And Man of Steel. If you'll remember, when Supes is trying to get to his Daddy's crashed ark ship thing, what's there? The deadliest predator in the animal kingdom. And that "world engine" thing? What does that look like to you? ...the deadliest animal in the insect kingdom.
There was a major 'Series finale' vibe in the last episode of season 3. It brought the main themes of the show to a head and even ended with an expanded version of the song in the opening credits. It even glibly summed up all of the show's messages: "Doing things for other people is good. Doing things for just yourself is bad." Dan Harmon clearly intended for the show to be able to end on that episode.
You're ignoring the context of that time. Harmon was already exiting the program and a season four renewal was not certain yet when production wrapped in mid-February 2012. Likely, he decided to close up as many threads as he could in case it was the end, but still leave room for the show to continue if it did get that season fou renewal. Which it did, three months later in May, 2012.
The third season has a "You're left wanting more, but if it ends here it's a good ending." Season 4 didn't have much baggage leftover, so for its finale it was ok giving Jeff some closure and nice character development (he had that whole though about the Darkest Timeline) but still left it with "Yeah, this isn't such a bad ending."
Wow. Looks like Dan Harmon doesn't hate everything that season 4 did, he just hated that it was never followed up on. That was a good episode but not as good as the previous few. I think they tried to do too many stories at the same time. I like the way they're using Chang now.
At the bottom of the news broadcast Hickey's watching: "BREAKING NEWS: Levar Burton and non-celebrity companion captured by pirates in the Gulf of Mexico."
I'll agree to that, too much going on meant that a few of the characters were going to get sidelined, and in this case it felt like Shirley and Jeff were barely there. I loved the storyline with Britta and Abed, though maybe the idea behind their storyline was funnier than the execution: we've all been there, been spoiled by a friend so we wanted to get them back tenfold. And it was interesting they followed up with the coat check girl, that's actually one of the few episodes of Season 4 I have seen, so it was nice to see it followed up on. Quick question, though I think I already know the answer to this: Is the "gas leak" an attempt by Harmon to explain why everything was "off" last year? I can't believe I didn't catch that! Doesn't surprise me though, I missed Abed's whole background adventure with the pregnant woman in "The Psychology of Letting Go." I wonder if they're going to do a similar thing with Troy's off-screen adventure by giving us updates in every new episode this season?
I don't think it's so much that Dan Harmon liked the coat check girl, so much as he hated the way they would have Abed cross one of his core emotional barriers only to forget it ever happened the next day.
Did I miss whatever happened to Troy's thing as the messiah of air conditioning repair? That was a Harmon thing... I mean sure, Troy's gone, but last night's awesomeness seemed to be tempered by all these people who SHOULD be up on Troy's departure basically ignoring the whole issue. Mark
Troy only agreed to be their messiah if they agreed to become more like a normal school. Then he graduated. I would guess they said their goodbyes at the end of season 4.
So I finally got season 3 on DVD and watched the first three episodes. While the first two were pretty good, I think 'Remedial Chaos Theory' has to be my favorite Community episode so far. It really made me think too. We take it for granted, but at any one moment we have several options of what to do next, and any one of those decisions could result in a (as the episode showed us) wildly different outcomes.
Disappointed with the last episode, felt like a backslide to season 4 with the characters acting dumb (Bear down), unimaginative plot (Corkboard bureaucracy) and tropes done poorly (Britta spoiling Abed).
^^^^ It definitely was the weakest of the season so far. As I mentioned earlier, I didn't really care for the way Jeff was underused in this episode (Shirley didn't bother me too much, since she has always been underutilized it seems). I still think Britta and Abed's storyline was the best, not only did it have a nice callback to one of the few things that Season 4 did right (Abed connecting with a female), I still find the idea of Britta going to great lengths to spoil Abed on the tv show as humorous in theory (execution might have been lacking though). I didn't mention it before, but it was nice to see Paget Brewster return to comedy again after being a regular on Criminal Minds for so long.
It was definitely the worst episode of the season so far, but it was still better than a season 4 episode because they addressed Abed in an emotionally real way. And I definitely agree that the bear party was by far the worst part of the episode. I don't understand why they tried to tell three stories at the same time. The bulletin board bureaucracy was a great idea, but they didn't commit to it so all it turned into was a "Cascade of favors" trope (Which, BTW, they did this week in Parks & Rec too). For this episode to work, they should have made the bureaucracy story the A plot, the Brita/Abed thing the B plot, gotten other characters involved in the A plot and stylized it more.
I agree with those of you who mentioned that the Britta and Abed storyline was the best of the week. That being said I like the way Nichols has been integrated into the group