Community Wrapup

This is a guest post brought to you by Joe. Check out his blogs On Repeat and Pizza Prospects.


By far the show I was most fond of this season, or maybe any season ever (1), was NBC’s underdog/fanart-stimulator/Soup -host-vehicle/Channel 101-mastermind-masterminded/community-college-set Community. In 09-10, while most people were getting too-involved with the conclusion of Lost (2), I was trying to figure out how to make .gif files so I could join in all the fun people were having with the Community ensemble on Tumblr and Livejournal (3). Speaking really broadly: I liked the show a lot and I think it worked on a whole lot of levels.

(More specific now!) The show sometimes gave me butterflies and I think its first season excelled because it featured: a great ensemble led by a fairly-recognizable anti-Seacrest who is able to make my DAD laugh; an exaggerated but accurate portrayal of a few aspects of college that haven’t yet been beaten into a desk (classroom puns!); inter-character chemistry that became a shipper’s dream; fans that (I think probably) mostly experienced and expressed love for the show on the web; the Dan Harmon that listened to those fans; and Alison Brie.

A laundry list of stray observations that are related to most of the laundry-listed reasons above, written both now and over the course of the season:

Nailing “It”

Community has, in perfect, realistic amounts, been nailing aspects of college that nothing else has nailed. Last week (episode 121, "Contemporary American Poultry,") it was chicken fingers... or rather the fetishization of edible cafeteria food. This week (episode 122, "The Art of Discourse,") it goes a step further/deeper and examines the inner-clique tensions that rise towards the end of the school term. I don't know about you but when the semester starts reaching its end, I notice, plainly, people getting sick of each other. I'm obviously not exempt. And in that same episode, Community acknowledged that a lot of times you have to stoop down to the level of annoying high schoolers and how hard that can be. “You have to bang his mom!” Britta Perry exclaims.

Abed

I like that the writers don't overdo it with Abed. I think Abed is two things: a TV character with Asperger's and great meta-commentary on how everyone wishes their life was more like a TV show and will go to distant ends to make that a reality. It would have been really easy to: have the entire character (and maybe even entire show) revolve around the fact of Abed's Asperger's... the entire show would devolve into jokes about his "social awkwardness" (in most college lecture halls and conversations, being "socially awkward" is considered a disease unto its own) and Abed's storylines would be centered around trying to get him to assimilate into, like, normal society or whatever, and the lessons it would teach would be "it's OK to be different!" (Which it is, and I don't have a problem with that being "a lesson that is often taught," but it would get tired.) Also it would be really easy to have each episode be some amalgam of sitcom tropes and Abed would sort of ground the whole thing by calling everyone out on it. This is something the show does do a lot but not to excess. Abed isn't a crutch the show leans on... he really is like some kind of commentator keeping each character in check. In that way he works to the show's total advantage. Just as the audience is catching on, saying to each other "Hey this is just a riff on _________," Abed steps in and calls everyone out on it.

Comedic “Synergy”

Sometime midseason, Community hit on a new weirdness that utilized actors’ ability to do physical comedy and tempered that with their great dialogue/chemistry. I think it created comedic “synergy” that carried it through the rest of the season. Moments like Britta being hit with a switch by Troy’s grandma didn’t make viewers uncomfortable like they probably should have.  We were just delighted that Troy and Britta were getting an episode together and it was working out nicely.

______/______

And in keeping with that _____/______ episode thing, here is a listicle of different combo episodes in order of how well they worked, least to most. Actually they all worked surprisingly well and without feeling forced. What do we owe that to? Dan Harmon seems like a really great guy to work for, for one. Also, none of these people were exactly stars going into the show. Alison and Joel and Yvette have shows on now that reach a medium sized but demographically particular audience (4). Chevy Chase, probably the biggest “star” of the lot, hasn’t had a big role in years though was likely responsible, along with Joel, for a bulk of the shows early viewers. I doubt there was much ego-butting on set.  Judging by their Twitter feeds, the cast seems to be an actual community that gets together pretty often.


-Troy/Abed episodes *

-Jeff/Britta episodes

-Jeff/Annie episodes *

-Jeff/Shirley episodes **

-Jeff/Pierce episodes

-Jeff/Abed episodes

-Britta/Troy episodes

-Britta/Shirley/Annie episodes

-Britta/Shirley episodes

-I think one or two Annie/Abed episodes

-Pierce/Shirley episodes (or maybe just one of those.)

-Pierce/Britta episodes

-Troy/Pierce episodes


Without drawing a chart for you, I think you can gather that these characters all shared functional, laugh-inducing/memorable screen time with each other.

Is this really what you want?

Because of a vocal web, creator Dan Harmon was really in tune with what people wanted out of the show, for better or for worse. Case in point: Jeff and Annie. Up until the debate episode, I thought I was a Jeff/Annie loner (I had yet to really explore the concept of “shipping” but I was a kind of quiet shipper.) Actually, I’m having trouble stringing together dates here. At the start of the season, things were clearly going to be Jeff/Britta. Then, either before or after Debate, I don’t really recall, people started becoming more vocal about Jeff/Annie. This may be post-debate, actually, because I don’t think people really knew what they wanted until they got it. So Harmon teased that nothing was really written in stone and that since people seemed to be into Jeff/Annie, Jeff/Annie might be what we get. Things kind of cooled off for the middle of the season, which was a totally smart move. I’m really glad the writers didn’t get couple-happy; chemistry was milked, slowly. And then, just when things were starting to turn out Jeff/Britta and I was kind of cool with it, we are given Jeff/Annie in the finale. A finale that gave us a little bit of everything, actually. It was definitely a reward for dedicated fans, especially because it was written before NBC ordered more episodes and a second season, and it made my stomach turn with apprehensive “glee” (5). Although it’s thrilling that a well-loved show like Community would recognize those that love it, to me it didn’t really feel like the writers’ finale, didn’t really feel “true.” However, I’ll reiterate: I’m fucking thrillllllled we got to see Alison Brie and Joel McHale make out again. I’ll be back for more.



Footnotes:

1.    Have really avoided getting too attached to a TV show until this season, season 5 of “Lost” aside. However, I have grown too attached to TV shows through DVD rewatches: Veronica Mars, Arrested Development, Radio Free Roscoe etc.

2.    Which I watched, and was often thrilled with, somehow managing to only go on Lostpedia once or twice.

3.    I’m not exactly well-versed in sitcom fandom on the web but it seems like Community has attracted a lot of fans that have shipped and .gif’d at an above average level.

4.    Those willing to subject themselves to the “wow, those sets and their behavior and outfits are really period appropriate!”-borefest that is Mad Men, people willing to get past the contradiction that is a comedian making fresh fun of celebrities on the E network (a contradiction that Joel would be the first person to point out,) and fans of Nickelodeon’s Drake and Josh, respectively.

5.    Glee became a really great in-joke on Harmon’s Twitter feed and in bits of dialogue. You’re pretty much in one camp or the other when it comes to shows about schools filled with
“loveable misfits.”