Review roundup for 4x12, "Heroic Origins"
Hello, Communies! As is now par for the course, the reviews of "Heroic Origins" were all over the map. Let's dive in!
Jennifer Marie of a Still and Quiet Conscience "didn’t love this episode." She didn't hate it, either, but she thought the "execution was faulty and required the audience to suspend their belief a bit too far."
Eric Goldman of IGN called the episode "kind of a messy episode of Community but ultimately concluded its "strengths outweighed the weaknesses." He thought Ken Jeong did a nice job playing not just "Kevin" and scheming!Chang but also the original, season-one iteration of the character. And I'm going to go ahead and declare him the winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Excellence in Photo Captioning for what he wrote under a picture of Gillian Jacobs with a monkey on her head. They give Pulitzers for that, right?
Ryan Schwartz of Voice of TV didn't think "Heroic Origins" was quite up to the level of greatness achieved by last week's episode, "but boy did it come close." He was unimpressed by Chevy Chase's stand-in, but otherwise liked everything. "It would have been incredibly easy to ruin these origin stories … and the writers really deserve credit here for paying such close attention to detail." And he called the resolution to the Changnesia storyline "just about perfect," pointing out that by redeeming the character, it "gives the writers a potential new seventh member of the study group if the show comes back for a fifth, Chevy Chase-less season."
Alan Sepinwall of HitFix goes "hardcore nerd" in his review, comparing the episode to periodic attempts by comic book writers to "improve" Spider-Man's origin, such as when J. Michael Straczynski claimed "that the bite was a mystical thing that turned Peter [Parker] into a 'totem,' bridging the gap between man and beast." The problem with stories like that, he says, is that "randomness has a power in its own right, and attempts to replace it with predestination strips that power away." He then doubles down on the hardcore nerd thing by bringing up Mopee, the less said about whom the better. (It should be noted that I am sufficiently hardcore a nerd to know who Mopee is and who wrote that stupid Spider-Totem storyline without having to look either up.)
Todd VanDerWerff of the A.V. Club gave the episode a letter grade of B, calling it "a pretty good episode of a pretty okay season of Community," and one that, like "Herstory of Dance," demonstrates how the show "could be a more or less successful (and amusing) franchise for years to come." But he also feels its an example of how the show is no longer "really trying to expand my thought processes or what television can do [but instead is] just providing some laughs that boiled down the show to its most basic essence and tried to appease me with gentle comedy based in characters I’d loved."
Britt Hayes of ScreenCrush thought the episode "was kind of a snooze … It’s a bit of a slog of a half hour that feels forced in its attempt at sincerity." She also notes that one of this season's strengths has been its success in "finding the heart of these people and creating wonderful moments between them that allow us to forgive the fact that they’re not making us laugh as often," but that the moments of that nature in this episode rang false.
Brian Collins of Badass Digest didn't care for the episode. "it's cute and amusing, but for a show that's always been one of the best at actually letting their characters grow, it's a bit awkward to watch such an insular half hour, built entirely around events we have heard about … and how the other members played a role in each event." He also thought the decision to set the flashbacks in 2008 was flawed. "The show began in 2009, not 2008, so when it becomes a 'this is how they found out about Greendale' story that makes everything even more coincidental, it just confused me further - did they all decide to slum it at this community college a full year before they started to attend it? Wouldn't 2009 make a LITTLE more sense, as it would a) be when people were finalizing their college plans and b) there could be some sort of 10th anniversary showing of Phantom Menace that Abed was trying to ward people away from seeing?"
Mike Papirmeister of the Filtered Lens called the episode "a perfect example of a common trap Community seems to have fallen into this season. Too much plot, not enough humor." He was also disappointed in the resolution of the Changesia storyline: "very little payoff."
Gabrielle Moss of TV Fanatic liked the episode a lot, giving it 4.8 stars out of 5. "Even if the episode had been a tender tribute to Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever, I would have been on board, due to the total wish-fulfillment-for-super-fans nature of these flashbacks." She also made note of the " 'end of senior year' feeling that permeated the episode," which she called "a bit of a bummer for me." That accounts for the 0.2-star deduction from the score, I suppose.
