Community: Advanced Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

After the triumph of last week's episode, there is only one way to describe this episode: disapointing.  The original episode of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons is one of my favorite, if not my most favorite, episode of Community; this episode wasn't even an homage--- it was simply a pale imitation.

The original episode had real heart to it; even though the plot centered around a periphery character, "Fat" Neil, it managed to have some real emotional depth to it.  Basically, Neil stood in for every nerdy kid who was ever picked on for their nerdy habits.  In that episode, he got to be the hero. However, this 'sequel', despite being built around what should have been a more poignant concept (the relationship between Hickey and his estranged son) just felt phoned in.

More importantly, it just wasn't that funny. The original D & D episode wasn't just funny because of the stylistic homage to Lord of the Rings and other fantasy films, it had genuinely brilliant bits, like the montage of Annie, playing as "Hector the Well-Endowed" describing (in what was apparently great detail) giving Abed's 'Elf-Maiden' a night of pleasure (Donald Glover taking notes was priceless). The most this episode had to offer was more of Dean Pelton's unrequited man-crush for Jeff (which, quite frankly, has gotten a little old and, in this episode, just felt tired).

On top of that, David Cross! How can you have David Cross and be this unfunny?  He was severely underused in this episode.

Perhaps my expectations were a little too high for this one but, when you go back to the well of one of your most beloved episodes, you better be able to do something a little better than this.

Community: VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing

Another great episode! More importantly, an episode that was laugh out loud funny throughout. Dean Pelton's rap in the cold open is probably the funniest thing the show has done since the second or third season.  Once again, it is an episode of the show doing what it does best: playing with pop culture references.

However, rather than doing a genre/homage, this episodes is built around an obsolete bit of pop culture from the past: the VCR game (I'm pretty sure I had one of these as a kid--- I think I might have had the tape but not the game). These precursors to Scene It (which also appear to be going the way of the VCR) were ridiculous, overly complicated and I have yet to meet anyone who has ever successfully played one to completion; the show captures the clumsiness of both the rules and the technology perfectly. And how great was seeing Breaking Bad creator Vince Gillian obviously having a lot of fun as the prospector/narrator of the game?

This episode, once again, sees the return of the delightful Brie Larson (Alison Brie Larson for you Celebrity Game Night fans) as Abed's quirky love interest, Rachel. It's a cute coupling and she is a worthy companion for Abed on his hijinks; however, as this episode demonstrates, she will not be as accommodating as Troy which, in the long term, will be good for Abed. It will allow their relationship to be more real.  Abed's "Third Act" apology was adorable but also heartfelt.  The show has replaced a 'bromance' with an actual romance.

The B-plot involving the 'stolen' textbooks was less interesting, however, Jonathan Banks' presence and Chang's taped 'confession' (not to mention Vince Gilligan's appearance elsewhere in the episode) can't help but bring to mind Breaking Bad, with Shirley filling the Walter White shoes.

As I had predicted, it looks like Harmon & Co. have saved the best episodes for the tail end of the season (as they usually do).  Next week is a callback to one of my all-time favorite episodes, "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons".  Here's hoping it doesn't disappoint!

Community: App Developments and Condiments

Now THIS is the kind of thing I've been waiting for since Dan Harmon returned; a high concept episode that is both a satire of pop culture trends and an homage to a classic film genre.  This is the kind of thing Community does best.

In this episode, an app similar to Yelp called MeowMeowBeenz, which allows students to rate other students and teachers, in grand community fashion, quickly escalates to a dystopian society that brings to mind 1984 but, most likely, draws its inspiration from Logan's Run (I really need to get around to watching this movie).  Perhaps, as a college writing instructor, I found the idea of the worth of anything being stripped down to clear, quantifiable data particular poignant to my current situation.

Most importantly, this episode was truly funny; I think it might be the only episode to have me laughing out loud throughout.  Jonathan Banks' reaction to the concept of MeowMeowBeenz is probably the best thing that has happened this season.

Sure, it's a far cry from the show's finest episodes but, still, it is a reminder of what the show can still do when it's used properly.

Community: Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality

Last night's episode was another example of a solid, if not remarkable, episode.  The show continues to delve deeper into developing its characters (something Harmon is much better at than his substitutes from last season) and, while I appreciate character growth as much as the next guy, I just don't feel the show manages to be as funny as it used to be. 

