Comments | community_tv: Differences between Dan's COMMUNITY and David and Moses' COMMUNITY

ir3actions in community_tv

Differences between Dan's COMMUNITY and David and Moses' COMMUNITY

Feb 08, 2013 19:25

Some of my friends said that COMMUNITY's Season 4 premiere felt wrong to them. Or at least different. Some of my friends disliked it for feeling wrong, some didn't mind it but did feel the show had changed. I'd be interested in knowing: what did you guys find *different* about the Season 4 premiere compared to the styles of previous episodes? ( Read more... )

creator: dan harmon, -season 4, executive producer: david guarascio, -ep4.01-history-101, executive producer: moses port

Comments 50

vulturoso February 9 2013, 00:37:16 UTC

To be perfectly honest, I didn't like it very much. It felt different. Disjointed. And the sitcom gag seemed extremely forced and out of place.

Also, the Dean's schtick was better was it was subtle, alluded-to. Now they're just sort of screaming at us, "LOOK AT HOW HOMOSEXUAL THIS GUY IS BECAUSE UNICORNS AND SEXY DANCING AND POINTLESS CROSS-DRESSING ISN'T THAT WACKY AND HILARIOUS". He's gone from being a realistic character to an offensive stereotype and it's sad.

There didn't seem to be any motivation for New Jeff and everyone else seemed like pieces in a board game who were just placed further along in the story to keep up with the story (which was... needing to get in to that class?).

Harmon may have been crazy but it produced a quality product. The network effort to make the show more appealing to a wider audience is hurting it.

Anyway... sorry for the rant. I agree, though. Wasn't feeling Community last night, but I'll keep watching.

ir3actions February 9 2013, 01:30:04 UTC

The Dean's sexuality has not been subtle since Season 2 ( ... )

vulturoso February 9 2013, 01:36:23 UTC

No offense, but this basically just repeated a lot things that were obvious already. I know what Abed's sitcom was supposed to represent, and I'm saying it didnt work. I don't need you to explain the characters to me. I understand them. This episode was not enjoyable for me.

ir3actions February 9 2013, 02:04:39 UTC

I'm just curious as to why it works or doesn't work for people. I wonder if it's because the parody material wasn't central. It was weird imagery but it complemented the episode on the fringes of its plot points rather than being the very core of the episode. The parody material could easily be replaced with anything that is significant to Abed's issues, and maybe to some, it feels like empty tokenism? Like it's a story element present because it was in other COMMUNITY episodes, and not because it's integral to this one?

Thread 12

annieedison February 9 2013, 01:07:27 UTC

Thank you for this, I couldn't quite put my finger on what was different. While I enjoyed it overall, the episode lacked the subtlety of the previous seasons.

crittab February 10 2013, 00:13:18 UTC

I don't think 'subtlety' has ever been Community's MO (exceptions made for great easter eggs, like Beetlejuice). Just look at Modern Warfare, for example. There was nothing subtle about the homage there. Or for a more apt example, Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking: Redux is probably one of the most "smash over the head" homages they've done, and it was also a Dean episode.

annieedison February 10 2013, 04:40:59 UTC

yeah, but I just meant the jokes. But it's only the first episode, so of course i'll have to wait and see what happens.

___greenribbon February 9 2013, 02:25:57 UTC

The Hunger Games thing is what mostly threw me off.
I feel like Community's "thing" is to play off well-established tropes and make homages to television and movie classics. The classics referenced may be obscure, but they've stood the test of time in some way or another. The Hunger Games is so recent it felt more like the writers were dumbing down the pop culture ( ... )

ir3actions February 9 2013, 03:11:27 UTC

> hopefully you get the idea!

Completely. I think the error here was that instead of choosing an A-plot and a B-plot, the episode had an A-thread split in two through Jeff's competition and Abed's dream world, a B-thread in Shirley and Annie pulling pranks and a C-thread in Britta. That's four separate plots with two separate parodies within a 21-minute show and far too much to do any of the material justice. It's like the product of writers trying to assure their audience that they will script all the characters well by giving them all their own plots, fearing the criticism that any marginalized character will be marked as the one the new writers just don't get.

Which makes recasting Pierce even funnier to me...

callea February 11 2013, 03:12:18 UTC

When I first saw the promos with The Hunger Games, I thought that didn't fit Community. But after watching, I think it totally fits, because it wasn't an homage to The Hunger Games at all. It was the dean attempting to do an homage. That fits perfectly with the dean's character. He's always wanted to be cool and fit in, so it would be just like him to pick something popular.

high_striker February 9 2013, 03:34:17 UTC

It still felt like Community to me. It certainly wasn't in league with the series' best episodes, but it wasn't bad by any means. It mostly felt like they took the insanity/weirdness of the 2nd and 3rd season and mixed it with stories more in line with ones from the first season ( ... )

ir3actions February 9 2013, 04:13:20 UTC

We're pretty much in agreement. Entertaining. Different. Not as good as the best of COMMUNITY, but definitely encouraging.

Dan Harmon's eight points of storytelling was the subject of a WIRED article here: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/09/mf_harmon/

high_striker February 9 2013, 04:23:50 UTC

Interesting. Thanks for the link.

I feel like those are broad enough that they could be interpreted to fit almost any story, which I guess is pretty much the point. Maybe not the 'return' to a familiar situation, but certainly reaching another (maybe new, maybe different) comfortable situation.

crittab February 9 2013, 22:48:20 UTC

Agreed. Not the best, but most certainly not the worst. Most importantly, it's still Community, and no matter what sort of 'lighting' they using will change the inherent fact that these characters are still the same people, still played by the same people, and, in large part, are still written by the same people.

We've lost one guy. Let's not have a fit, okay?

katiemariie February 9 2013, 04:17:31 UTC

I was not a huge fan of the sitcom sequence. Having a character on a single-camera sitcom retreat into a multi-camera sitcom is so done. Scrubs had an episode like that 2005 and My Name is Earl did a four or five episode arc in 2008. (Strangely enough, both of those shows were part of the same Thursday night comedy block on NBC as Community is now.) Rather than comment on this trope in a meta fashion, Community played it straight and the episode suffered.

I think the imaginary sitcom could've been used well. I liked how it was used to comment on fans' fears of the show's tone changing and the stagnation that occurs in long-running sitcoms. Maybe if the sitcom device was used for the entire episode and at the end everyone realized they were acting like static, cartoonish versions of themselves because they were afraid of the change that would inevitably accompany their senior year? idk.

ir3actions February 9 2013, 05:07:39 UTC

I like the character-arc you attach to the multi-camera plot, but I don't know if an entire episode would have been the right overture to a fanbase dreading change and fearing this might be the template for the rest of the season.

I do wonder, however, if maybe the whole competition for red balls could've been cut and the sitcom scenes could have been expanded in their place, and with the arc you suggest.