch with the meta stuff and the format-breaking, it's kinda slowly gone from self-aware to self-conscious in a way that makes what once felt playful and effortless into something a little more transparently willful

the thing to keep in mind in all of these discussions is that this is an American sitcom on a major network. As banal as that fact is--what standard are you holding this show to?
Are there any British sitcoms that have cranked out 75 great episodes in 3 years' time? Or is there more than one (P&R) American one that has done anything of similar quality?

I just think the standards here are unreasonably high. If the slight lag in quality affects your enjoyment so much, just stop watching.

i ain't mad or anything, still look forward to it every week, just saying i do feel like there has been a change that's more nuanced than just "it's not as funny" or w/e. and there's nothing wrong with holding a show to whatever bar it sets for itself.

imo the craft and the humor are still there as ever, but what i loved about the show early on was the light touch with the meta stuff and the format-breaking, it's kinda slowly gone from self-aware to self-conscious in a way that makes what once felt playful and effortless into something a little more transparently willful

― some dude, Sunday, April 15, 2012 9:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think i agree with this

One thing I didn't really get about the last episode is: isn't Andre the guy Shirley just remarried? Unless she's already unhappy, why would Andre be her equivalent for Blade?

(And, yeah, on second viewing, the Pierce/Chang plotline is pretty weak.)

the only stipulation for "blade" = the one person you can't resist no matter what. shirley said she lucked out with hers, and you can psychoanalyze that with whatever approach you choose.

shirley said she lucked out with hers

Oh, I guess I missed that.

Related to earlier discourse: Wow, I remember back when we just watched shows we liked and didn't do week by week scorekeeping. We even tried to embrace Beau the Southern Sweathog, but that just was not going to happen without a regular Barbarino presence. LOL I AM OLD AND BORING

this thread

Yeah this thread was def better during season 2

haha

Cool.

x 5 (natch)

too serious. go back to lols, please.

Did not enjoy.*

*This admission does not mean that I think the show is tanking or that S3 is any less funny than the other two seasons. I just kind of nod off when they go too deep into Abedland.

there was good stuff here. also the Dean was welcome relief at the end there.

First-rate! The Dean's subsubplot was amazing.

"I saw eagles."

Yeah, this episode was more about world-building, which if fine, even if it didn't bring as many laughs per minute. But Jim Rash is an absolute hero this season.

His outfit at the beginning of the episode was amazing.

Was Annie supposed to be the Leela of Inspector Spacetime?

The image with "community's writing staff, fans, everyone else" up thread a little was all I could think about during this episode.

It was not a great episode, for sure.

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

I hope Jim Rash gets nominated for an Emmy, he was just killing me

also the more I think about this episode, the more I like it

Totally loved this. But I did think that if this was anyone's first Community episode, they'd be hella confused.

i liked this more than last week. as everyone has already said, jim rash was amazing - his self-realization about how over-the-top he was being made me laugh harder than anything else in the show.

A year ago I thought the Dean was the least funny main character but he absolutely kills it in every scene he's in now.

he's had so many hilarious deliveries this season; I still crack up when I think about his delighted "That's me!" when he saw the cartoon of him during Shirley's/Pierce's presentation

who cares about these non-existing new fans. this was terrific.

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.

I still crack up when I think about his delighted "That's me!"

Yes! The image itself and his reaction is a personal favorite.

Dan Harmon ‏ @danharmon

Wow. You guys really liked that episode. Agreed, not one for newbies. Good news: our ratings will STILL be a random number between 0 and 3!

I haven't seen it yet, but I love this.

The Dean is like the Jenna Maroney of this show, started out really kind of blandly annoying but now one of the best parts

Huh, what's up with the Citytv video player?

This was a bit like the Claymation episode for me - I was sitting there so impressed with what they were doing that I didn't much care that I wasn't laughing that much. That said, Alison Brie absolutely killed it in this one.

I feel a bit sad we didn't see much of Troy and Britta's date though.

THIS-> I still crack up when I think about his delighted "That's me!"

I keep expecting an "evil holodeck creations run amok" episode involving evil Troy and evil Abed. Maybe that's too predictable.