Community

I'm hearing from the cast that the show is still as bizarre and funny as ever, so that's a good sign. Plus I read an interview with the new producers and they said they wanted to do everything they could to maintain what Harmon was doing.

Hopefully those aren't just words to appease long time fans.

I love Community it is one of the funniest shows on t.v. The last season had some episodes that were a little too out there and wacky for my taste. But the last few episodes on the season were really funny.

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Going 18600 miles per second.

You've never seen the dawn,
but you have blood in your eyes.
The night will fight with steel,
until it brings you down.

STARBURNS!
Burning the night sky alive!

STARBURNS!
Fights for his country and honour!

He will never die!
(epic '80's guitar riff).

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"George, this is a little too much for me. Escaped convicts, fugitive sex... I've got a cockfight to focus on."

New Community tonight. New Community tonight. New. Community. Tonight.

I'm about 90% sure it'll feel a little like a knockoff with Harmon gone, but hey, 65% of Community is better than 100% of most other comedies, so I guess I'll take it.

As weird as it sounds to say about a show I love so much, it probably has to change into something else if it's going to work post-Harmon. He's good at what he's good at, and the new showrunners are going to be best at something else, so they need to find that and segue to it gracefully. If they're doing an impersonation of the first three seasons, that's just not going to be as good as a different-but-ultimately-better-made version of the show. Assuming it actually survives beyond this season.

Sorry, I'm probably raining on a few parades here. Community tonight!

Nah, having spent a great deal of time on r/Community I think myself and most fans are aware of the potential pitfalls here. I'm tentative but excited for the premiere, I agree that it needs to morph into something somewhat new but I'm also hoping that with Harmon-era writers still on board, some of his influence will carry over. And we still have the same great cast minus Chevy Chase for two or three episodes, so here's hoping they can't go far wrong.

Speaking of Pierce, any theories as to how they'll handle writing him out? My personal favorite, albeit far-fetched suggestion was that they should just replace Chase with Bill Murray, same character and everything, address it once in passing ("Pierce lost weight" or something to that effect) and never mention it again.

I had a dream that happened...

The first episode of the new season was better than expected.

Agree, and I loved the Halloween episode, the awkwardness whenever Pierce was on the screen.

Gotta love Abed's comment about how "this show used to be about a community college"

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@fake_shemp

Haven't seen the Halloween episode yet, but I heard from a friend who has that it maintains the strong quality that the opener of the season established.

Apparently opinions vary wildly. Everyone I know (myself included, for I know myself) thought the opening was so-so and the Halloween episode was particularly weak. Meh.

The common thread through the first two, at least in my opinion, is that the individual writing of the jokes is almost as good as before, but the premises of the episodes aren't as good and don't tie in as well to the humor. And the Halloween episode, in particular, was just light on laughs. Long stretches between jokes, which is odd, because the show's usually pretty dense.

But hey, it's a grace period. I think the show can be good again, just a) not quite as good, and b) not good in the same way. Different showrunners are going to have to have a different take on this world that compliments their own style, and that's going to take a little time. Hopefully they'll get it. It probably won't ever be the show it was, but that doesn't mean it can't be a similar show that's almost as good. Might as well embrace the change and mix it up.

Not sure if they'll have the time with another season, though. Strong ratings (relatively) speaking for the opener, but really bad ones for the second episode. The only reason it's not dead in the water is that NBC's losing two huge, long-running comedies this year.

I was very disappointed with the season premiere but liked the Halloween episode. It's missing its soul, no doubt, but I feel like they can still make a good show, just not the same one. The writing is still almost as good and the new showrunners don't appear to have messed with the formula too much.

I thought The Ring-Annie was great.

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"Miss Jean Louise, Mr. Arthur Radley."

It was missing the usual charm, but had the same kind of meta/pop culture related humour that was the lock for me and Community. It was definitely nowhere near as good as the third season (which was impossibly brilliant), but I wouldn't write it off just yet.

The "Ring girl" joke was solid, yeah.

The last one just feels like a miss in terms of plot. They were ostensibly trying to do a Scooby Doo sendup, which is a great idea...but what about it felt like Scooby-Doo? The reveal at the end, but nothing else. When they did [i]Law and Order[i], they nailed the parody, through and through. This was more a very light homage, where they tell you they're imitating something without actually doing it. But c'mon, there's tons to mine there! Who wouldn't love Troy as Shaggy inexplicably finding a giant sandwich on the floor.

Not sure what was up with the pull back into a map/game board/whatever that was. I thought for a moment it might be a Clue thing, but it really didn't seem to connect to anything else. It was almost like it confused the other times we've seen such things (in the war documentary episodes and the alternate universe episodes, for example), and thought it was the camera move and the graphics, rather than the story they were part of, that was what we liked.

If they continue making episodes like the last one I'll have given up on this show before too long. There's something I never thought I'd say.

At least we have those first three magnificent seasons...

The exceptionally mediocre season continues. I'll keep watching, but yeah. It's just not there.

On a positive note, I found some funny images of Gillian Jacobs as a kid:



This looks exactly like my wife looked at that age, by the way. It blew her mind when I showed it to her.

Oh, how I used to love this show. I am so not happy with the recent episodes. They are trying way too hard. Part of the joy for me of the earlier episodes is how natural it all felt. Very disappointed and I'm forcing myself to watch at this point.

Talk about jumping the shark...

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~ I am tired of ze same old faces! Ze same old things!