Ongoing Community Discussion Thread

[bigdaddy]

We have 9 less episodes this season, so they better get into it rather quickly.

Next week is the Halloween episode, we are also getting a Thanksgiving, Christmas, and ironically I think a Valentine's day one. So a quater of the season takes place on holiday episodes.

[JirinPanthosa]

TheGodBen wrote:

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I think you're being overly reverential to Harmon's Community. The best gags are the ones you mention, and they're the ones that fans remember most, but it also had a lot of standard jokes and random quirkiness.

The episode was fine. It was a fairly average episode of Community. If the rest of the season is like this then I'll be a little disappointed, but I know that Community often takes a few episodes to get going each season so I'm just going to sit back and see what happens.

Maybe, but here's a list of the most memorable Community episodes, to me:

1. Paintball 1&2
2. D&D
3. Alternate realities
4. 8 bit video game
5. Abed's claymation Christmas
6. Musical
7. Air conditioning repair showdown
8. Pierce is in the hospital and gives everyone gifts
9. Blanket fort
10. Abed is god movie

All episodes without a B plot, which took a crazy premise and just committed to it.

I'm very worried now this season is not going to commit to a premise like that, and is just going to play it safe with a lot of A&B plot episodes, which get the characters exactly right but are boring.

[Kitty Worrier]

bigdaddy wrote:

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Maybe for the few Chase will not be in.

Or maybe Abed will go to his happy place again. Though it would be cool if the brought him back to replace Chase for real.

As for the episode, it had it's moments. I did like the happy place stuff, especially the "babies" part.

[Admiral_Young]

I enjoyed the first episode off the bat. Nothing really awesome about it...as others have said it was a pretty average episode, some funny moments, seeding of the seasons possible theme, etc. Britta and Troy have progressed faster than I thought...and I liked Jeff's meta comment about it. Gillian Jacobs looks hotter than she has been on the series. Annie rethinking her career path was interesting. Abed TV was pretty cool. Chevy really does seem bored with Pierce at this point. Fred Willard was great as "alternate Pierce".

[TheGodBen]

JirinPanthosa wrote:

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Maybe, but here's a list of the most memorable Community episodes, to me:

1. Paintball 1&2
2. D&D
3. Alternate realities
4. 8 bit video game
5. Abed's claymation Christmas
6. Musical
7. Air conditioning repair showdown
8. Pierce is in the hospital and gives everyone gifts
9. Blanket fort
10. Abed is god movie

All episodes without a B plot, which took a crazy premise and just committed to it.

I'm very worried now this season is not going to commit to a premise like that, and is just going to play it safe with a lot of A&B plot episodes, which get the characters exactly right but are boring.

I understand your concern, I just don't think we can extrapolate too much from this one episode. Community has had plenty of episodes with b-plots in the past, and even a few with c-plots. Hell, the first blanket fort story was a b-plot. No season of Community has started out with a special episode like Advanced Dungeons and Dragons or Remedial Chaos Theory, so I wasn't expecting season 4 to be any different. If the show doesn't do those kinds of episodes and sticks to the format presented here then I'll be disappointed with the change in direction, but I don't feel we're in a position to judge that right now.

What I came away from the premiere with was the feeling that the new showrunners understood the characters, they understood the somewhat cartoony nature of Greendale, and that they understood the concerns the audience have. They're trying to keep Community Community, and while it probably can't be exactly the same as it was, I think the premiere was a commendable effort.

[Nerys Myk]

I'm sure this has been mentioned before, but aren't community colleges two year institutions that give out AA degrees? I know the ones where I grew up were. Not that you couldn't attend longer, I know people who did stretch out their AA program to four years or more. Silly to bring it up about a TV show, especially one like Community but my inner pedant flares up when they talk about being Seniors or fourth years.

I agree that the season premier was okay, but not the show at its best.

[FFunctionalData]

Nerys Myk wrote:

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I'm sure this has been mentioned before, but aren't community colleges two year institutions that give out AA degrees? I know the ones where I grew up were. Not that you couldn't attend longer, I know people who did stretch out their AA program to four years or more. Silly to bring it up about a TV show, especially one like Community but my inner pedant flares up when they talk about being Seniors or fourth years.

