Community, the tv show

my overall reaction is "SAVE THE DRAMA FOR ON-CAMERA"

I stopped watching mid-way through season 4 but still feel Harmon doing a commentary on the season to be a very shitty thing to do.

can't wait for a year from now when people start saying here "ah, season 4 really wasn't that bad, guys" (cause it wasn't!)

lol read my S4 posts in this thread, I'm already on that bandwagon aside from the fucking horrible season ender which was pandering horseshit

I think my expectations were so flattened by the end that I could only see the finale in terms of whatever mild chuckles it brought. I chuckled a couple of times, so Yay! Good episode! The "it was all a dream" didn't even bother me at the time since they seemed way past caring by that point.

I would almost prefer Harmon never watch Season 4 or address its existence at all. Treat it like Squeeze or Cut The Crap; pretend it never happened.

there were three episodes this season where I sat stonefaced with nary a lol; two of them were written by Megan Ganz

(actually I did lol at Pierce's sex dungeon, so that's overstatement)

In reality, not much of consequence did happen this season, aside from Jeff graduating. I can see Harmon wanting to declare that episode with jeff's dad non-canon and doing something better with that storyline

I think I laughed once or twice during the Inspector Spacetime convention episode. It at least seemed like the least-shitty, even with that horrible Annie-playing-marriage subplot.

But I wonder if the writing credit goes to the writer who came up with the idea, or the one who actually wrote the bulk of it, or both, or neither (meaning, the crapulence may not be due to Ganz).

I think I laughed once or twice during the Inspector Spacetime convention episode. It at least seemed like the least-shitty, even with that horrible Annie-playing-marriage subplot.

That was probably my least favorite of the ones I watched from season 4.

I thought the run from the Inspector Spacetime convention through the Sophie B Hawkins dance were all good (with "Herstory of Dance" and "Economics of Marine Biology" easily being the best of the season)

"Herstory of Dance" was my one keeper from s4, although I didn't watch the last few. (Did the girl - Rachel? - ever come back??) Agree with Nicole: the Inspector Spacetime convention episode was kind of heartbreaking.

I'm sure I remember Troy taking Abed aside and whispering something about his "recent divorce".

Yeah, Herstory definitely the best of the season. And no, Rachel never came back. Seems like in s4 they either left loose ends lying around, or tied them up in the clumsiest manner imaginable (Jeff's dad, Troy & Britta's breakup).

abed never gets to keep a girlfriend longer than one episode

they need to make take steps to make Abed less Sheldon imo

well right now one way is "don't let him have a girlfriend"

well i haven't seen much recent BBT, did they finally break the asexuality barrier?

he's been dating blossom for years

they haven't had sex yet though

...so glad i don't watch that show

it was much, much funnier than Community this year

Ha, you keep defending s4 but you don't actually seem all that enthused about it.

I have never hated BBT the way the rest of this board does

But I wonder if the writing credit goes to the writer who came up with the idea, or the one who actually wrote the bulk of it, or both, or neither (meaning, the crapulence may not be due to Ganz).

The writing credit goes to whoever wrote the first draft, not who had the idea (usually a collaborative process) nor who wrote the bulk of it (frequently Harmon, when he was on the show)

yeah i feel like analyzing TV episodes by who 'wrote' them (especially when it comes to how funny an episode was) is usually pointless for that reason

Saw my first episodes of BBT last month, all in a row one night, bcz there was a promo on while I was at the gym for "ALL NEW BIG BANG THEORY TONIGHT" with Kate Micucci in, so I kept returning to the treadmill to plug my headphones in and see her turn up. However, it turned out that there were three ALL OLD episodes first, and Micucci was only onscreen for about two minutes.

But I got to see the Blossom/Sheldon thing across a few episodes where she was longing for acknowledgement and affection from him, and it being presented as a victory that we're meant to laughingly share in when his aspieness shuts her out. To the point of drafting a relationship contract including that he is not required to even hold her hand.

