Review Round-Up
Good evening Communies! This is Moff filling in for the weekly review round-up on this glorious Friday. Lets see what the wide, wide world had to say about Foosball and Nocturanl Vigilantism, shall we?
EW has a lengthy recap, spending quite a bit of wordage on disbelief that this is the penultimate episode before The Hiatus That Shall Not Be Acknowledged, but also touches on how the episode skillfully handled two "sitcom standbys that Abed would have perceived in a heartbeat: one, a resolving-a-childhood-trauma-storyline, and the other, to use Troy’s own words, about “secretly replacing a broken, priceless item.”
Our friend Alan Sepinwall over at HitFix - momentarily delayed by his review of a frozen pizza - felt the Jeff/Shirley storyline was more successful than the Troy/Abed/Annie arc last night. Agree or disagree, Alan does make some interesting points about Shirley as a moral compass vesus Britta as Jeff's conscience, while pointing out Joel McHale and Yvette Nicole Brown's winning chemistry. While he was unimpressed with the Abed is Batman B-story, Alan did mention that, for once at least, Troy was the most mature person in the room.
TVFanatic claims the show's brilliance is in giving us what we didn't know we needed - and, no, it's not the introduction of a women's shoe fetishist. Leigh Raines was happy with the insight into Shirley's backstory and her character. (She was also amused by Little!Jeff's classic 80's rat-tail hair cut, but that's another post.) She was more pleased with the TrAbAnnie (It's a work in progress.) storyline, supposing that Abed's willingness to not acknowledge Annie's mistake and lies, when he had to know, was about the threesome's friendship and love over-riding all else.
IGN TV's Eric Goldman was pleased overall, though he felt the episode could have gone farther than it did in making Abed the real Batman. Nevertheless, he supposes that the writer's made the correct choice to focus on the Jeff/Shirley story, which he felt delivered "depth and heart to these two characters." Like so many others, he is disappointed the season is entering suspended animation just as it's hitting its narrative stride. BONUS: Video of the time Goldman visited Greendale and Alison Brie jumped on the foosball table.
In a short visit to Twitter this afternoon, I saw that many of you were moved by Todd VanDerWerff's review on AVClub. Having now read it myself, I agree. Todd's review is like Harry's speech to Sally at the end of the movie: Where he explains that as crazy as she makes him, she's still the last person he wants to talk to before he falls asleep. It's a bit of an understated love letter, and if you love this show now (or still or ever have before), it's worth reading. Seriously. I'll wait here: Go read it.
Back? Right then. Moving on.
Cory Barker's review over on TV Surveillance spends quite a few words talking about how Community is screwed, though not in the way one might assume. Apparently, we're a fandom in upheaval, facing a schism no less equal to that we experienced in season 2. But, much like the AVClub's VanDerWerff, Barker is intrigued by the way the characters and relationships are growing and changing - and how Dan Harmon et al. are changing the way they tell stories. He thinks this episode was a good example of how tropes lead to concept episodes, but even concept episodes can succeed when they are grounded in character development.
CinemaBlend's Jesse Carp makes a point of commending the writers on giving Britta and Pierce their due at the beginning as they are absent from the rest of the episode. There's some more talk about Nick Kroll's ham-tastic performance as a German Deutsche-bag - and some speculation that Jeff's daddy issues are more extensive than previously demonstrated - but Carp gives equal time to both the A- and B-stories, which he treats equally in his review. (What would we call them then?)
SpoilerTV's review is the second to label this episode as everything we never knew we always wanted. (Sorry. There's a Matthew Perry who lives in my brain: It's awkward.) This review does have what is perhaps one of the best lines about how Little!Shirley's bullying led to Little!Jeff's turn to the Douche Side: "The final nail in the self esteem coffin, if you will." There's also some excellent insight about how this story could only be possible with Jeff and Shirley as we know them now: It wouldn't have meant anything, much less have happened, with their season 1 counterparts.
James Poniewozik of TIME said that while the episode wouldn't make his best-episode-of-all-time (or even of-all-year) list, it's the kind he hopes the show does more of when it returns. (Ignore his pessimism.) He deems it Shirley's best story - probably ever, but certainly in a long time. He was less impressed with the Abed is Batman storyline, but was won over by the random insertion of the anime bit.
SoundOnSight's Yiannis Cove said an episode like this one makes the show's interminable mid-season hiatus even sadder. He felt it was surreal at times but managed to stay grounded, which helped the parallel stories (Jeff comes to term with Shirley's bullying while Abed absorbs Annie's betrayal).
And now, because I'm a wordy pain in the neck, here's a list of the remaining reviews from last night:
Better with Popcorn: Not up to regular standards - maybe.
NiceGirlsTV.com: Annie's a crappy liar. And Shirley should be a bad ass more often.
ApeDonkey: Two great tastes that taste great toge- wait. That's Reese's. But it kind of works.
TVGeekArmy: Impressive, despite missing half the principal cast.
Hollywood.com: If you take away the gags and the gimmicks, you still have a solid, funny, emotional TV show.
We Got This Covered: Reviewing this show is more difficult than we might think - mostly because the cold open had at least 12 laugh-out-loud moments.
Daemon's TV: "A solid entry...but fell a bit flat." Biggest complaint: The characterization was unbelievable.
In other news, ratings were up (3.9 million - a spike of 8%), giving the episode a 1.7, which is an increase of 6%.
