Community returns for its 5th season. Last season, the suits at Sony did what suits always do - get a big ego and fuck with the creative people. The show’s creator was fired and most of the writing staff went with him, and as a result, the 4th season was a complete waste. I spent the whole season watching almost out of obligation, waiting until the end so that we could finally euthanize and bury the zombie of something we once loved.
But apparently NBC has nothing else at all, so they surprisingly renewed it for a 5th season. Which just made me angry - if the show was going to get 2 more seasons, why ruin one? What a waste. But I guess it can continue to get meager ratings while everyone watches Big Bang Theory and pats themselves on the back about how smart they are.
Anyway, Dan Harmon is back running the show and got some of the writers back. (His podcast, Harmontown, is great by the way). And it sounds like he’s got nothing to lose, and he’s going to be daring. I mean, the trailer has Starburns as Zardoz. That alone is better than the entire 4th season.
Bad news is that Donald Glover is only appearing in the first 5 episodes. He’s the most talented cast member by far, and I would say at least half my enjoyment of the series is watching him nail it every. single. time.
I am, too. It takes place a little after the last one ended, doesn’t it? Is Chevy Chase back? I will miss Donald Glover when he leaves, and if Chevy Chase isn’t there I might even miss him.
Do you think after a year away Dan Harmon was able to pick it up where he left off? I am not a creative type, so it would take me a long time to get back into the spirit of the show.
I agree that last season pretty much proved the ‘network executives don’t know anything about quality’ thesis. But at least it kept the cast members (and whatever crew didn’t leave with Harmon) in paychecks for another year.
This reboot is bound to be interesting, even if it doesn’t rise to the level of the first three seasons (though I hope it will). Heck, maybe they’ll even get their movie!
Eh, I like the show, but it almost goes out of its way to be inaccessible (a half episode devoted to an extended spoof of “Dinner with Andre”?). I can’t really blame the execs for trying to turn it into something more profitable. Its a small miracle it keeps getting renewed (granted, the miracle is largely due to NBC’s inability to find something to replace it with).
Anyhoo, it’ll be interesting to see what they do with it with Chase and Glover gone and Jeff “graduated”. It might be good or terrible, but they’re more or less guaranteed to try something interesting.
I actually love both shows. Big Bang Theory is a very formulaic traditional style sitcom but with heavy geek and science references. Community is a troperific layered show that is often pushing the borders of what a TV sitcom is. They are both brilliant in different ways. Big Bang Theory has had far more cameos of Scientists than any other sitcom ever and they do a fairly good job of presenting science well. Overall the characters have continued to develop instead of just becoming caricatures like so many other long running sitcom fall prey too. It is a good show, occasionally clever and hopefully not running out of steam.
Community is amazing but clearly not for everyone. Also it is getting harder to like the characters. They are suffering from Seinfeldism of being largely unlikeable. I think they have avoiding going too far down that road but they have really trashed the Brita character and I think it is good Pierce is gone as no one should tolerate him. To me their best shows are among the best TV I have ever seen. I think BBT only had 1 or 2 moments like that and never entire episodes.
I thought that was a great line. Per the AVClub’s review, they will explain Chase’s absence in one of the next two episodes. I wish they got a little more out of Chase while he was there, he often ended up being the grumpy old racist homophobic guy, which seems a waste of Chase’s talent. Then again, he wasn’t doing much else at the time.
Anyway, I thought this was a strong start. Community, to me, always seemed to be more clever and amusing than funny. You get laugh out loud moments (I laughed when Britta ran out of minutes on her phone, f’rinstance) but you get more than just actors standing around feeding each other set ups and punch lines (I’m looking at you Big Bang Theory).
I like the idea of Jeff coming back as a teacher. It’s always been funny how crappy the college is and this gives us an opportunity to see it from the teacher’s perspective. It will also be interesting to see where the season goes with Chase gone and Glover leaving.
I like that and I think you are right on the money. Community is about deconstructing the traditional sitcom and so there will be more instances of “THAT WAS AWESOME” as opposed to laugh out loud moments (in the best cast, they combine, as in the 1st season Paintball Episode - by which I mean all of it, but especially when Chang bursts in).
I think they are amusingly setting up the rest of the season. There had to be a quick reboot (Repilot is a fantastic name for the first ep) and some of the meta-jokes were right on point (Zach Braff only in 5 eps of the last season of Scrubs, Nodding over to Chase’s chair and missing Magnitude).
Was it as great as the heights of Season 2? No, but I feel it’ll take some time to build back to where it was.