Community, the tv show

lol, I'd forgotten that was also the Dinner With Andre episode. I need to go back and watch the prev seasons.

Btw, what's up with some of the recent episode titles? WTF is "lupine urology" a reference to? And why was the 1984 episode "Digital Exploration of Interior Design"? Because Pierce spied on Britta and Subway when they were in the blanket fort (using analogue gear!)?

"lupine urology" = "Wolf, Dick"

OK, I didn't know who that was. Looked it up now. That's v clever then.

I assume "Digital Exploration" is a heavy petting joke crossed with an allusion to the 1984 parody running through the Subway plot

those are both actually kinda funny

my best guess for 'lupine urology' was the first episode of 'due south' but that did seem highly improbable

This was kind of on the same tip as the Tarantino episode, except it was based on source material I care about.

― Johnny Fever, Monday, April 30, 2012 12:37 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol, I'd forgotten that was also the Dinner With Andre episode. I need to go back and watch the prev seasons.

― Johnny Fever, Monday, April 30, 2012 12:38 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

haha i was gonna say, it wasn't really 'the Tarantino episode' in practically any way besides the characters being dressed as Pulp Fiction characters

http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/467127_350844594976629_279724112088678_947565_1286493043_o.jpg

Also:

http://tvline.com/2012/04/27/community-season-3-finale-may-17-90-minutes/

Well this is Changsteresting….

smdh

as someone who has hatewatched about 800 episodes of L&O, omg

my least favorite thing about it is the writers' apparent inability to end an ep without a sudden homicide/suicide, so the starburns thing was amazing

also how the hell was belzer not in this?

Are there particular L&O episodes/seasons that are good to start with?

The Jerry Orbach years, I would assume

Orbach/(Noth/Bratt)/Waterston/Hennessey was my favourite cast.

No Hargitay, no cred.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMB4xRW58Q4

There's a buncha animated gifs out there for this one, so here's a couple

http://i45.tinypic.com/2vker1t.gif

http://i.imgur.com/BfsYa.gif

I agree that from the original series, Orbach/(Noth/Bratt)/Hennessey/Waterston was the high point

for SVU, I think there's something to be said (aka I luv Mariska Hargity) for every season but the early ones when they were still shuffling the ensemble are incredible

CI is most entertaining when it's the D'Onofrio Crazypants Show

TBJ was super boring

Can you just jump in and watch L&O episodes or do you need to start from the beginning for continuity?

i can't imagine Law & Order: The Blow Job being boring but i never saw it

Can you just jump in and watch L&O episodes or do you need to start from the beginning for continuity?

For regular L&O you can jump in at any point -- there's not much serialization or focus on the characters lives outside of the cases.

SVU is a whole 'nother mess that borders on Days of Our Lives.

Can you just jump in and watch L&O episodes or do you need to start from the beginning for continuity?

Most of the continuity/character progression is in the background aside from the two or three random episodes where a BIG PERSONAL REVELATION happens that makes a character EMOTE for your viewing pleasure; I got into the show mostly through watching random episodes and from being transfixed by Mariska Hargitay on SVU. You can totally watch SVU out of order and enjoy the hell out of it, but watching it in order is like "omg you've unlocked the secret level and can now shoot fireballs from yr eyes, ENJOY"

All the flavors of L&O have similar story rhythms; the main differences between them are:

OG: murders galore
SVU: mostly sex crimes that often involve someone's death
CI: mostly murders, but a good chunk of the episode is told from the criminal's point of view and the payoff of the story is seeing how Crazypants D'Onofrio sticks his crazy into the perp's brain and makes them crack
TBJ: I never watched more than 5 minutes of this because it was so boring but I think it was all trial shit (because Trial By Jury, see? it's FASCINATING watching people sit in a juror's box for an hour! gtfo imo, if you're gonna do that you better give me Cop Rock-esque ensemble numbers otherwise I'm changing the channel)

also lol sd

xpost

Mmm, I dunno, I've sat in on a number of those SVU marathons and didn't feel like I was missing anything by not being a regular viewer. It's been a few years, mind.

yeah i have to say it's kind of hilarious for someone who's never seen L&O to ask about 'continuity' since L&O is kind of the classic 'drop in and watch a marathon of non-sequential episodes' procedural show

You probably can watch SVU out of order, but I get so tired of hearing about Olivia's messed up childhood/family, her attempted rape, etc. and then Stabler's family was the most annoying hellspawn and any episode that centered on them drove me crazy.

yeah i have to say it's kind of hilarious for someone who's never seen L&O to ask about 'continuity' since L&O is kind of the classic 'drop in and watch a marathon of non-sequential episodes' procedural show

I think that's the genius of L&O. There was always this huge ball of backstory/continuity lurking in the background, but it was always subservient to whatever case was going on that week. When characters' personal lives did get pulled it, it was usually because of some aspect of the case (Ice T's son's involvement with the gay-bashing case on SVU, for example) or because something was going on that impacted their ability to work (Van Buren's cancer arc on OG comes to mind)

although yeah, Stabler's family was the worst

I really loved that in original L&O they would just throw out continuity nods every so often, but almost always like a 1 minute scene every 5 episodes that might pay off like 3 years later, in another 1 minute scene at the very end of an episode (see: everything involving Brisco). But yeah, totally ignorable

liked this ep more than i expected (i'm p tired of the 'high-concept' stuff in general), i think precisely because characterization/"moving things forward" wasn't a big consideration here. also it's a funny way to get rid of starburns.

^^^

i'm not even a big l&o guy either

i have never consciously chosen to watch an episode of any L&O series in my entire life but i have still ambivalently marinated in that franchise enough over the past 20 years that i got/appreciated pretty much every gag

^^yeah, ditto

i feel like a robot when i say stuff like i really don't care about character development/relationships in tv shows, just jokes, but i think really it's just that what's considered character development/relationships in tv/movies is so ridiculously facile and unrealistic 99 percent of the time so i'd rather just do without it completely.

i hope starburns is actually really dead, not that i dislike the character but it would make that joke even funnier in perpetuity if he just, like, was dead now

Dino wanted off of the show, so I think he is really dead.

it seems like they're committed to it, notwithstanding flashbacks or a ghost plotline or something, although yeah hopefully they won't do anything like that and he's just gone for good

he'll always live on in our hearts... and the Dreamatorium

god, the top of my wishlist for the season finale is that it culminates with the dreamatorium being destroyed

why does some dude hate imagination?

willy wonka molested me as a child

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOxt3cMTDZE

god, the top of my wishlist for the season finale is that it culminates with the dreamatorium being destroyed

some dude gets it

i feel like a robot when i say stuff like i really don't care about character development/relationships in tv shows, just jokes

you and me both. we are both robots that just want laffs.

character development in sitcoms is best when it's an offhand show-don't-tell thing imo. Community can be very deft about it but sometimes they're about as subtle as anime characters screaming "NOW WE ARE ENEMIES, BUT BEFORE WE WERE FRIENDS, HA HA"

what is a sitcom that does character development effectively?

A current one? Maybe Suburgatory?