I guess this could be seen as supportive pro-asexuality propaganda, but it felt way gross to me to be making broad-audience lols about a grown woman making huge allowances for a partner, and being denied sexual agency and fulfilment in return

yeah that plotline, the longer it goes on, is kinda grotesque, so it surprised me that DJP was all "hey Sheldon has a girlfriend!". Shirley gets more action on Community than My Empty Valley gets on that show.

djp I got yr back on big bang theory

BBT is lazy as hell.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/dan-harmon-had-some-predictably-harsh-words-for-co%2C99117/

Dan Harmon, charmer

[Guarascio & Port] went to Comic-Con, saw what was going on. People dressed as spacemen and bananas and shit; people going, 'Holy shit, I cut myself every night and watch Community.' And they went, 'Fuck' and I think they tried their best and I think that was the best idea — not the best idea, as it turns out, but the most admirable kind of impulse. It's like, 'Let's not let these people down. If there's anything else we do, let's not let these people down' …

what a monster

“I watched season four. I guess I already knew this, but apparently, I’m quite a genius … I think I feel pretty comfortable expressing any kind of 'Eh, not my cup of tea' about it because — this has been expressed a thousand times over — it's obviously not somebody doing what they do and trying very hard to make people happy. It is very much like an impression, and an unflattering one. It’s just 13 episodes of 'Oh, I’m Dan Harmon! Derpy, derpy, durr! Die Hard! Durrrrr!' I feel like I'm going back to work tomorrow morning, and I just feel like, 'Do I talk like that?'…. Man, watching those characters without me there is just not fuckin' cool, man. It's like flipping through Instagrams and watching your girlfriend just blow a million [other guys]”

Still being sarcastic, if engaging in a far less healthy exercise, Harmon then added, “There's something awesome about having all of those preconceived notions ripped away from you. It's exciting. There's something exciting about being held down and watching your family get raped on a beach. It's liberating. It makes you focus on what's important.”

pretty much

sounds like an appropriate reaction. maybe too cordial.

I havent listened to this week's yet, but that sounds like the usual making-fun-of-his-narcissism-for-a-small-audience-in-the-back-of-a-comic-book-shop tone of Harmontown

yeah the nature of the beast that is dan-drunk-at-harmontown doesn't translate at all on paper. on the other hand, jesus take it down a notch maybe?

I havent listened to this week's yet, but that sounds like the usual making-fun-of-his-narcissism-for-a-small-audience-in-the-back-of-a-comic-book-shop ... and then broadcast over iTunes to thousands of people... tone of Harmontown.

you listen? it's v plain that he doesn't think about any audience except those in the room, hence ep 58 not even having the D&D uploaded. (and the tour showed that that micro-audience is in fact the macro listenership.)

(well, them and cockfarmers at the AV Club listening to an episode the second it goes up in case he says something impolitic typical.)

Just listened to the Harmontown intro from which those quotes are pulled. The whole 'watching your family get raped' thing was a joke at the end of a long riff on how he'd been trying to reach out to bill murray to play jeff's dad and how that possibility had been taken from him. Fuck that av club writer

at the end of a long riff

11 and a half minutes in. And it's really the start of the following 18 minutes of serious monologue about Harmon's stilted relationship with his own dad.

if i have to start listening to a podcast to enjoy this show i am done

Aaaaaaand he's apologizing.

sort of amazed he apologized

then again patton oswalt recently went on that rant and came out against rape jokes, maybe that really did have an effect

That might've been part of it, but Harmon's rant looked a lot more dickish in print than it sounded on his podcast. He probably wouldn't have apologized if transcriptions hadn't made the rounds (but he should've expected they would).

He always sounds incredibly dickish to me, audio or print

he sounds varying stages of drunk to me

Yeah, I've heard that he drinks a lot on his podcasts. And at every other time of day.

He was the guest on, as far as I know, the only unaired live Nerdist podcast. He was SO drunk, like, humping the stage drunk. And saying the CRAZIEST trolliest shit. It was hilarious. But also kind of twilight zone.

I saw the Harmontown podcast tour. Dude was openly swigging from a vodka bottle whilst dancing shirtless to begin the show with a GoPro camera strapped to his head. He gets that drunk.