Community, the tv show

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?

for a period I woulda said parks & rec.

it kind of goes hand in hand with my show-don't-tell point that a lot of my favorite shows ended up with really three dimensional characters that evolved over time but i wouldn't really point to them and say WOW THEY REALLY DEVELOPED THE FUCK OUTTA THAT CHARACTER

sorry for whiney-style capslock overkill btw

Don't worry, you shook it off.

I think Troy, Abed, and Annie have generally been developed really effectively, sometimes subtly! They've all grown considerably from s1.

but in sitcoms there's always a very fine line between actual 'character development' and just altering the characters' traits for whatever reason ie writers lose track of the character, start to play to what the audience likes, start to play to what they like, just screwing around with things bc it works for the plot. i'm not convinced community isn't still mostly in the latter half. which is fine -- even the simpsons altered homer's character throughout the first four or five seasons for no meaningful reason. would never call that character development tho

I think Troy, Abed, and Annie have generally been developed really effectively, sometimes subtly! They've all grown considerably from s1.

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Tuesday, May 1, 2012 2:40 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark

oh i agree with this (Abed regression aside), i don't think what i said contradicts it at all.

No, I wasn't directing that at you, sd (and we agree about Abed in this season).

aight

In addition to Community and Parks and Recreation (to an extent), I'd say How I Met Your Mother is a decent example of a current sitcom that's good at character development. Sometimes the very point of a sitcom, though, is how completely it avoids developing characters (e.g. the relatively static universe of 30 Rock, or the Peep Show characters who never seem to learn or grow no matter how much their lives change).

(I assume we're using "development" to mean "growing/changing over time" here, as opposed to "fleshing out a believable, three-dimensional character". A lot of overlap there, but they're definitely different aspects of character construction.)

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

― flopson, Tuesday, May 1, 2012 12:36 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thought it would actually be kind of funny if he was just in the next episode with no explanation.

thought it would actually be kind of funny if he was just in the next episode with no explanation.

Ha, that would be a true shark jump.

in sitcoms there's always a very fine line between actual 'character development' and just altering the characters' traits for whatever reason ie writers lose track of the character, start to play to what the audience likes, start to play to what they like, just screwing around with things bc it works for the plot. i'm not convinced community isn't still mostly in the latter half.

Hm, well, you're right about Pierce and Chang but I see it differently with most of the core group and this is a big part of why I like the show. (It's also why I get so dismayed when the writers do certain things with Abed's character that probably bother other people much less). Troy, Abed, and Annie were the three main characters who began the series as awkward teenagers, straight out of high school, and all three have shown appreciable growth imo. In fact, I think the show is remarkable for being so patently surreal while also showing surprisingly believable development in these characters. Troy was still wearing his varsity jacket in the pilot, forcing a tough exterior, e.g. threatening Jeff, but it soon became clear that he was uncomfortable in that role. Through the series, he has been increasingly coming to terms with his sensitivity and imagination, largely via his friendship with Abed but also through e.g. dance lessons. Despite his initial machismo, he was actually fairly awkward with women, so the gradual flirtation preceded by actual friendship with Britta, an older woman who is probably far removed from the sorts of girls he would have tried to date in high school, is an important step.

Annie began as a prudish, inexperienced girl with low self-esteem, recovering from a pill addiction, still infatuated with her high school's quarterback. The debate episode was a key turning point for her. She has become increasingly confident and self-aware in her sexuality to the point where she deliberately uses it to manipulate Jeff. Her self-realization about Jeff in the dreamatorium was another turning point.

Abed also began with less self-esteem, almost subservient to Jeff in some early episodes, a bit desperate and friendless. Through coming to terms with his family issues and his friendship with Troy, he sometimes takes on a leadership role now, e.g. in the s3 Christmas episode and in the dreamatorium.

ON THE OTHER HAND, Britta went from smart and confident, matching wits with Jeff, to a the butt of everyone's jokes. I know Harmon says on the season 1 commentary that his friends didn't like her character early on, so he tried to make her self-seriousness into her humanizing flaw ("the idea that you compulsively filter yourself makes your lack of flavor kind of a flavor"), but in season 3 she's been a slapstick dumb blonde liberal straw man joke. I guess he figures America likes stupid pretty things? I mean, she's "developed" in that she has a major now, but they just play on her being bad at everything and it bums me out because because early on I found her the most relatable.

Also, I feel like Jeff's gone back and forth between selfishness and opening himself up to love repeatedly. I mean, he starts the Jack Black episode in Season 1 by mocking how shallow he used to be, but then he still has to have this breakthrough that he loves everybody a year later. I guess backsliding is a real part of being a flawed human being, but I feel like this show is closer to being a sitcom that returns to something like default every week than it is to showing us 7 friends each realizing their potential together. I mean, they're all supposedly psychotic now, except for the increasingly difficult kid with aspergers

Troy, Abed, and Annie were the three main characters who began the series as awkward teenagers, straight out of high school, and all three have shown appreciable growth imo.

Abed is older than the others, probably mid-20s now. (They've avoided nailing it down deliberately.)

really i have no problem with any of the changes any of the characters have made over the course of the series that don't involve turning into Screech

eh, shit happens. sam malone grew stupider after the first season or two of cheers, because that's where the laughs were, i guess. i don't care *too* much about character consistency if there are laughs.

britta at least means well, in theory.

i know it's a meta thing that they, particularly winger, must receive lessons about human empathy and such (see also michael bluth re: family), but i could honestly do without that part.

i'm like nick, i just don't give a shit about any of this character stuff. or maybe it's working quasi-sublimity and i appreciate the "ground" of the characters' more-or-less consistent personality traits against which the extended gags and narrative punchlines work.

character DEVELOPMENT stuff i should say

Britta is very relatable, I think.

Britta is the main reason I still watch this show.

@sund4r: yeah, i wasn't talking about chang and pierce, i was talking about the examples you're giving. where you see character development, i'm just seeing the writers altering the characters to their liking and abandoning original character points that weren't working out. the thing with troy's jacket has more to do with the fact that troy being abed's pop culture buddy has more value/humor than troy being the indecisive football player. and harmon even said that abed's character went through changes once people said he was on the spectrum, which harmon apparently knew nothing about -- that's a completely different approach to the character starting in the middle of the series. which results in the whole dreamatorium character inconsistency ilx debacle (never 4get)

again, i don't have a problem with any of this, it's just overstating things to act like it was all masterfully planned out as opposed to being like every other sitcom. honestly it's a 21 minute show and 20 of those minutes are spent on jokes and references and micro plot progression. it's not really built for real 'development' or character study or w/e

britta is a much more lovable, funnier character now than she was as a boilerplate girl nag, though i do kind of think they may have tossed the lever too far in one direction. for instance, i LOVED that amazingly stupid "me so hungy!" song when she was high during the multiple realities episode, but maybe they had taken her brokenness maybe too far...

I thought the worst Britta moment was in the model UN episode.

She's funny sometimes now but Fellini is right about her and Jeff's characters. Honestly, if the writers are so cavalier with Chang and Pierce, it might be a bit silly for me to claim that they're also being really sensitive and subtle about developing a few of the other characters at the same time. So zachlyon may well be right.

(Still, Jeff made the "Asperger's" comment in the first episode. How could Harmon not have known about it?)

Britta's character development makes sense to me because when you start hanging out with people they seem cool and awesome and totally switched on and you only start noticing that maybe they aren't that way at all after you've been hanging out for ages.

true!