Community, the tv show

thought that was weird too

I'm really bored by this show now and it makes me sad.

I'm watching this and man the guy from Workaholics is a lucky sonofabitch to get so much work. He's a horrible actor.

He has a certain amount of buzz right now. He'll go away soon.

I thought he was decent, in a fun, unrealistically over-the-top kind of way. Never seen him before/in Workaholics, though.

He's in Workaholics, this (and future?) ep of Community, a Sim City commercial, and probably a couple other places I can't recall.

I know people who LOVE Workaholics. I think it's just bad tv. Not because I'm a prude or too highbrow for it. It's just not good. In this guy's defense, he's probably the least objectionable of the three stars.

he was also in Pitch Perfect

yes, I saw Pitch Perfect

Didn't find this very funny at all - Jeff's dad and brother felt poorly cast and a wasted opportunity. The Abed-Shawshank Redemption strand was really strained. Britta was good in this one though.

I'm losing patience with the show in general by the point, but I am totally ready for Pierce to ride off into the sunset now because Chevy is carrying his lines worse than anyone right now. The rest of the cast are still great to watch even when their lines aren't very funny.

Chevy had one really awkward line reading last night. I can't remember what it was, but I immediately thought he must have been asked to do another take but probably/dickishly refused.

Thinking back to a character like Vaughan, or Pierce's dad, and how great the minor details of those characters were, and they conspicuously failed to do anything like that with Jeff's brother. Like, he vomits sometimes? Is that the sum total of the humour in the character?

I saw Workaholics, maybe 5 or 6 eps, and thought it was hilarious. But here, not so much. Didn't help that he was cast for a role in the serious/dramatic/character development story arc. I thought maybe he was supposed to be slow, so it just seemed mean-spirited to me.

I thought large chunks of this were funny/great, esp Britta

I also admit to taking the easy lols offered by Annie's attempt to fake her way out of Shirley's house and how Shirley thwarted her

I thought the main point of Jeff's brother was that he was the exact opposite of Jeff; short, dumpy, codependent, super emotional, etc, basically showing Jeff's dad as an all-around failure of a parental figure and an emotional villain for Jeff to build his speech off of.

They could have done all that in ways that were funny, and with better -drawn characters. It all felt like a pointless frittering away of a moment they've been working up to for years.

define "better-drawn"

I'll agree that Jeff meeting his dad seemed thrown together, but really, once Bill Murray was out of the running, I didn't care anymore.

Brolin was not a bad choice imo

despite jeff's dad and brother being pretty nondescript i thought the emotional stuff at the end was pretty well done, even if it was a bit much all at once. but prior to that i can't say i got much of anything from this episode. watching this season while i rewatch season 2 for the first time in a while probably isn't helping me have much in the way of good feelings about the new stuff.

did anyone else think that chevy chase's delivery was often a bit slurred? i had to strain to pick up what he was saying at a few points.

shawshank stuff was so strained

I didn't even watch this! It's not like I was boycotting it, I just got busy and forgot. I was curious to see how the situation with Jeff's dad played out, oh well.

I know people who LOVE Workaholics. I think it's just bad tv.

― Johnny Fever, Friday, March 8, 2013 2:12 PM (1 hour ago)

It's the poor man's It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

workaholics is better than community

At this point I'd agree.

it's a dumb show that knows it's dumb as opposed to a dumb show that thinks it's smart

i like the shawshank stuff. straining credulity sure, but the first movie thing this season that has been not just screwing with us.

btw when we talk about great episodes from past seasons i've realized that somehow the "dinner with andre" episode stopped getting as consistent mention. that's still the apex of the series for me.

workaholics is better than sunny at this point

THIS EPISODE WAS ABOUT *EMOTIONS* OR SOMETHING

Pierce gives a TED Talk

wait, this is a great idea

a better show would have made the groop interact with shirley's in-laws and made it funny rather than hiding in the garage

this feels av club-standard nitpicky, but why were they so enthusiastic about thanksgiving at shirley's anyway? rejecting shirley's food is a firm and long-standing staple of the group.

they were enthusiastic because their own families suck and at least they would be together

yeah, it doesn't really take much in the way of comedic chops to play pierce, especially now -- chevrolet is *really* mailing it in

they were excited because then they had an excuse to do shawshank

(the writers, i mean)

When Jeff's dad faked the heart attack I couldn't work out whether they were making a point about him being a bit like Pierce or just throwing in a lazy shout-out to last season.