Randy Dankievitch of Processed Media thought the episode "threaten[ed] the fabric of its own logic by creating these preposterous interactions with tossed-in bits of dialogue to explain it." In fact, he didn't think it felt like an episode of Community at all. "Sure, it gets all its references correct, and places them neatly on the playing board, but to serve what purpose? … 'Heroic Origins' just feels forced, trying to giving this definition of 'everything’s connected by destiny' by pushing characters towards each other for the sake of doing it."
Cory Barker of tv.com felt the episode was another example of how "Community's writers have pretty much figured things out" as the fourth season comes to an end. He had a few problem with continuity, especially those involving Troy and Annie, and he thought it was "kind of a bummer" that Pierce wasn't around, but he "can forgive both of those problems because the story came together in such a simple, sweet fashion."
Ben Umstead of Twitch, like Brian Collins, had a problem with the setting in time. "The fact that every major connecting thread relies on Abed telling Shirley's kids not see a movie that would not have been playing in the theater on any kind of regular basis (or even revival) is perhaps the biggest, most massively misguided and lazy plot element to ever be presented in the show." He's hoping the series won't be reviewed, though he phrases his reason poorly: "This Community still feels like an imitation" and he'd "rather have no Community rather than an imitation of Community."
Luke Gelineau of TV Equals doesn't think "Heroic Origins" is a title that sounds like it could be a community college course. (I wonder what he would make of my college class, "The Epic Journey.") That didn't stop him from declaring the episode "one of the funniest and most heartwarming episodes of the season thus far."
Joe Matar of Den of Geek was left "feeling really weird" by the episode, "because … it was very much a Season 4 effort with very few laugh-out-loud jokes and some pretty slipshod plotting [but] it also had a few developments between characters that made sense emotionally even if the plot didn’t accomplish the heavy lifting needed to get us there." He gave it 2 horn-rimmed glasses out of five, which I mention primarily because I never noticed that they give scores before today, and because using geek-glasses instead of stars is kind of cute.
Kevin Lanigan of Chekhov's Gunman thought "Heroic Origins" was "a better than fine episode that I enjoyed a great deal, a standout episode from a run of really solid episodes at the end of a mostly solid season." He spends most of his review looking back at the 4th season, which he says overall was a "worthy and incredibly enjoyable ride," and analyzes what the show got right and what it got wrong.
Matthew Guerruckey of ScreenSpy observes that after a rough first half-season, "Everything-everything-about the series has improved. Community is not just good again, it’s great again, and in ways that feel entirely organic to this new season." He allows that "Pierce’s absence in the episode isn’t subtly handled," but otherwise had no real complaints.
Jeremy Sollie of Geek Binge thought there was a lot that could have gone wrong with the episode, given that it was a high-concept plot, which he thinksa the show has struggled with this season, and that it would focus on the Changnesia storyline, "but somehow the stories were impressively intertwined and the Chang thankfully ended that it all worked for something truly original." He particularly liked the way the Changnesia story resolved: "Having Chang’s turn come as a result as the episode’s events didn’t make up for how poorly it was handled during the rest of the season, but it served as a believable ending that thankfully happened with a whole other episode left to air."
Sean Gandert of Paste called the episode's gimmick "one of the least interesting parts of the episode," and he didn't care for the "annoying comic-panel transitions," but he also thought the gimmick "did lead to a pretty interesting structure of flashbacks." The plot was "very cleverly constructed," though not very funny, and "remov[ed] some of the noxious 'Kevin' storyline from the show and gave Chang more humanity than he’s had since season one."
Laura Aguirre of ScreenCrave also liked the resolution of the Chang storyline, and enjoyed seeing how the study group members were causing problems for one another even before they were a study group, though she admits "the origin stories were a bit of a stretch." She missed Chevy Chase, though. She gave it a score of 7 out of 10.
Ratingswise, "Heroic Origins" was up 20% over last week, earning a 1.2 rating/4 share in the 18-49 demo. According to one reviewers, it does better in the 18-34 demographic, though I don't know where to find those numbers. On yon Twitter, #OriginStory trended during the initial Central/East broadcast.
