Community S5E1 and 2
I don't know how I feel about the latest episodes of Community. For me, Community works best when it's about a real community college, even a surreal one. One that has ridiculous classes because there's a mandate to try and boost enrollment and someone said "sailing!" and someone else said "Who's the Boss!" but those are still real classes where someone is trying to teach you something about media and tv via outdated sitcoms. I like a lot of the character changes they've done - Troy and Abed moving in together and adding Annie, Jeff having to adjust to not being a wealthy lawyer, Shirley actually moving toward her dream, for just a few - but I feel like the show is at its worst when it doesn't want to be about a community college (which is of course a different thing than being a community college that is additionally an extremely serious Pillowfort Battlefield, or Law and Order spoof.) Also, there's a difference between being aware that your college lacks prestige and funding while containing messes and bad paperwork, and a school actually being a nonsense.
The point of the darkest timelines was that that kind of overblown drama is laughable: why would you make the everything failed version the primary timeline? It's not that it was a terrible two episodes, it's just that it felt a little cruel. Of course Britta would say that being a bartender was like being a modern day therapist and that's silly, but also being a bartender is not the worst job in the world ever, so why act like it's appalling and sucks your brain our your ear? We already did the plot where Abed's films are not always works of genius, only that time it didn't act like he'll never be able to make anything good as a result. Either move everyone out of Greendale and on with their lives, or keep writing a school story, but don't give everyone a moved on life that sucks hard enough that they need to come back. It just felt forced, and ruined all the things that were actually good jokes in the episode! The Dean was great! Of course he would learn Excel 'helpfully' and want to talk about it! Of course he would sing sad French songs to himself! Of course Annie would try to teach a class herself if she thought the prof was doing a bad job!
Hopefully the rest of the season moves away from that set up a bit. I like that Community is willing to be unflinching about people's flaws, but that's a totally different kind of joke from terrible things just happening to everyone, and it would be nice to see that again.
What do you guys think?
Also, entirely unrelatedly, I wrote a thing:
Congrats on Your Everything (Not You, Jeff) (2359 words) by opusculasedfera
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Elias Lindholm/Ryan Murphy/Jeff Skinner
Summary: Porn, set after the Canes' Dec 6th game against the Sharks.
This entry originally posted at http://opusculasedfera.dreamwidth.org/28358.html, comment wherever you please.
The point of the darkest timelines was that that kind of overblown drama is laughable: why would you make the everything failed version the primary timeline? It's not that it was a terrible two episodes, it's just that it felt a little cruel. Of course Britta would say that being a bartender was like being a modern day therapist and that's silly, but also being a bartender is not the worst job in the world ever, so why act like it's appalling and sucks your brain our your ear? We already did the plot where Abed's films are not always works of genius, only that time it didn't act like he'll never be able to make anything good as a result. Either move everyone out of Greendale and on with their lives, or keep writing a school story, but don't give everyone a moved on life that sucks hard enough that they need to come back. It just felt forced, and ruined all the things that were actually good jokes in the episode! The Dean was great! Of course he would learn Excel 'helpfully' and want to talk about it! Of course he would sing sad French songs to himself! Of course Annie would try to teach a class herself if she thought the prof was doing a bad job!
Hopefully the rest of the season moves away from that set up a bit. I like that Community is willing to be unflinching about people's flaws, but that's a totally different kind of joke from terrible things just happening to everyone, and it would be nice to see that again.
What do you guys think?
Also, entirely unrelatedly, I wrote a thing:
Congrats on Your Everything (Not You, Jeff) (2359 words) by opusculasedfera
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Elias Lindholm/Ryan Murphy/Jeff Skinner
Summary: Porn, set after the Canes' Dec 6th game against the Sharks.
This entry originally posted at http://opusculasedfera.dreamwidth.org/28358.html, comment wherever you please.