September 17th, 2009, a certain show debuted on NBC; a show that would have six seasons and hopefully one day a movie. NBC in 2009 had so many popular shows including The Office, Law and Order SVU, America’s Got Talent, Parenthood, The Biggest Loser, Parks and Recreation, Heroes, 30 Rock, The Apprentice, Saturday Night Live and a little show that somehow managed to have a huge cult following despite it having low ratings and at the same time getting critical acclaim. The show was called Community and for 6 seasons the show was able to put out memorable/loveable characters, amazing moments, hours of meta-humor and somehow survived multiple possible cancelations despite it being one of the most loved shows during its run on television. I knew about the show and never really got into it but I always saw images or clips of the show online as it was a very popular show that people would talk about online. After watching The Office on Netflix I wanted to check out Community but I unfortunately couldn’t because I did not have a Hulu subscription. However during the beginning of the pandemic, April 2020, Community began streaming on Netflix and I binged it and I have to say I fell in love with the show and the characters. But after Netflix kicked The Office to the curb so it could go onto Peacock, I knew I needed to binge something that I will love. I was originally going to re-watch Orange is the New Black or even begin starting a new series but something made me want to re-watch Community and then after re-watching the first episode I knew I was about to review a show that relied on meta-humor and pop culture references for its comedy and at the same time had stories that centered on some very dramatic topics. I knew I was about to review a show that is kind of an underdog for comedy when you put it up against The Office, Friends, How I Met You’re Mother, Seinfeld, The Big Bang Theory and so much more. And yet here I am to say what I think about this show and why I think it is one of the best comedic shows of the last decade and possibly even of all time. The names that created and wrote for this show went on to create some of the biggest movies and shows of the last decade and this show brought them the spotlight and lit the fire for them to become more successful. So let’s head to Greendale Community College and let’s talk about Community, SPOILERS AHEAD.
*pause*
Steven, this is Steven in the Future saying you know you now have opened an open end discussion possibly with people that have and never have seen the show and at the same time, just like Abed, might even break the fourth wall here and there to talk about NBC’s most rollercoaster show that would later be cancelled and picked up by Yahoo Screen, a streaming platform that lasted longer than Quibi but couldn’t outlast a time where say a certain virus and pandemic has lasted. Be aware of what you are doing Steven. And now let’s get you out of this meta moment of this review and let’s get you back into our schedule program.
*play*
Community was created by Dan Harmon and the show aired on NBC for 5 seasons and on Yahoo Screen for its final season (season 6). From September 17th, 2009 to June 2nd, 2015, Community was on the air and breaking 4th walls while also being a clever show. The series is about 7 people who became a part of a study group and later become a family of friends and people that care about each other. The series main cast includes Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Yvette Nicole Brown, Alison Brie, Donald Glover, Ken Jeong, Jim Rash and Chevy Chase. The supporting cast for this show has changed throughout the series run but they include John Oliver, Paget Brewster, Keith David, Dino Stamatopoulos, Jonathon Banks, Luke Youngblood, Richard Erdman, Charley Koontz, Erick Charles Nielsen and many big appearances from names like John Goodman, Giancarlo Esposito, Brie Larson, Betty White, Malcolm McDowell, Tony Hale, Jack Black and much more.
Now like I said earlier I knew about the show when it first aired but never took the time to watch it or even had interest to watch it because I was watching other shows when it was on. Around the time of me watching The Office for the first time I became kind of curious about the show as I saw memes of the show everywhere and it starred a lot of people that I began to enjoy more like Donald Glover and Alison Brie. But after my first viewing I fell in love with the show as it used very dark jokes that defiantly will not fly today, had so much meta and 4th wall breaks that I feel like even the characters knew that they were in a show (that might had been the point of the show) and I really enjoyed the stand alone episodes where the show is making fun of a certain troupe in a film or television show or even parodying a certain popular film or show. The characters made these episodes in the series so enjoyable and while the show had a lot of ups and downs, the series still was enjoyable and made me a fan.
Let’s talk about those characters and get a better understanding of who they are. Now there are a lot so I will talk quickly about each one in this next paragraph. And yes I said paragraph as I need to stay inside the world of Community and use its biggest strength, meta and 4th wall breaks, to make this review.