Is this just an adjustment to the loss of the comedic genius that was Donald Glover? Perhaps.  The writers had made it common practice to end scenes by simply writing, "and then Donald does something funny."   Which leads me to another problem that stems from Troy's absence:  what do we do with Abed?  It seems the answer is to try pairing him up with other cast mates to serve as his foil.

In this episode, it was Jonathan Bank's Professor Buzz Hickey.  After Abed destroys some of his prized duck cartoons, Hickey chains him to a file cabinet so that he will miss a screen of the Kick-Puncher reboot.  The scenario ultimately leads to us seeing a softer side of the grizzled Hickey and an unlikely bonding (predicted by Abed earlier in the episode) between the mismatched pair.  Predictable? Maybe. But, then again, hasn't that always been at the heart of Community?

I have long questioned whether or not Community should be excused for its use of cliche since it is often the first to call itself out for its own use of cliches; the show has always been about deconstructing popular tropes and, since it is a sit-com, the tropes most commonly addressed are those associated with the sit-com.

The show has always toyed with the "will they/won't they" dynamic of the Jeff/Britta relationship and, while that has been on the sidelines for the last couple of seasons, this episode managed to both rekindle that relationship as well as begin to explore, for the first time really, the friendship between Jeff Winger and John Oliver's Professor Ian Duncan (a friendship that we have known about since the very first episode).  Does this mean that Oliver will now become a more integral member of the cast? If so, I'm all for it.

How these latest developments will play out remains to be seen but, thus far, this season has failed to impress me.  At the same time, it hasn't exactly been bad either; here's to hoping that, as usual, they're saving the best material for this season's home stretch.

Community: Chairs and Lava

Tonight's episode was an attempt a former glories--- elements of "Modern Warfare" (aka 'Paintball) and "Pillows and Blankets" were both fused together to create a spoof of post-apocalyptic epics like Mad Max, Book of Eli, and The Hunger Games. Abed sets the apocalypse in motion by setting up an epic game of  "The Floor is Lava", complete with "new names" for things (centipeding is working in teams to move chairs around to avoid touching the floor) and various factions ("The Locker Boys", a group of punks who avoid touching the floor by hiding in lockers and ambushing those who happen to pass by, are, of course, led by Chang--- while Shirley has created a sort of 'oasis' by building a fort out of chairs and tables for weary travelers).

You have to give the show credit for not recalling previous episodes without out-and-out repeating them.  At the same time, this episode doesn't work quite as well. Much of this is do to the fact that it feels far to early in the season for an episode like this; we're not even quite halfway through the season yet and concept episodes like this either work best as either the finale or the penultimate episode for the season. However, this was unavoidable as Donald Glover's departure forced their hand.

The emotional core of the episode is separation of everyone's favorite bromance: Troy and Abed. Honestly, it doesn't seem to have the emotional heft that it should have at this point. Once again, while I feel that this season has been spot-on with its genre/concept episodes in terms of look, feel, and pacing, this episode feels lacking in substance to me.

I also can't buy Professor Hickey's all-in approach to the game; maybe I'm just too used to Jonathan Banks as the no-nonsense Mike on Breaking Bad but I just couldn't quite suspend my disbelief for that one.  That's not to say that if I had been given a few more episodes to get to know the character that it could have become more plausible but, based on what we've seen of the character thus far, it just felt a little too silly for me.

Again, it was not a bad episode--- it was merely a competent one; I still chuckled at "Troy and Abed in a Bubble!" and the credits big with Troy and Levar Burton was adorable, but I have come to expect better from Harmon and company.  I had hoped that they would rise above the mediocrity of last season but, thus far, they are only matching it. 

Community: PIERCing goodbyes....

"We're doing a bottle episode", Tonight's episode recalled the classic "Cooperative Calligraphy" bottle episode, in fact--- it so matched the claustrophobic format of that episode that it is almost remiss that Abed did not make some sort of meta-textual observation about its repetitiveness. Pierce makes one last attempt at emotional manipulation from beyond the grave and, ultimately, a final attempt at making amends as only Pierce could--- on Jeff's sexuality, they will just have to "agree to disagree".