As always, thanks for reading!
Jennifer Marie of a Still and Quiet Conscience "didn’t love this episode." She didn't hate it, either, but she thought the "execution was faulty and required the audience to suspend their belief a bit too far."
Eric Goldman of IGN called the episode "kind of a messy episode of Community but ultimately concluded its "strengths outweighed the weaknesses." He thought Ken Jeong did a nice job playing not just "Kevin" and scheming!Chang but also the original, season-one iteration of the character. And I'm going to go ahead and declare him the winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Excellence in Photo Captioning for what he wrote under a picture of Gillian Jacobs with a monkey on her head. They give Pulitzers for that, right?
Ryan Schwartz of Voice of TV didn't think "Heroic Origins" was quite up to the level of greatness achieved by last week's episode, "but boy did it come close." He was unimpressed by Chevy Chase's stand-in, but otherwise liked everything. "It would have been incredibly easy to ruin these origin stories … and the writers really deserve credit here for paying such close attention to detail." And he called the resolution to the Changnesia storyline "just about perfect," pointing out that by redeeming the character, it "gives the writers a potential new seventh member of the study group if the show comes back for a fifth, Chevy Chase-less season."
Alan Sepinwall of HitFix goes "hardcore nerd" in his review, comparing the episode to periodic attempts by comic book writers to "improve" Spider-Man's origin, such as when J. Michael Straczynski claimed "that the bite was a mystical thing that turned Peter [Parker] into a 'totem,' bridging the gap between man and beast." The problem with stories like that, he says, is that "randomness has a power in its own right, and attempts to replace it with predestination strips that power away." He then doubles down on the hardcore nerd thing by bringing up Mopee, the less said about whom the better. (It should be noted that I am sufficiently hardcore a nerd to know who Mopee is and who wrote that stupid Spider-Totem storyline without having to look either up.)
Todd VanDerWerff of the A.V. Club gave the episode a letter grade of B, calling it "a pretty good episode of a pretty okay season of Community," and one that, like "Herstory of Dance," demonstrates how the show "could be a more or less successful (and amusing) franchise for years to come." But he also feels its an example of how the show is no longer "really trying to expand my thought processes or what television can do [but instead is] just providing some laughs that boiled down the show to its most basic essence and tried to appease me with gentle comedy based in characters I’d loved."
Britt Hayes of ScreenCrush thought the episode "was kind of a snooze … It’s a bit of a slog of a half hour that feels forced in its attempt at sincerity." She also notes that one of this season's strengths has been its success in "finding the heart of these people and creating wonderful moments between them that allow us to forgive the fact that they’re not making us laugh as often," but that the moments of that nature in this episode rang false.
Brian Collins of Badass Digest didn't care for the episode. "it's cute and amusing, but for a show that's always been one of the best at actually letting their characters grow, it's a bit awkward to watch such an insular half hour, built entirely around events we have heard about … and how the other members played a role in each event." He also thought the decision to set the flashbacks in 2008 was flawed. "The show began in 2009, not 2008, so when it becomes a 'this is how they found out about Greendale' story that makes everything even more coincidental, it just confused me further - did they all decide to slum it at this community college a full year before they started to attend it? Wouldn't 2009 make a LITTLE more sense, as it would a) be when people were finalizing their college plans and b) there could be some sort of 10th anniversary showing of Phantom Menace that Abed was trying to ward people away from seeing?"
Mike Papirmeister of the Filtered Lens called the episode "a perfect example of a common trap Community seems to have fallen into this season. Too much plot, not enough humor." He was also disappointed in the resolution of the Changesia storyline: "very little payoff."
Gabrielle Moss of TV Fanatic liked the episode a lot, giving it 4.8 stars out of 5. "Even if the episode had been a tender tribute to Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever, I would have been on board, due to the total wish-fulfillment-for-super-fans nature of these flashbacks." She also made note of the " 'end of senior year' feeling that permeated the episode," which she called "a bit of a bummer for me." That accounts for the 0.2-star deduction from the score, I suppose.