Let’s start with Jeff Wringer (Joel McHale). He is a former lawyer who enrolls into Greendale after his bachelor’s degree is proven to be false. He very sarcastic and could come off as a narcissist who constantly manipulates people but he is the leader of the group in a way and kind of is the voice of reason for the study group. He can be an ass at times but he loves and cares deeply for his friends. Then we have Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs). She is an activist who dropped out of high school and she sometimes might look intelligent and mature but she is pretty pretentious and kind of lacks any desires, but she becomes this very powerful spoken woman who at times is not always intelligent but is still a big backbone to the group. We then have Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi). He is a film student who is half Polish/half Palestinian. He kind of is the heart of the group and the show as he pretty much brings up most of the meta/4th wall jokes of the show. He has a vast knowledge of television and movies but he lacks to interact with others for conventional means, which is why he compares everything that goes on in a certain episode to TV clichés. He however is an intelligent young man and one of the wisest characters of the entire series. Then we have Shirley Bennett (Yvette Nicole Brown). She is a mother and vocal Christian who is very kind hearted and has a strong set of morals. She can have a temper at times and can be overbearing but in a way she kind of represents the Mother Hen of the group. From there we have Annie Edison (Alison Brie). She is the youngest person in the group and she is a very hard worker who is an overachiever, organized and very innocent. She can have a short temper here and there and can be anxious at times but she still finds a way to be a strong individual who will achieve greatness. Now we have Troy Barnes (Donald Glover). He is a former high school star quarterback who lost his scholarship to a big university after he faked an injury. He starts off as this very cool football stereotype but in time he becomes this fun loving nerd that embraces his real self. Then we have Pierce Hawthrorne (Chevy Chase). He is a millionaire who enrolled into Greendale out of boredom but mostly to have a self discovery. He also lacks empathy, is highly arrogant, can come off as racist and sexist but deep down inside he just wants to fit in with the group. He might be an asshole at times but he can give good advice sometimes and occasionally give off some good insight. Then there is Ben Chang (Ken Jeong). He first starts off as the study group’s Spanish teacher but he then becomes this extremely unstable teacher/person that can come off as a psychopath. Regardless he becomes good friends with the study group despite being the odd man out and a very crazy character. Finally there is “Dean” Craig Pelton (Jim Rash). He is the dean of Greendale who works hard to make the community college feel like a university. At the same time he is an avid cross-dresser who sexuality barely comes to light in the show and he constantly flirts and touches Jeff. But he also loves the study group the most as they are his favorite students. The rest of the recurring casts all have certain characteristics that play a big part in their character. One has Star sideburns aka StarBurns, one has a catchphrase that everyone loves to say aka Magnitude and his catchphrase “POP POP”, one is very old and tries to act young to fit in aka Leonard and then there are the other side characters that become a big part of the later seasons like Frankie Dart (Paget Brewster), Professor Hickey (Jonathon Banks), Elroy Patashnik (Keith David) and so much more.
So now that we know about this ensemble cast I think it would be best if we begin to talk about why exactly I liked this show and some key reasons why this show works perfectly well with its general audience. For the most part I love the show as a whole because it knows what it’s doing as a whole and does it in the most unique way. Pretty much this television sitcom uses a technique for each episode, a technique that the series creator Dan Harmon used for each episode that guides us along throughout the series. He calls it a “story circle” and this technique/method he used in the show helps to create an effective and structured storytelling for each episode. Dan Harmon’s “story circle” has 8 pieces into it and they include the following: Comfort Zone, Needs or Desires, Unfamiliar Situation, Adaptation, Get What They Wanted, Pays a Price, Return to Comfort and Having Changed. Almost each episode uses this story circle and in a sense each episode uses it in a very unique way where something is going on in the episode but the real meaning towards the episode becomes a bigger part of the episodes plot and we now have to adapt to that and bring it into the full circle for the episode’s story so it can be changed and the episode can kind of end in a positive light. This method only works when the writers of the episode put together a very great script and 9 out of the 10 times it does work very well. The writers for the show do a very great job in making this silly show feel very real and with the help from the director’s and Dan Harmon of course the episode itself is done very well. This technique works very well in regular episodes but it’s used very well in the episodes where an episode uses a TV troupe or is parodying a certain film/television show. In fact I want to take a deep dive with some episodes and talk about them a little bit.