Still, the final bequeathments were both sweet but still laced with the show's trademark humor; Annie's tiara was once worn by Pierce as a child because his mother wanted a girl and each member, in addition to their personalized inheritance, is left a sample of Hawhorne's own freeze-dried sperm (I'll admit... the first one was funny, the second one less so... but when he left them to the male group members as well, I was cracking up).

It should also be noted that Pierce expresses a bit of a grudge towards Abed, the one group member not extended any sort of post-houmous olive branch, and states that he never understood anything he said.  This is because, more than any other character, Abed represents the meta-textual nature of the show something that, in real life, was much of the conflict with Chevy Chase who never understood the concept of reference humor (Based on the commentary, he was much happier doing good old fashioned physical comedy).

Was tonight's episode great? Not by any means, but it was an all around solid episode and, in Pierce's departure, it has laid the groundwork for Troy's (Donald Glover) departure from the show. I'm not blown away yet, but here's hoping that Harmon and Co. are just warming up 

UPDATE: Thanks to my following of community on Facebook, this was brought to my attention:

 Nice!

Community Thriller doesn't thrill....

And so we have the first genre homage/parody since Dan Harmon's return--- this time, it is of the thriller/suspense/true-crime genre.  And, to be honest, it falls a little flat. To its credit, the imitation is spot-on; it hits all the right beats and plays off of all the tropes of the genre but, at the end of the day, Community is a comedy and the jokes themselves fall flat.

Whenever a show has a unique voice, part of that show's appeal is its ability to surprise us, to catch us off guard.  Any show, after a number of years, just isn't going to seem as fresh as it once did.  Still, this particular episode seems like a wasted opportunity.  Abed and Troy, two of the most dependable characters for breathing an air of authenticity to these types of episodes, barely appear.  The focus is, instead, shifted to Jeff and Annie and the episode uses the opportunity for a bit of meta-textual commentary on the nature of their relationship.

It terms of the overall plot of the series, the episode is serviceable but, on a line by line basis, it could have been a lot better.  The best joke in the episode is a direct rip from 30 Rock (Jeff's comment about liking Dave Matthews because he was alive in the 90's and had "two ears connected to a heart" is almost a direct quote of Jack in an episode of 30 Rock only in regards to the great Phil Collins. In fact, the joke was even funnier on 30 Rock because it was Tracey Jordan who wanted to make a mix CD for Jack containing Phil Collins....).  I think the gag with Abed as the slightly-autistic-detective-who-is-a-genius could have been played for a bit more than it was. After all, it may be an overused concept within the genre but it is for that very reason that it needs to be used here.

At least on a conceptual level, this is far better than anything that was attempted last season, yet it doesn't quite match up to the best genre homage/parodies of the previous seasons. 

Community Returns

Dan Harmon is back! Although, based on last night's two-episode premiere, you can't exactly say he's back with a vengeance. However, that's not all bad.  As Abed points out, re-piloting is hard and that is very much what these episodes were.  Not only is Harmon back after taking the 4th season off but, with the departure of Chevy Chase and the impending departure of Donald Glover, there is a significant shift in terms of the cast this season, not to mention having to explain why the whole crew is returning to Greendale for a fifth year (Jeff becomes a teacher --- an obvious solution but one that the show kicks itself for; with Community I've never been sure if I should be forgiving when it falls into Sit-com cliches just because it calls itself out on those cliches --- everyone else re-enrolls, having failed in their lives since graduation). So, Harmon couldn't get too wild just yet; he has to establish the new status quo.  He can't come blasting out the door with another paintball episode.

There are some encouraging signs for the new seasons though: Abed's descent into madness in trying to answer the seemingly simple question, "Nicholas Cage: Bad or Good" is the kind of pop-culture commentary that Dan Harmon was so good at that the season 4 writers just couldn't seem to pull off. Also, there's Jonathan Banks who is, ostensibly, taking Chevy Chase's role in the cast (he is reportedly appearing in 11 of 13 episodes this season).  He could have very easily been used as a one-time gag but Harmon manages to give the character some depth and open up the opportunities for further exploring his relationships with the other characters.

So, while nothing too exciting has happened yet, I am hopeful that the series has bit of life in it yet and, while I'm sure there will be a few clunkers, perhaps we can get a few more genius episodes like, "Paradigms of Human Memory", "Digital Estate Planning", "Contemporary American Poultry", "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons", "Critical Film Studies" or, maybe, even another "Modern Warfare" (that's the paintball one).