Randy Dankievitch of Processed Media thought the episode "threaten[ed] the fabric of its own logic by creating these preposterous interactions with tossed-in bits of dialogue to explain it." In fact, he didn't think it felt like an episode of Community at all. "Sure, it gets all its references correct, and places them neatly on the playing board, but to serve what purpose? … 'Heroic Origins' just feels forced, trying to giving this definition of 'everything’s connected by destiny' by pushing characters towards each other for the sake of doing it."
Cory Barker of tv.com felt the episode was another example of how "Community's writers have pretty much figured things out" as the fourth season comes to an end. He had a few problem with continuity, especially those involving Troy and Annie, and he thought it was "kind of a bummer" that Pierce wasn't around, but he "can forgive both of those problems because the story came together in such a simple, sweet fashion."
Ben Umstead of Twitch, like Brian Collins, had a problem with the setting in time. "The fact that every major connecting thread relies on Abed telling Shirley's kids not see a movie that would not have been playing in the theater on any kind of regular basis (or even revival) is perhaps the biggest, most massively misguided and lazy plot element to ever be presented in the show." He's hoping the series won't be reviewed, though he phrases his reason poorly: "This Community still feels like an imitation" and he'd "rather have no Community rather than an imitation of Community."
Luke Gelineau of TV Equals doesn't think "Heroic Origins" is a title that sounds like it could be a community college course. (I wonder what he would make of my college class, "The Epic Journey.") That didn't stop him from declaring the episode "one of the funniest and most heartwarming episodes of the season thus far."
Joe Matar of Den of Geek was left "feeling really weird" by the episode, "because … it was very much a Season 4 effort with very few laugh-out-loud jokes and some pretty slipshod plotting [but] it also had a few developments between characters that made sense emotionally even if the plot didn’t accomplish the heavy lifting needed to get us there." He gave it 2 horn-rimmed glasses out of five, which I mention primarily because I never noticed that they give scores before today, and because using geek-glasses instead of stars is kind of cute.
Kevin Lanigan of Chekhov's Gunman thought "Heroic Origins" was "a better than fine episode that I enjoyed a great deal, a standout episode from a run of really solid episodes at the end of a mostly solid season." He spends most of his review looking back at the 4th season, which he says overall was a "worthy and incredibly enjoyable ride," and analyzes what the show got right and what it got wrong.
Matthew Guerruckey of ScreenSpy observes that after a rough first half-season, "Everything-everything-about the series has improved. Community is not just good again, it’s great again, and in ways that feel entirely organic to this new season." He allows that "Pierce’s absence in the episode isn’t subtly handled," but otherwise had no real complaints.
Jeremy Sollie of Geek Binge thought there was a lot that could have gone wrong with the episode, given that it was a high-concept plot, which he thinksa the show has struggled with this season, and that it would focus on the Changnesia storyline, "but somehow the stories were impressively intertwined and the Chang thankfully ended that it all worked for something truly original." He particularly liked the way the Changnesia story resolved: "Having Chang’s turn come as a result as the episode’s events didn’t make up for how poorly it was handled during the rest of the season, but it served as a believable ending that thankfully happened with a whole other episode left to air."
Sean Gandert of Paste called the episode's gimmick "one of the least interesting parts of the episode," and he didn't care for the "annoying comic-panel transitions," but he also thought the gimmick "did lead to a pretty interesting structure of flashbacks." The plot was "very cleverly constructed," though not very funny, and "remov[ed] some of the noxious 'Kevin' storyline from the show and gave Chang more humanity than he’s had since season one."
Laura Aguirre of ScreenCrave also liked the resolution of the Chang storyline, and enjoyed seeing how the study group members were causing problems for one another even before they were a study group, though she admits "the origin stories were a bit of a stretch." She missed Chevy Chase, though. She gave it a score of 7 out of 10.
Ratingswise, "Heroic Origins" was up 20% over last week, earning a 1.2 rating/4 share in the 18-49 demo. According to one reviewers, it does better in the 18-34 demographic, though I don't know where to find those numbers. On yon Twitter, #OriginStory trended during the initial Central/East broadcast.
As always, thanks for reading!