Yes! Finally! Halleluiah!
These are all things I may have yelled in my economics class when I found out that the fantastic meta-comedy “Community” was finally being put back on air. After the remaining episodes of season three were being held hostage for a couple months and the future of the show was in limbo, NBC finally came to their senses, and we can all once again enjoy new episodes of the best comedy on television.
It’s been a long time coming hearing this glorious news, but now that “Community” is back, there is a huge problem that needs to be fixed: not enough people watch the show. It doesn’t matter how critically-acclaimed, clever and hilarious the show may be, if people don’t start watching it, then the show will be taken off air again. And this time, it won’t just be put on hiatus for a while – it will be cancelled for good.
For the majority of you who have never seen “Community,” the premise of the show is that a big-shot lawyer name Jeff Winger, portrayed by host of “The Soup” Joel McHale, has to go to community college after getting caught faking his bachelor’s degree. He meets an attractive blonde named Britta Perry (Gillan Jacobs) and, in an attempt to try to sleep with her, he lies and convinces her he is a Spanish tutor forming a study group. Unknowingly to Jeff, Britta invites other students from their Spanish class to the study group. He fails at sleeping with Britta but realizes the study group might be useful after all.
And there you have it – the lead into a normal sitcom where they could show miscellaneous adventures stemming from the study group. Well, except the fact that “Community” isn’t a sitcom. In fact, the show is constantly self-aware of the fact it’s not through use of meta-humor and the character Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi), a self-aware pop-culture junkie who uses movies and TV shows to reference situations the characters are in.
For example, when “Community” did a “bottle episode,” an episode created to save money and usually taking place in one setting, in the season two episode “Cooperative Calligraphy,” Abed constantly referenced the fact that “it looks like we’re doing a bottle episode,” and goes as far as to say “I hate bottle episodes. They’re wall-to-wall facial expressions and emotional nuance. I might as well sit in the corner with a bucket on my head.” No other show on television is so self-aware and upfront about what it’s doing and yet still makes such fantastic episodes.
And believe me, there are some fantastic episodes. Producer Dan Harmon and staff aren’t afraid to produce any themed or parody idea they come up with, and this has led to several brilliant episodes, including three school-wide paintball episodes, a Goodfellashomage based on cafeteria-food chicken fingers, a claymation Christmas episode (taking place in Abed’s mind and stemming from psychological issues), and a flashback episode with all the flashbacks containing brand new footage instead of clips of past episodes, as most shows do.
It’s not just creative episode ideas that make the show so great – the cast is absolutely fantastic. Along with Jeff, Britta and Abed is the athletic, dim-witted and kindhearted Troy Barnes (Donald Glover), the naïve and studious Annie Edison (Alison Brie), and the hotheaded, motherly figure of the group, Shirley Bennett (Yvette Nicole Brown). “Community” also features “The Hangover” star Ken Jeong as Spanish teacher Ben Chang and past Saturday Night Live regular Chevy Chase as Pierce Hawthorne, a tycoon trying to feel popular and find companionship. The cast is one of the best on television and has the range and diversity to fulfill the imaginative ideas that Dan Harmon and staff come up with.
Many amazing shows have disappeared too early because they couldn’t get the ratings to stay afloat. “Arrested Development,” “Jericho” and “Pushing Daisies” are just a handful of shows that met their end simply because enough people couldn’t recognize their greatness until it was too late. But it’s not too late for “Community.”
When it comes back to NBC March 15, everyone just please give a try, and maybe enough people will watch it for it to get renewed for a fourth season. And to all the “Community” fans out there, six seasons and a movie.
