Community

Now we'll here from the people who thought this episode was bad.

I didn't think it was bad.

I do agree with the people who think that retconning it so they were secretly fated to be together violates the whole damn theme of the show, sure, but I didn't think it was bad.

I thought it was mediocre. The laughs / 22 minutes just aren't there, and haven't been for most of the season.

If this season was a brand new show, even with this cast, I would have dropped it after an episode or two.

Wombat_sl said:

I thought it was mediocre. The laughs / 22 minutes just aren't there, and haven't been for most of the season.

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Pretty much sums it up for me. It's like they aren't even trying to be funny for 80% of every episode. Instead of having them say and do funny things in character they are just throwing out potentially wacky situations and then pointing at them and going "Eh? Eh!?"

I can't say as I found this episode to be very funny. Usually there's one or two jokes that will stick with me after watching an episode, and nothing really stands out this week. It seems like the writers were relying too much on the origin concept to deliver the jokes while the origin concept was too busy trying to piece together a cohesive story.

Though, as far as concept episodes go, I do think this is one of the best this season. This isn't the first show to attempt an origin episode like this, and I think the Community writers were able to deliver on it while remaining faithful to the characters and not having to strain what we know about them too much. They also stayed away from the temptation other shows have gone with of going really over the top with the flashbacks. Despite not really delivering on the jokes, I think this (and all the fan service) made it what would've been a much better way of opening the season rather than that mediocre sitcom one.

However, I sort of wish they went the opposite way with the conclusion of the episode. While I appreciate that the writers were able to come up with a credible explanation to connect all the characters before Greendale without conflicting with what we've learned over the previous seasons (though, I have read there were a couple minor retcon errors), I can't help but feel the idea that they were all "fated" to form the study group undermines one of the central themes of the show: that these were all people who have next to nothing in common that have formed a sort of de facto family. Too often this season they've gone with the happy, easy ending (generally in the form of a Jeff hammering us over the head with it in a monologue). I think this episode would've worked much better had Abed's ideas not panned out and left us with the not-so-obvious takeaway thatthatis what makes the group even more special, though I think that would require a certain level of subtly the new writers really haven't shown.

Well, you can call it fate or you can call it coincidence. A totally obsessive Asperger's freak could assign meaning to those random connections pretty easily, all we really saw was that people in Greendale cross paths some. Since Greendale is like Springfield and we have no idea how big it is(West Springfield is three times the size of Texas!) there's not a lot of meaning to it.

Maybe this whole season is a product of Abed's imagination.

Grimmlokk_sl said:

Well, you can call it fate or you can call it coincidence. A totally obsessive Asperger's freak could assign meaning to those random connections pretty easily, all we really saw was that people in Greendale cross paths some. Since Greendale is like Springfield and we have no idea how big it is(West Springfield is three times the size of Texas!) there's not a lot of meaning to it.

Maybe this whole season is a product of Abed's imagination.

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It wasn't just Abed that drew that conclusion, though. It certainly seemed like the intent of the episode was to show that these characters were brought together through their actions (or Chang..?) and had the characters accept that reality.

Ao-_sl said:

what retcons were there?

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The most glaring one I read was that, in the first episode, it's said that Troy faked a shoulder injury, whereas in this episode he faked a knee injury.

Cantatus_sl said:

It wasn't just Abed that drew that conclusion, though. It certainly seemed like the intent of the episode was to show that these characters were brought together through their actions (or Chang..?) and had the characters accept that reality.

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Oh, I don't buy what I said at all. Just saying, it was all stuff that COULD have just been minor random nothing strung together by a clearly obsessive guy on the spectrum. That's definitely not what they were going for, which makes sense because then they might have added a joke or two to the episode. Rather than another wildly hamfisted Winger speech.

I'm more annoyed because I still like these people for the most part and the show makers just seem to have completely abandoned the idea that these silly people can actually be funny for large parts of almost every episode. Like I said before, now it's just a wacky premise and a wink instead of clever writing and action. Like the writing room got together and decided on something that COULD be funny without making the effort to actually make it pay off.