If I missed a review,please let me know in the comments (this is my first time).
EW has a lengthy recap, spending quite a bit of wordage on disbelief that this is the penultimate episode before The Hiatus That Shall Not Be Acknowledged, but also touches on how the episode skillfully handled two "sitcom standbys that Abed would have perceived in a heartbeat: one, a resolving-a-childhood-trauma-storyline, and the other, to use Troy’s own words, about “secretly replacing a broken, priceless item.”
Our friend Alan Sepinwall over at HitFix - momentarily delayed by his review of a frozen pizza - felt the Jeff/Shirley storyline was more successful than the Troy/Abed/Annie arc last night. Agree or disagree, Alan does make some interesting points about Shirley as a moral compass vesus Britta as Jeff's conscience, while pointing out Joel McHale and Yvette Nicole Brown's winning chemistry. While he was unimpressed with the Abed is Batman B-story, Alan did mention that, for once at least, Troy was the most mature person in the room.
TVFanatic claims the show's brilliance is in giving us what we didn't know we needed - and, no, it's not the introduction of a women's shoe fetishist. Leigh Raines was happy with the insight into Shirley's backstory and her character. (She was also amused by Little!Jeff's classic 80's rat-tail hair cut, but that's another post.) She was more pleased with the TrAbAnnie (It's a work in progress.) storyline, supposing that Abed's willingness to not acknowledge Annie's mistake and lies, when he had to know, was about the threesome's friendship and love over-riding all else.
IGN TV's Eric Goldman was pleased overall, though he felt the episode could have gone farther than it did in making Abed the real Batman. Nevertheless, he supposes that the writer's made the correct choice to focus on the Jeff/Shirley story, which he felt delivered "depth and heart to these two characters." Like so many others, he is disappointed the season is entering suspended animation just as it's hitting its narrative stride. BONUS: Video of the time Goldman visited Greendale and Alison Brie jumped on the foosball table.
In a short visit to Twitter this afternoon, I saw that many of you were moved by Todd VanDerWerff's review on AVClub. Having now read it myself, I agree. Todd's review is like Harry's speech to Sally at the end of the movie: Where he explains that as crazy as she makes him, she's still the last person he wants to talk to before he falls asleep. It's a bit of an understated love letter, and if you love this show now (or still or ever have before), it's worth reading. Seriously. I'll wait here: Go read it.
Back? Right then. Moving on.
Cory Barker's review over on TV Surveillance spends quite a few words talking about how Community is screwed, though not in the way one might assume. Apparently, we're a fandom in upheaval, facing a schism no less equal to that we experienced in season 2. But, much like the AVClub's VanDerWerff, Barker is intrigued by the way the characters and relationships are growing and changing - and how Dan Harmon et al. are changing the way they tell stories. He thinks this episode was a good example of how tropes lead to concept episodes, but even concept episodes can succeed when they are grounded in character development.
CinemaBlend's Jesse Carp makes a point of commending the writers on giving Britta and Pierce their due at the beginning as they are absent from the rest of the episode. There's some more talk about Nick Kroll's ham-tastic performance as a German Deutsche-bag - and some speculation that Jeff's daddy issues are more extensive than previously demonstrated - but Carp gives equal time to both the A- and B-stories, which he treats equally in his review. (What would we call them then?)
SpoilerTV's review is the second to label this episode as everything we never knew we always wanted. (Sorry. There's a Matthew Perry who lives in my brain: It's awkward.) This review does have what is perhaps one of the best lines about how Little!Shirley's bullying led to Little!Jeff's turn to the Douche Side: "The final nail in the self esteem coffin, if you will." There's also some excellent insight about how this story could only be possible with Jeff and Shirley as we know them now: It wouldn't have meant anything, much less have happened, with their season 1 counterparts.
James Poniewozik of TIME said that while the episode wouldn't make his best-episode-of-all-time (or even of-all-year) list, it's the kind he hopes the show does more of when it returns. (Ignore his pessimism.) He deems it Shirley's best story - probably ever, but certainly in a long time. He was less impressed with the Abed is Batman storyline, but was won over by the random insertion of the anime bit.
SoundOnSight's Yiannis Cove said an episode like this one makes the show's interminable mid-season hiatus even sadder. He felt it was surreal at times but managed to stay grounded, which helped the parallel stories (Jeff comes to term with Shirley's bullying while Abed absorbs Annie's betrayal).
And now, because I'm a wordy pain in the neck, here's a list of the remaining reviews from last night:
Better with Popcorn: Not up to regular standards - maybe.
NiceGirlsTV.com: Annie's a crappy liar. And Shirley should be a bad ass more often.
ApeDonkey: Two great tastes that taste great toge- wait. That's Reese's. But it kind of works.
TVGeekArmy: Impressive, despite missing half the principal cast.
Hollywood.com: If you take away the gags and the gimmicks, you still have a solid, funny, emotional TV show.
We Got This Covered: Reviewing this show is more difficult than we might think - mostly because the cold open had at least 12 laugh-out-loud moments.
Daemon's TV: "A solid entry...but fell a bit flat." Biggest complaint: The characterization was unbelievable.
In other news, ratings were up (3.9 million - a spike of 8%), giving the episode a 1.7, which is an increase of 6%.
If I missed a review,please let me know in the comments (this is my first time).