Community, the tv show

I do believe in taking down actual problematic material, but a lot of these recent moves seem performative, as if they're doing it so they're seen as doing something.

I prefer the content note approach

So you all know that the reason drow elves are dark-skinned is because their goddess corrupted them with evil, right?

I am not saying they should have pulled the episode (in fact, I think pulling it is incredibly fucking dumb) but the source material it's using has a bunch of shady shit in it, which is why Wizards of the Coast recently announced they were dropping the entire concept of "good races" and "evil races". The humor presented in the episode is explicit naming of a subtext running through the backstory of the drow.

I only learned that this week from my D&D friends!

Yeah, I had no idea. For pseudo-blackface, that's a pretty subtle sitcom gag.

Given the in-show reactions to Chang's costume, I think pulling the episode is beyond cowardly. It's the exact same impulse that leads to the conclusion that "colorblindness" is desired and aspirational. Shirley's hate crime line is one of my favorites of the entire show and that episode is probably my favorite of the entire series; more importantly, even in the context of the show and the subliminal shitty stuff in the D&D source material, IT WASN'T BLACKFACE and had absolutely nothing to do with minstrelized representations of Black people AND was used in the show to both obliquely and directly criticize said representations. Removing it is incredibly fucking stupid.

I don't care if you're black or white or yellow or green or elf ...

Thank you falettinme be mice elf

I'd never seen anything past season 3, and oof, the first few episodes of season 4 are indeed as totally, noticeably off and/or bad as I'd heard, enough so that my daughter was getting kind of angry and I actually googled "can I skip season 4 of Community?"

Yeah just skip the whole thing. Beginning of Season 5 is really great but there's a noticeable drop-off after Troy leaves.

"Herstory of Dance" was OK iirc. Otherwise, s4 was basically unwatchable imo. S5 was a little better in comparison but still didn't do much for me; the premise of the show had p much fallen apart by then.

was the giancarlo esposito video game episode in s4? i remember liking that at the time

We are about halfway through S2 on our rewatch, that season is just fire after fire after fire.

xpost No, that one is in season 3, I think.

Yeah, "Digital Estate Planning", the video game ep, is s3. S4 was done without Harmon and was not even really the same show.

I don't remember 4 being quite as bad as everyone says. It was a bit weak, but so were seasons 5 and 6; still worthwhile.

Also the realization later why he was fired for that season, yikes.

season six is also worth your time, Paget Brewster and Keith David have some great moments

Indeed, the cameos and guests seem like the best reason to give S4 a shot.

xpost Which realization, the Ganz stuff? I thought he gave a lengthy apology that she accepted and even complemented. That doesn't seem to be why he was fired, though, at least not directly. His behavior as showrunner was supposedly just generally inconsiderate, unprofessional stuff, afaict, though it's curious that the first three seasons are great with him despite all of this alleged unprofessional behavior, and that after he leaves 1) the show takes a big dip, no matter what you think of S4, 2) they immediately bring him *back*, partly at the request of the cast. So if I had to guess I would go out on a limb and say he was ultimately fired over ... money.

I thought the final straw was shouting 'fuck you Chevy' at the S3 wrap party?

Final straw for Chevy, maybe.

xp Yeah, I was talking about the Ganz stuff. By his own admission/apology, it sounded pretty rank. (That said, as funny as he is, he comes off as a total alcoholic asshole in a lot of his Harmontown spewings.)

Be a shame if he was fired over saying something that every single person on that set was thinking on a constant basis, considering everything I've heard about Chevy on that show.

Checking the episode list on IMDB, and outside of the Inspector Spacetime convention and the origin stories one (and I guess some of the Chang stuff), I don't remember S4 at all. Fwiw, it was also only 13 eps.

Actually, the last three seasons were 13 episodes each.

S4 was dire. I agree with Matt DC that season 5 was actually worthwhile, but gradually started to sink after Troy left. but compared to S4, it was a breath of fresh air to actually find the show funny again.