There are a lot of great episodes from Community that I want to talk about but I don’t want to make this a 100 page essay, so I will talk about a few in short details. Let’s start off with the Christmas episode, better known as “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas”. This episode parodies the stop motion animated Christmas specials and uses it as the center plot of the story. This is an episode where we take a deep dive into the meta-brain of Abed as he believes he and the world around him are in stop motion animation like the Christmas specials on television and the study group and the psychology professor, Professor Duncan, meet in the study room to help Abed with a therapy group session and Abed turns it into a Christmas themed episode in his mind to find the true meaning of Christmas. This is a very great episode that has a deeper meaning towards Abed’s tradition of watching Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer with his mother each Christmas but we also get a better understanding of why Abed acts the way he does in the show. We get into why Abed acts the way he does back in a Season 1 episode but it is here where we get an even better understanding of Abed. Harmon used his story circle perfectly in this episode and this episode is highly praised for its animation, so much so that it won an Emmy. Another episode I want to talk about is Remedial Chaos Theory. This episode uses the multiple timelines/multiple dimension troupe in sci-fi films and television shows and the way it uses it is iconic. So Troy and Abed are having a get together at their apartment and they ordered pizza. The bell rings and someone needs to go downstairs to get the pizza. So Jeff rolls a die to determine who goes downstairs to get the pizza but Abed says that this can change the outcome of a certain timeline and we get seven different scenario’s/timelines in this episode. However in the first roll and each roll after we learn about a certain object that becomes a bigger picture for each member of the group. Each time a different member of the group goes downstairs to get the pizza that certain object and their part of the stories timeline is gone and something new always happens to the group. This episode is very hilarious and clever with its story and uses Harmon’s story circle in a very clever way with having the timelines continuously changing the story circle until the end when we all “Return to Comfort”.
*pause*
Future Steven here, I like that Steven writing this review is trying not to spoil the episodes too much, but this is my time to shine as I will be, hence why Steven mentioned earlier spoilers are ahead. An episode I want to talk about is Geothermal Escapism. This Season 5 episode is the final episode including Donald Glover as he was being written off the show due to him wanting to be a full time musician and to create his own show. It’s brought up about him leaving in the episode prior to this but this episode has a very deeper meaning. The episode is about the school playing a game of The Floor is Lava and the winner would win a comic book worth $50,000. The reason why this was done is because Abed is having a hard time with Troy leaving as Troy is his best friend and pretty much the only person who understands him. We all have had that one moment in our life where we had to say goodbye to someone who was moving on with something great in their life and had a hard time saying goodbye and the way Dan Harmon, Joe Russo and Matt Roller made this story and use the “story circle” in this story was very amazing as Abed wants Troy to stay and not go and when Abed doesn’t get what he wants he falls into the lava. It’s an episode that uses the story circle in a different way by having the character that we’ve been following now get what they want and now have to adapt and realize that they need to do what is right, even if they don’t fully want to. At the same time this episode helps Troy character development and helps him mature more and not be scared to leave Greendale and go onto his new journey in life. It’s a very powerful episode that Steven writing this review wanted to talk about but couldn’t do without spoiling hence why I, Future Steven, will because this is an episode that has a deep meaning and uses the Dan Harmon story circle so beautifully.
*Steven writing the Review realizes Future Steven is 4th wall breaking this review and gets annoyed. He begins to take back control from this meta joke and continues on with his review.
*play*
Sorry about that but as you can see the ridiculous TV troupe/parody episodes really work well with the story circle technique that Dan Harmon created and while it might seem confusing it really isn’t. Each episode both me and Future Steven talked about had a comfortable moment that brought us into the episode, followed by moments of needing or desiring something that then leads to a certain character or characters being unaware of the situation in hand which then makes them adapt to that situation in their own way, good or bad. They get to where they need to go but they then pay a price for what they have done and we then head to the stories conclusion/final act where we return to the comforting beginning moments and have the certain moment that the certain character got their way and changed it for the better so the episode can end on a positive note. You see what Dan Harmon is doing for Community is creating a story within a story, making the story within the story the deeper meaning and having the powerful message that it intends to tell the viewer while the main story is used to get us to that deeper meaning. The series uses very powerful messages and some very deep topics to tell a certain episodes story. Some of these deep topics include mental health, losing a loved one, a best friend leaving, depression, getting older, coping with death, etc. The writers and directors for each episode do a great job at bringing these episodes together by making these stories feel very real to its general audience, hence why this show kind of works. Yeah it uses meta jokes and 4th wall breaks to tell its story but that is okay as that is the biggest strength of Community and while Community mostly strives on meta, 4th wall breaks, dark jokes and TV troupes, it also has an outstanding production team working in the background to create amazing stories that the viewer at home can kind of relate to.
Steven Writing the Review
Future Steven I think we did a great job at reviewing Community.
Future Steven
I mean we really didn’t review anything. All we did was talk about the characters and a few episodes and why Dan Harmon is a genius.
Steven Writing the Review
Oh, well what do we talk about now?
*CUT TO SEASON 4 AND 6 AND WHY STEVEN DIDN’T LIKE THOSE SEASON’S AS MUCH.