Actually, Jeff's reaction upon realising his father was basically Pierce Hawthorne would have been hilarious in ways this episode didn't get anywhere near.

a better show would have made the groop interact with shirley's in-laws and made it funny rather than hiding in the garage

This. The fact that so much of the action appeared to be going on off-camera didn't really work either. Weird decision to finally show us Shirley's house when Malcolm Jamal-Warner couldn't appear for whatever reason.

define "better-drawn"

If you really want me to spell this out, the first season in the show really took care with its minor characters, they'd all have these unique little touches to them that ensured they held your attention whenever they were onscreen. A character like Vaughan could have been some general trustarian type but they bothered to write in the details (tiny nipples, saying hello and goodbye three times, awesome songs). When the writers put together Jeff's brother they basically stopped at 'chubby, dorky, butthurt' and then 'what if we make him vomit while stressed lololol?'

well-drawn characters like Magnitude

^ capn save-a-show

i mean come on, the point of magnitude is that he's a walking catchphrase. how does his existence remotely undercut the idea that characters were more developed and nuanced in the past?

Bitching that a character seems like a broad sketch on a show full of broad sketch characters and using as your main example a character who made several appearances over a protracted story line is making a poor argument IMO.

This isn't even getting into the issue of any minority outside of the study group being marginally drawn at best, with both Troy and Shirley (esp. Shirley) going through patches where the writers have no idea of what to do with them and Abed basically being a walking AV Club commenter 50% of the time. Despite this, I still find shit in the show to make me laugh, usually due to the chemistry between 6/7 of the study group.

The season opener was okayish and the Halloween episode was bordering on terrible; since then, the show has stabilized somewhat and given me solid laughs. I guess that makes me Cap'n Save-A-Show.

i've said it before, but i totally understand if someone who watchs a lot of sitcoms still thinks this is a show worth watching. there's good actors and decent gags. it's needling people over their word choice when trying to describe a quality drop-off and then, when they do, bringing up a bit character that was clearly meta commentary ON thin character work as if he wasn't, is what made me say "capn save-a-show"

i haven't seen the new episode, but i can see how a broad bit re: jeff's family would be disappointing considering the seasons of build-up to it. And if Vaughn feels like a poor comparison point, I thought Malcolm Jamal-Warner's first appearance was pretty classic as far as the introduction of family goes.

This just isn't true though, most of the minor characters had enough distinctive characteristics to make them interesting and enjoyable even they were only in an episode or a couple of scenes, I could easily have used the example of the Seize The Day guy, or the pottery teacher.

It's not even that the brother was a broad sketch character, it's that he's a lazily conceived and unfunny broad sketch character. I get the feeling you're playing down the distinctiveness of older characters (even some of the leads) in order to make the point that there's not much difference in how S4 handles things, which just isn't true. The old Community would never have handled such a pivotal moment in the life of its central character in such a tossed off way.

(xpost to DJP)

on the one hand i think you're right. on the other, i don't actually think the show is that much poorer for it.

this thread is going to straight-up "worked for me" vs "didn't work for me" and "not what it was" vs "still best thing on thursdays at 8" until they pull the plug, isn't it?

that's how all these popular sitcom threads go more or less

i'm probably done with it since the quality is just high enough that i can't hate-watch it like smash. "well that was an underwhelming resolution, but i liked when troy did that thing." Considering the flaws of season 3 it's not even necessarily worse than it would have been if Dan Harmon was watching it from afar while focusing on a new show. it's just clear that nobody on board is going to be surprising us. it's a skeleton crew until the lease runs out.

"Community" was never the best thing on Thursdays at 8

bbt4life

actually what about the end of s1, before they moved bbt - in early 2010 did you prefer vampire diaries, bones, flashforward or survivor?

The dramatic elements of most Community eps are really low on the chain of appreciation, personally. I enjoy the jokes and the performances of the main actors, and if it's a high-concept ep, the stylistic choices. I can appreciate the dramatic Learning Moments they pretty much put into every ep (aching piano soundtrack and all) because i think of it more as another element of TV sitcom meta. Character arcs over a single ep are important mainly as a framing device, and it is important to keep the balance between that and the comedy. Sometimes the show is so focused on getting to that Learning Moment that the other elements are ignored. And you end up with something like the last episode.

Did Harmon take a bunch of the writing staff too? Maybe there is something more to his leaving.

dude reportedly rewrote every episode and was heavily involved in shaping plots in the writing room. so basically every moment of s1-3 had his strong stamp of approval on it