Community, the tv show

Well Britta directly chose Inspector Spacetime because of it's overwhelming amount of episodes, following the bleak ending of Cougarton Abbey after only six episodes. So that there was 50 years of them should probably be the only thing she knew.

It depends on the context. It could make sense in e.g. the context of "Wow, this is stupid. They made 50 years' worth of these, huh?"

I can see this episode is going to require line-by-line close reading. Maybe we should tweet Gillian Jacobs and get her perspective.

U&K

not terrible so far i give it an 8.1025 let's see if minutes 9 through 22 can keep it above panic level pink

Is it better than "Loveless"?

I think that even if I hadn't read 2 or 3 articles that had told me I wouldn't enjoy it I still wouldn't have enjoyed it. Of course, there have been past episodes I didn't like very much for similar reasons. I'm not giving up just yet.

I thought it was fine. I get the feeling people/critics are wanting this to fail (and in a way, it already has, given the sets being struck and all).

How does it stack up compared to previous season openers, bearing in mind that they previously haven't been very good either?

i thought it was imperfect but still plenty funny.

"our student records are stored in a microsoft paint file."

I get the feeling people/critics are wanting this to fail

Fwiw I'm more invested in a Community that continues to be funny than I am in Dan Harmon claiming a pyrrhic victory really. I want it to succeed, at least on a qualitative level.

nah this was rly weak, felt like a cover version of a song that fails to either understand what makes the song work or put an interesting reinterpretation on it

even though it was (credited as)* written and directed by returning ppl. same editors?

chuckled three times


*Sepinwall's interview with Guarascio & Port makes it clear what a huge hand they had in shaping the "new version"

I actually enjoyed this!

I thought it was ok. Definitely not as good as Harmon-era, but good enough to still be one of the ok'est sitcoms on tv. Which is fine by me, at this point.

There were many terrible episodes in s3 that tried way too hard or did dumb things with the characters. I actually thought this was better than those. Some of the humour and writing did seem more similar to other regular sitcoms, which I enjoyed because those shows make me laugh.

this was pretty funny IMO

It was good, if a little forced. The Community Babies bit was great, though.

i stole their balls while they were Incepting

this feels kind of like when you see actors from the Wire on Criminal Minds or Flashforward.

This wasn't actually any worse than the start of S2 or S3, and I actually thought the lol-sitcom bits were kind of clever. Weird to see an opening episode of Community openly pitching to committed fans rather than noobs. Although I was really hoping that if the new showrunners were going to throw one element of old Community old of the window it would be fugue state Abed.

Complete waste of a Hunger Games parody though, although Jeff and the Dean living next door to one another has potential.

I thought that was the perfect usage of a Hunger Games parody; any more would have been an SNL skit

i didn't think it was that great but i don't know if the problem was with the show or because i'd read this thread/knew about the harmon situation and everything : /

not funny

it felt weird. kinda the same, but...weird. like invasion of the bodysnatchers

not horrible, but not promising

s3 was already a little thinner and more inane than s2 so in a sense tossing harmon just makes a trajectory that was always likely even moreso. only episode one but i'll be pretty shocked if there's an interesting emotional arc anytime soon

The "Ring girl" joke from next week looked funny when I saw it, but...now I've already seen it.

"can it, ham"

shut this off after like halfway through. it wasn't bad but I think I'm just kinda over this show? the fan pandering last season was bad enough.

man

I usually don't post in this thread but I've got to say that was the worst episode they've done yet. Just... so much of so many things that the show just doesn't need.

written by megan ganz

so I guess things won't be okay after all

something felt really off about the direction too, or the post-production--or whatever process they put shows through to make them not terrible

and when Pierce inverted the Chang line from last season about fire and ghosts, it felt so pointless

I was going to come here to defend the episode but I can't actually remember a particularly funny or affecting bit.:P

Britta and Jeff's whole "Are you?" "Did he?" run was ok, but other than that...

I quite enjoyed this actually, although I didn't really laugh. It's weird in that there doesn't seem to be any major change in approach but the lines just aren't as funny and the characters feel like they're impersonating themselves.

Everything with Jeff's dad was great and Shirley's reaction to the sex room killed me

My biggest problem was that parts of the episode felt rushed, to the point where I sometimes felt like the actors were rushing through their dialogue and I had a difficult time understanding them.

Av club otm:

The show seems to lean more on “like-a-jokes” now, jokes that sound like jokes and have the rhythm of jokes and are delivered like jokes, but aren’t actually funny. This tends to happen on older sitcoms, which lean heavily on things they already know the actors are good at.

Shirley's reaction to the S&M room was probably my favourite bit. Also Britta still does 'dorky' exceptionally well. Like I don't think this episode was a disaster by any standards.

yeah i liked it. I mean, it was a Britta A+ alone

to me i was only annoyed that this was a Halloween episode delayed for four months

Troys happy-face on the swing was the highlight in my opinion. I also liked the stuff about Do the Right Thing, though I didn't get it till the avclub pointed it out. Other than that it was middling. I mean, it's not disastrous, and I'm not 'over it'. But if this was a new show I probably wouldn't bother. As it is, I actually wanna know about fathers and halfbrothers and stuff like that, so I'll continue watching.

I quite enjoyed this actually, although I didn't really laugh. It's weird in that there doesn't seem to be any major change in approach but the lines just aren't as funny and the characters feel like they're impersonating themselves.

― Matt DC, Saturday, February 16, 2013 12:00 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That last point is OTM. The first thing I thought of was what Richard Pryor said about post-burn work, that he felt like he was doing an impression of Richard Pryor.

I still don't think this is that much worse than the first few episodes of S3, which were really bad.

^^oh yeah, I agree. I didn't hate the premiere, to be honest

where i'm at too, basically

2nd episode of ssn 3 was much funnier than this

I'll rep for eps 2-10 (maybe 11) of s3.

And, actually, the remainder of s3 except "Contemporary Impressionists", "Virtual Systems Analysis", and everything that happened after Starburns died and Chang took over the school. (Might make an exception for "Digital Estate Planning".)

I did laugh at Annie's "can't appreciate the homage/I hate reference humour" comments. I enjoyed these two episodes well enough when they were on, in the way that I would appreciate a sitcom that I would never care to rewatch or think about again.