So Season 4 felt kind of different compared to the other seasons as Dan Harmon left the show after Season 3 as he was fired due to his erratic behavior on set and he was replaced by David Guarascio and Moses Port. Now not everything about Season 4 was bad but the episode where the group was puppets is kind of terrible and doesn’t really do much for the season or even the character development for each character. Plus I get the show was trying to be meta by bringing in a Sesame Street parody in the mix but dear god did it not work for this show and kind of made the show feel stupid. A lot of critics and fans call this the worst season of Community and it shows as it has a 65% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s not a terrible season like I’m letting on for this review but it’s the season where the show felt less eccentric. Dan Harmon returned thankfully for Season 5 and 6 but by then the show began to lose a lot. Chevy Chase left the show after Season 4 due to the way he was acting off camera with the cast and with Dan Harmon so Harmon pretty much fired him and wrote him off. Also Donald Glover was written off after 5 episodes in Season 5 due to him focusing more on his music career. Season 6 was where Yvette Nicole Brown was written off but it was due to personal reasons. But for me, I don’t like Season 6 that much. I felt like the season lacked what made Community feel like Community, even though we had meta jokes and multiple episodes that parodied a certain TV troupe, but for some strange reason I didn’t like it as much as say the “worst season” of Season 4. It’s not a terrible season as it has high ratings from critics but for me I didn’t enjoy it as much without the main cast being a part of it. I like a couple of the episodes and moments in the season but it’s not as enjoyable for me. Community kind of became a rollercoaster ride after Season 3 as cancellation was always riding behind it as there was multiple times in the show’s running that it had a chance of being cancelled and the show runners and writers made sure to make fun of the fact that they might be cancelled each season. But when the show finally did get cancelled and picked up by Yahoo I feel like the damage was already done and Season 6 kind of fell flat, in my opinion of course. The one thing I can say that helped the show was the love from the production team, directors, writers and Dan Harmon of course, but most of all the love from its fan base to keep this show going.
*INSERT THE FINAL PARAGRAPH, STEVEN TALKS ABOUT WHY THE SHOW IS SO POPULAR AND WHAT MAKES IT SO GREAT.
Community is a smart and clever show that was able to stay around for a long time when the higher power, NBC, tried to get rid of it and pretty much cancel it. Community has a cult following for a reason as when heavyweight comedies like The Office and Friends was always talked about so highly, Community trailed behind it and was doing comedy in a totally different way. It used very dark jokes that won’t work today like The Office but it certainly did it differently. It used meta-humor to make fun of television, even itself at times. It parodied every troupe and cliché on television and even film genres like Westerns, Sci-fi, Horror and even Documentaries. Hell it even would bring itself into the animated world of 2-D animation, Stop-motion animation and even video game 8-bit animation. Community didn’t need to be seen as a serious sitcom as it had very deep and powerful episodes that many people related to the hidden messages in the story and yes it broke the wall hundreds of times but that is the beauty of this show. Dan Harmon wanted to base this show on his time in community college and in the end he created this show that was about a study group that became a family in the end. The series might get ridiculous at times and many people might call it stupid but they don’t really understand what this show is really trying to give out to the world. I mean this show found so much success even though it had low ratings and was pretty much the underdog for NBC. Without this show the Russo Brothers wouldn’t had gotten the success that would had gotten in the future as this show gave them the opportunity to work for Kevin Feige and create some of the biggest films in the MCU (Captain America: Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers Infinity War and Avengers Endgame). Dan Harmon found huge success in his storytelling and would then go on to create Rick and Morty, a show that also uses the story circle technique but is also one of the most beloved animated shows of the last decade and of all time. Community found success for most of its main cast and they later would find bigger success after the show ended. Community might be a ridiculous show but it had so much heart and soul that most sitcoms today do not have. The show is popular because it’s cult following later brought so much more success to the show as a whole as it was one of the most streamed shows on Hulu and later on Netflix and millions of people to this day will quote the show or even say how much they love the show. It’s not a show that everyone will love but I guarantee you if you give it a chance then you too might fall in love with it like I did and if you don’t then that’s okay, at least you gave it a chance. But just remember, just like us, Community isn’t perfect as it does have its flaws. But in the end these flaws help strengthen the series and bring it its greatness that it highly deserves. I went into watching the series a 2nd time to review it and in the end I accepted that this show is a very clever show and Dan Harmon is a genius.
Final Review: 4.2 out of 5 Stars, 92% out of 100.
*Side Note* You’re probably wondering why I pretended to include a Future me in this review and even broke the 4th wall here and there and even made parts of this review look like a screenplay. I did it to show how much meta-humor and 4th wall breaking Community used and why it strengthened the series throughout its run. If you didn’t get it then I understand but hopefully you will one day, maybe when you go check it out for yourself. It’s streaming on Netflix and Hulu so if you have the chance to watch it then please do, I highly recommend it. I will now leave you with the biggest memes of Community.
Comments