The show has always had a ton of heart and lessons learned, but it seems like every single storyline in every single episode this year just devolves in to schmaltzy-as-fuck hugfests. There's no comedy pay off. If every single episode is "a very special episode", none of them are special at all. Quit going for fucking "awww" reactions and maybetryfor more than a laugh or two per episode. And most of those laughs are just Donald Glover's great delivery.

I'm really just hoping this gets cancelled now. I "enjoy" it I suppose. Basically, I'm sticking with this show until the end just because I've invested so much time with it, but it's just not very good anymore.

I don't want to have to quit another show. This week, the wife and I watched the first 3 minutes of Modern Family, and it's officially on our "not watching anymore" list. It sucks when a show that used to be so good gets so bad.

Community isn't quite on that Weeds/Office list of great shows that turned aggressively unwatchable yet.

Modern Family is just the Phil/Luke and sometimes Jay show for me. Cam used to be funny and now he's just "HEY LOOK HOW GAY I AM!". Mitch dealing with Cam used to be funny but what the fuck is there to work with now? The two of them are saddled with that fucking atrocious little asian kid who is just awful in every way. Manny has been a terrible character from the start, the actor has gotten better but getting better at shoveling shit is still just shoveling shit. GLORIA JELLS IN DE ASSENT AND EEZ FIERY DAT EEZ DE JHOKE!! Hailey, Alexis, and Claire have an occasional funny moment but have always been more just joke lube than real characters.

I would still say that I enjoy Modern Family more then Community now. And Season 2 community was fucking amazing.

While I agree Community should just be canceled, I am not ready to give up on Modern Family yet.

noble savage_sl said:

So was this the series finale?

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Unknown yet. NBC is very likely to keep a couple existing shows for insurance in case new stuff fails; the only options they have left are Go On, New Normal, and Community.

As for the episode itself, I dunno. It was obvious it was a dream sequence, but it being in Jeff's head doesn't make much sense. Why does Jeff's dream Abed care about The Cape? What the hell was dream Annie going on about with Jeff's sex life? I just don't get any of it.

Then I remembered that, for all its weirdness, this was written by Megan Ganz, the last link to the old regime - who left to work on Modern Family. So anything from this point on is even less connected to the old days... and I just don't know if I care anymore.

Edit: Let me be specific - my opinion now is the same as after watching 401. Either drop the Harmon bits, and turn it into "Happy Communitings", a broad but 5 laughs a minute comedy, or bring back Harmon. This middle ground they have now literally pleases no one.

its sad that this weeks non-finale, random episode of The Big Bang Theory was way, way funnier than Community and more emotional

That was...weird. It's like they wanted to do a paintball episode, but it failed and just went bizarre. And as much shit as I've talked about this show, I'd keep watching as long as Alison Brie is still around.

They had SIX SEASONS AND A MOVIE written on the chalk board during the graduation scene, which just goes to show that they have no idea how fucking terrible this show has been for the past while. They don't deserve 1 more season, let alone 2 and a movie.

Wombat_sl said:

As for the episode itself, I dunno. It was obvious it was a dream sequence, but it being in Jeff's head doesn't make much sense. Why does Jeff's dream Abed care about The Cape? What the hell was dream Annie going on about with Jeff's sex life? I just don't get any of it.

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Umm, because these are things Jeff knows about them and would think about in a dream?

Thought it was one of the better episodes of the season, even if the action was shit compared to real paintball episodes. There were a few jokes that actually made me laugh, and that been few and far between recently. Plus the episode actually felt fun, which has been just totally absent most of this season.

In general I'd prefer a show I loved get another chance, asI've elucidated elsewhere using Scrubs as a reference, but that is contingent on it still being made by the people that made the show I loved. That's just not the case here. So I am, at best, ambivalent about the idea of another season.

I thought it was a decent episode, especially compared to the rest of this season. Personally, I can't wait to see Alison Brie move on and do some deeper roles. No pun intended.

That episode was pure garbage and I really hope it's not the way the show ends. If it is, I'll understand it but gods what a way to go, not with a bang but a whimper.