I agree that the season premier was okay, but not the show at its best.

no some give out bachelor degrees.

[The Borgified Corpse]

I would just like to point out a personal milestone for me. This is the very first time in the show's history that I've been completely caught up with it. (I'd been lagging way behind on DVDs just prior to this.)

I agree that the show felt like it was trying really hard to be Harmon-esque without being nearly as funny. And considering the show is often criticized for being too inaccessible, I was surprised that they didn't really pull back on the show's weirdness at all. And while there were a lot of really funny situations that they set up, hardly any of them seemed to really connect. The "Hunger Games" competitions were barely seen after they introduced the idea. And while Abed's sitcom & cartoon fantasies were suitably weird, there wasn't really anything funny about them beyond the premise itself. Here's hoping the new writers find their grove soon.

My favorite line from the episode would be at the end when Dean Pelton mentioned that someone moved his stapler.

And I would like to speak somewhat in defense of Chevy Chase. While his backstage behavior seems pretty dickish and Pierce tends to be the least funny character on the show, I think Chase has always acquitted himself admirably with his onscreen performance. To the extent that Pierce has despicable qualities, I believe those are the inventions of the writers rather than the actor.

FFunctionalData wrote:

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no some give out bachelor degrees.

I certainly understand what Nerys Myk is talking about. Here in Arizona, Community Colleges only do 2 year degrees, except in a few specialized trades like nursing, construction, & firefighting. It bugs me a bit too but the show is funny enough that I don't really give it much thought.

But not only have the fans mentioned this before, but they even mentioned it on the show once in Season 3. In "Curriculum Unavailable," the incongruity of a Community College giving out 4-year degrees was used as evidence that Greendale isn't real and they're all just in a mental institution.

[Warp Coil]

Just finished watching the season premiere. It was decidedly average. Nothing wrong, just not really great, either. Let's see how episode 2 goes.

[tighr]

The Borgified Corpse wrote:

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But not only have the fans mentioned this before, but they even mentioned it on the show once in Season 3. In "Curriculum Unavailable," the incongruity of a Community College giving out 4-year degrees was used as evidence that Greendale isn't real and they're all just in a mental institution.

That's the point... it's self-referential.

[JirinPanthosa]

Nerys Myk wrote:

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I'm sure this has been mentioned before, but aren't community colleges two year institutions that give out AA degrees? I know the ones where I grew up were. Not that you couldn't attend longer, I know people who did stretch out their AA program to four years or more. Silly to bring it up about a TV show, especially one like Community but my inner pedant flares up when they talk about being Seniors or fourth years.

I agree that the season premier was okay, but not the show at its best.

Yeah, and That 70's Show started in 1976, and eight years later it was still the 70's. It's a TV show.

[bigdaddy]

JirinPanthosa wrote:

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Yeah, and That 70's Show started in 1976, and eight years later it was still the 70's. It's a TV show.

And once again.... one word...

MASH

I'm pretty sure that even Mash had more than a few Christmas themed shows, and yet after 11-12 seasons it was still only three years.

[The Borgified Corpse]

There was one guy here a while back who actually came up with his own M*A*S*H timeline that explained how those multiple Christmas episodes were really just 2 Christmases.

[Chris_Johnston]

JirinPanthosa wrote:

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Maybe, but here's a list of the most memorable Community episodes, to me:

1. Paintball 1&2
2. D&D
3. Alternate realities
4. 8 bit video game
5. Abed's claymation Christmas
6. Musical
7. Air conditioning repair showdown
8. Pierce is in the hospital and gives everyone gifts
9. Blanket fort
10. Abed is god movie

What about the Goodfellas and Law & Order parodies?

[Nerys Myk]

bigdaddy wrote:

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And once again.... one word...

MASH

I'm pretty sure that even Mash had more than a few Christmas themed shows, and yet after 11-12 seasons it was still only three years.

Unlike those shows, Community actually references that it has been four years since they started attending Greendale.