I always felt they should have hung it up after 3 seasons. Season 4 was my worst fear, realized - without Harmon, everybody sort of just tried to recreate an archetype of Community without nailing, well...any of its essence. they had characters acting atypically for no apparent reason, the humor was all forced. I think by episode 4, I had turned to my brother (who I watched it with religiously) and asked "have we laughed once this season?". He kept watching, I gradually gave up. I've seen most of that season, but there's several I have never seen.

I also haven't liked what I've seen of Season 6. If it were some other show in its first season, it'd be mildly amusing, but doesn't really get further than "slightly above average"

the Sophie B Hawkins dance was exactly the type of ridiculous setup that would have paid 22 minutes of dividends in the first 3 seasons, and they just squandered the potential. it was one of the more watchable eps, but I remember being disappointed as the premise had promise

It just hit me last night that we never saw season 6 when it moved to Yahoo! (god, remember that?) so that will actually all be new to us when we get there.

I had that memory too, and started watching it during lockdown. it's definitely better than 4. and i"ll give a few more eps a chance.

I remember the end of S3 being just as bad as S4

Having come to it late and binge watched it all about the start of lockdown, I didn't see a huge drop off in quality for S4. Probably no real high points but not actively bad.

First time watching the show ever on netflix. i bailed halfway through season 5. the first two seasons are so, so good. I really disliked like 80% of the high concept episodes. The claymation and video game episodes I could barely watch.

I remember the end of S3 being just as bad as S4

Yeah, the Chang dynasty and Greendale coup stuff was garbage. I also hated the one where Abed was 'addicted' to hiring actors to do impressions (or something like that?) S1 is actually my favourite. The storylines and characters are strongest imo and it was so fresh and fun. They never knew what to do with Chang after he was no longer a Spanish teacher. S3 is when the decline really started for me but it got by on lols and ambition. Love the claymation Christmas ep though.

They really seemed to start leaning on Abed's character/the actor a lot to carry the show. I don't know if it's because of actor conflicts or the character was very popular at the time?

The writers very obviously loved Abed

(IMO, obviously)

Ii just missed the ensemble-ness of the first two seasons which was made even worse when Troy leaves.

The show was definitely better when everyone could potentially be seen as the series lead.

They messed up Chang, he was far more interesting and funny as a badass. Turning him into a pathetic loser was bad writing.

They leaned on Abed so heavily because he was the best character through which they could insert the pop culture references and meta narratives.

Harmon thought of Abed as a stand-in for himself

He's definitely more of a Jeff, though.

iirc he imagined himself as the Jeff, but came to realise how much of an Abed he is

(though all the group are intended as aspects of his personality, and he had Feelings about Britta being disparaged by real people due to the degree he identified with her)


yes, you can absolutely skip S4, although one character from the Sophie B Hawkins dance shows up for a few seconds in a S5 episode

The scenes between Abed & Jeff were some of the best moments of S1 and 2, i wish they would have done more with their friendship

a shipping perhaps

They never knew what to do with Chang after he was no longer a Spanish teacher.

Yeah, the Chang dynasty and Greendale coup stuff was garbage.

They leaned on Abed so heavily because he was the best character through which they could insert the pop culture references and meta narratives.

I also think Pudi was possibly the best actor. Imo, though, when they leaned on him, they started trying too hard to play up his 'quirks', veering into Sheldon Cooper territory. It really did feel like they were trying to play to the social media fan response by s3. It stopped being a quirky funny show about students studying at a community college and became more about idk going hard on whatever 'concept' generated the buzz last time or something.

I feel like Pudi was the first one who fully enveloped his character. in the early episodes, the other actors are definitely game, and are surprisingly close to what their characters become fairly early on, but Pudi was pretty much already there from the jump, whereas the others had to sand off a few rough edges.

Maybe it's harder to watch as a binge vs weekly; I would just sigh super loud every time it was a high concept episode on one idea, lazy bullshit. I honestly thought maybe they were centering on Abed because he was the only actor showing up and memorizing his lines on time.

Well, there was a lot of fan enthusiasm for both Abed and the high-concept episodes. Really don't think that e.g. doing a claymation introspection into the emotional state of an detached student with divorced parents was just cutting corners for the sake of cutting corners.