Thx. Even the 3d-4th were better than the 1st 2.
I think Glover did with Atlanta what Harmon did at the start of the series: Present it’s as a sellable (to the execs) trojan horse about something, then pivot into a completely different show.
The first few episodes were slighty quirky, Jeff and Britta love story led, standard sitcom about a community college. Then the real stars: Glove and Pudi got to shine. It became a semi meta cultural show like Spaced (uk).
For Glover on Atlanta, he presented a show which was a comedy drama about someone being their up and coming rapper cousins new manager. That then pivoted to what it became, often surreal comedy commentary on black culture and black life in the US.
Maybe I’ll try again. Lasted about ten minutes of one episode and binned it - seemed very laboured and formulaic.
I hadn’t watched this show in quite some time and had forgotten how brilliant it was, as well as how quite astonishingly attractive Gillian Jacobs is. Episodes that get bogged down in Abed’s spectrumity are a bit tiresome, though.
Her name is spelled “Alison Brie.”
I was thinking the same thing.
While it was on, Community had the Mary Anne vs. Ginger or Betty vs. Veronica or Jennifer vs. Bailey thing going on with Annie vs. Britta.
I have been hoping that Glover will create a reoccurring character for Danny Pudi on Atlanta so they could rekindle that Troy and Abed magic. Maybe an old friend he met at Princeton or Paperboy’s new publicist or something like that.
Just finished S1. Thanks again for suggesting we stick with it. This is really a great show. I’m even not hating Chevy Chase as much (or is it that I’m disliking Senor Chang more?)
I felt the same. Abed was probably my least favourite character overall. Not because of Danny Pudi, though; I think he’s very funny in “Mythic Quest”.
As others have said in this thread, give it around 5 episodes. If you don’t like it after that, it’s not for you. But it definitely takes a while to find its feet.
I really enjoyed it back shortly after it was first on, and was then feeling pretty underwhelmed on rewatching it… but once it clicks into gear, it’s an amazing show.
That said, I don’t think it has the same kind of rewatchability of a show like The Office or Parks and Rec, where it just feels comforting to hang out with this group of characters who you think of as your friends. It’s a bit more ambiguous in tone than they are, without going to quite the these-people-are-all-awful extreme of something like Arrested Development.
I would actually say it takes a lot more than 5 episodes to start finding it’s feet. It stays kind of a standard sitcom - an above average one but not what it would eventually become - throughout the middle of the first season and doesn’t really start to show what it’ll become until the last few episodes of the first season. That’s why I made a recommendation to skip ahead to a few episodes at the end of S1 (I recommended Modern American Poultry and Modern Warfare specifically), and if you like that, then go back and rewatch season 1, knowing it’ll get better, but learning about the characters, in-jokes, etc. along the way.
I liked a lot from eps 3-4 on, but I think the Christmas episode really impressed me - how critical they were of the christian and how benign about atheism/agnosticism.
Just saw the S2 ep in which Abed was filming himself as Jesus. Wow! Has there ever aired a more blasphemous sitcom ep?
Location, Time & Date: from link
Nice, I’ll check the rerun when it comes out.
Thanks to your recommendations I’ve binged the entire series on Netflix. I believe at one time I’d seen the beginning of the pilot but it didn’t immediately catch my fancy. Fortunately you guys convinced me to persevere!
I was going to ask for recommendations for similar series, but on second thought I believe that might be better reserved for a separate thread.
Yesterday watched S5 ep9 “VCR Maintenance…”, where Abed/Annie were playing the VCR game - Fistful of Bullets.
My wife and I are NOT gamers, and over the past weekend, we spent time w/ our son/DIL who definitely ARE gamers, and tried to get us to play various games.
When they started the game, and were shouting out “Bang!” as the TV character rattled off incredibly convoluted rules - I have NEVER laughed so hard at a TV show. I literally could not see, and had to pause the freaking set! Oh my god!
BTW - the VCR game character was Vince Gilligan - from BB/BCS.
We raised a family of geeks. This show really hits EVERY geeky thing our kids were into - from Hot Lava, D&D, paintball, ST, Dr Who… And the guest stars - Nathan Fillion, LeVar Burton, Robert Patrick… Can’t imagine how we missed it first time around.
So anyone new to Community thanks to Netflix?