Community, the tv show

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!

Also the perceptions of the characters have changed with the power dynamics of the group. At the start, the nucleus of the group was Jeff and Britta, now it's the Troy/Abed/Annie house.

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.

Sure, and I think people also let their guards down and become their dorky selves as they get more comfortable with other people. Besides, Britta was never supposed to be brilliant: we find out in the first episode that she dropped out of high school to impress Radiohead. She admitted to being a bit flaky about her politics at the Guatemala protest. She and Jeff both became obsessed with trading childish insults with a few teenagers in s1 too.

SHMITTY!

OTM

Besides, Britta was never supposed to be brilliant: we find out in the first episode that she dropped out of high school to impress Radiohead.

You have set me up for the perfect zing but perhaps I will save it for the Mad Men thread.

lol

OK, now, this ep was pretty much straight parody. Cute and amusing, but nothing more than that. I don't mind placeholder gimmick episodes, but I hope we're a long way from the flashback to when everyone in the cast was fat.

oh god it horrifies me how much even current shows that should know better still do that

haha now I am hoping they do a "remember the anthropology project where we all had to dress up in fat suits?" flashback

actually How I Met Your Mother had a character become briefly fat in a present day narrative, which is maybe even worse, but New Girl and Raising Hope have both recently done fatsuit flashbacks

and i guess Monica on Friends is the """classic""" example

new girl goes back to the fat Schmitt well very often

but raising hope's goth flashbacks are the best. drakkar noir!

i guess Monica on Friends is the """classic""" example

They only went there about once a season iirc, and made sure those segments were rock solid jokes-wise.

once a season is too much, especially for a show that was on for like 10 years

As long as no-one is thinking of dissing Fat Mac in Sunny we're all cool.

Goth Britta: the fans demand it

Fat Mac in Sunny wasn't wearing a fat suit!

baggel (heh heh it's BEIGEL as any fule kno)

I know that you like the baggels honey

Yvette currently on some daytime chat show("Nate"?) and the show would be desperately improved by Joel McHale sitting in.

rewatching the subway episode right now. completely missed the dean's "I was just googling records lengths of stuff" the first time. this show is still on top.

So CP McKenna has a development deal at Universal, and Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan are leaving for Fox. Production team fragmenting!

that's what happens when you put a show in constant cancellation threat

Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan

Wait are these the dudes who play Fat Neil and Garrett? :( Save Garrett!!

The characters of Fat Neil and Garrett are named after Goldman and Donovan respectively.

Ahh, okay.. since Starburns was a writer I thought a few of them might be.

I would be heartbroken if Garrett left, best tertiary character IMO.

"Go kill John Lennon again, you loser!"

just watched the season-two-ending two-parter again

the selfless paint-death of magnitude is amazing