Posts Tagged ‘community’
Community, eps. 1-4
I can’t say I’m hugely impressed by this show, but it’s good enough that I keep watching it without really being sure why (much like Dollhouse in early season 1).
To me, its strong point is that it does dialogue better than any comedy on TV right now. I’ve never heard a line that sounded wrong or like it was dreamed up by something other than a human. It’s the polar opposite of Dollhouse in that sense. And despite having perfectly true-to-life dialogue, it still manages to be funny. In episode 4 (the most recent), there was one line that, while very simple, cracked me up for several minutes: Britta saying to Jeff, “You broke my trust. You SUCK!” In a normal TV show you’d expect the second sentence to be some cheesy thing like “You betrayed me!” but no, it’s “You SUCK!”
Community’s weak point is its characters. They all seem pretty two-dimensional to me; not so much that they’re unoriginal or archetypal (they’re not really) but more that they don’t evoke much sympathy. I’ve been spoiled in recent times by other shows: nowadays I can only get really attached to comedies that mix drama with the comedy (like Chuck or Scrubs) or that are at least flat-out funnier than Community. Community doesn’t really keep up a rhythm throughout each episode like more adept comedies do. Too much of Community feels like it’s just killing time.
It also doesn’t help that Community’s main character is kind of a tool. Just a little bit of a tool, though. So I don’t sympathize with him enough to hope he succeeds, and I don’t hate him enough to keep watching to see him get owned. It’s an unfortunate middle ground.
The other characters are good, though, especially Abed and Troy (who in at least two of the episodes so far have done what seems to be an improvised scene over the end credits, and these are usually the funniest parts of their respective episodes). Pierce (Chevy Chase) can also be good, but he’s not as funny as the writers seem to think he is. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Ken Jeong as Señor Chang is awesome in his unrestricted unhingedness. A dose of wild absurdity in a show is helpful as long as it doesn’t take over, and it seems like Señor Chang is firmly a recurring background character.
Community definitely has promise, and I’ll keep watching, but it isn’t assured of a spot on my permanent weekly show rotation. It really is exactly the same situation as with Dollhouse in season 1. Perhaps, like Dollhouse, Community will pleasantly surprise me in a few episodes’ time.
