Community - Season 4 [US] *Spoilers*

120_Minutes

psicic

Meh, so much of what I was thinking has already been said that I won't bother repeating. It was an average episode. It tried to laugh with it's nerd-core audience, but instead seemed to be some sort of middle-management interpretation of what would appear 'zany', 'hipster' and 'meta' - which, I'm sure, is on their checklist of what the Community-viewing demo wants.

I liked Happy Endings - but that was always a very different (mainstream) show to Community. As others have commented, characters in Community are not only regressing - they're regressing to a state where they blend in more with the Happy Ending characters, picking up traits they never had.

Britta had changed... there was some logic to it in previous years and I had been expecting some sort of payoff... but now she's gone off the deep end and is painfully stupid. For some reason, any strength of character Annie had seems to have disappeared also and her character seems as changeable as someone on crack cocaine or serious psychotic medication. Shirley and Pierce are practically invisible... though Pierce was probably used quite well in this episode. Jeff now has a 'maudlin-I'm-normal-too' switch that seems to be on the brink of tripping every second. Abed is... is what exactly? They've dulled his eccentricities, his 'otherness' and (unsatisfactorily) explained away many of his traits.

I actually like the Inspector Spacetime concept. The convention was an okay idea... but it certainly kept me reminded of the 'Wedding Convention' episode from Happy Endings. And the fact EVERYTHING was spelled out large to the audience, including the obligatory "We respect our audience" line from Shirley during the focus group, is what has really started to annoy me about the new direction Community has taken.

It could have been more interesting as a before/after episode without showing the convention at all.

Anyways, I'm not expecting this series to reach the heights of classic Community anymore. Can't say I really laugh at it anymore, but I'll keep watching which, I suppose, means the show is doing what it's supposed to be doing for the marketing execs.

phasers

Tonight's episode was probably the most 'sitcommy' the show's ever been.

The electric shocks and the chairs breaking? The schmaltzy ending with them fixing up the other study rooms? Are you freaking kidding me?

The Dean turning up to bail Chang out of jail in full costume annoyed me too. It just seemed too 'wacky'.

Malcolm McDowell was great but that guy would be great reading the back of a cornflakes box.

It was nice to see the other Greendale students though, the only laugh I got was Todd saying 'they lost a pen' in the flashback.

FlyingIrishMan

phasers wrote: »

Tonight's episode was probably the most 'sitcommy' the show's ever been.

The electric shocks and the chairs breaking? The schmaltzy ending with them fixing up the other study rooms? Are you freaking kidding me?

The Dean turning up to bail Chang out of jail in full costume annoyed me too. It just seemed too 'wacky'.

Malcolm McDowell was great but that guy would be great reading the back of a cornflakes box.

It was nice to see the other Greendale students though, the only laugh I got was Todd saying 'they lost a pen' in the flashback.

You've disliked every episode of Community this season, why are you still waiting up until past 1am every Thursday to watch it?

Newaglish

FlyingIrishMan wrote: »

You've disliked every episode of Community this season, why are you still waiting up until past 1am every Thursday to watch it?

Because it's only 4 episodes in and there's still hope it could get better?

I actually thought it was a pretty weak episode myself. Again, I liked the parts where we got to see the other students' outside perception of the goings-on in the study room but there was a lot more that I didn't like.

phasers

FlyingIrishMan wrote: »

You've disliked every episode of Community this season, why are you still waiting up until past 1am every Thursday to watch it?

I watched the first one live because it was the season premiere and I was excited,and last night's one live because I was awake anyway putting off doing an assignment. I watched the other two the next day. Is 1AM even that late?

I am the biggest Community fan there is, I have 4 tshirts, all the DVDs, follow the cast on Twitter, my ringtone is the Digital Estate Planning 8-bit theme song, I have a Troy and Abed mug I had custom printed and have watched the first 3 seasons 4 times. I want nothing more than to like the new season and genuinely expect each new episode to be an improvement. I'm sorry, I won't post here anymore if it bothers you.

colinod0806

I didn't find those Germans funny the first time and I still don't now.
I keep waiting for this season to come alive but it keeps letting me down:(

Also, staying up past 1am?


:P:P:P:P:P:pac:

FlyingIrishMan

I don't consider 1am that late, as I stay up for it myself. But for someone who has been heavily criticizing the show for the past four weeks it seems a bit odd that said person would remain going to the trouble of waiting up, and finding a stream.

I never said you shouldn't post, but I just get a little annoyed by all the negative posts. The show isn't what it was, okay, but unless you can get past that you're not going to enjoy any of the season. I thought that episode was enjoyable, I didn't like the electrocution part, or the Dean showing up dressed as a nurse, but I thought the rest of the episode was very enjoyable.

miralize

They've been a bit strange with Pierces lines this season, even in the episode that was revolved around his storyline, he wasnt involved that much. I'd say its due to the fact that he's leaving anyway so its just not important to give him lines that affect the plot/characters...

I liked that episode though. "Hi, I'm Kevin"

Gingervitis

I have been drinking...but I liked it. Some good stuff.

FlyingIrishMan

miralize wrote: »

They've been a bit strange with Pierces lines this season, even in the episode that was revolved around his storyline, he wasnt involved that much. I'd say its due to the fact that he's leaving anyway so its just not important to give him lines that affect the plot/characters...

I liked that episode though. "Hi, I'm Kevin"

From some guy on reddit:

During the writers AMA they said that they had to write day to day not knowing whether he'd be available for certain scenes or if he'd even show up. Consequently they couldn't make him fundamental to any of the plots, so he's just sort of there in the occasional scene, saying the occasional line. The writers even said they only found out about him leaving (I think) the day before an important shoot, and then had to write his whole character out of an entire episode with 24 hours notice.

Richard Dower

Ratings are steady....no danger :cool:

FootShooter

What a brilliant episode. So many awesome jokes. Putting Troy in the Trojan cake. Abed losing his home to the germans, him being half-polish and all. The Burn notice line. Classic community.

pixelburp

This isn't a fan forum, it shouldn't be demanded that only those with high praise for the show be the ones to air their opinion; most on this thread would have seen the show from series 1, and it's only fair that not only we give the fourth series a fair shake, but if we feel the show is in decline we should call it out on that.

It does raise a good question though: how long do you give a show before deciding it's not worth keeping up with? Four episodes in and while I've laughed and enjoyed the odd throwaway line, it has become so flat in areas & I wonder if I could be bothered with it all. Electric-shock gags. Really?

Tbh, I didn't really care that strongly on the whole Dan Harmon controversy - producers come and go & shows still survive throughout, sometimes flourish even - but I just don't think Community Series 4 is very good and maybe Harmon was part of the secret formula to success. Funny thing is, the one phrase I haven't seen used & yet I think is totally apt here - Community has possibly jumped the shark.

Oh and I officially hate the Dean now, he's a ludicrous over-the-top cartoon character.

nkay1985

pixelburp wrote: »

This isn't a fan forum, it shouldn't be demanded that only those with high praise for the show be the ones to air their opinion; most on this thread would have seen the show from series 1, and it's only fair that not only we give the fourth series a fair shake, but if we feel the show is in decline we should call it out on that.

It does raise a good question though: how long do you give a show before deciding it's not worth keeping up with? Four episodes in and while I've laughed and enjoyed the odd throwaway line, it has become so flat in areas & I wonder if I could be bothered with it all. Electric-shock gags. Really?

Tbh, I didn't really care that strongly on the whole Dan Harmon controversy - producers come and go & shows still survive throughout, sometimes flourish even - but I just don't think Community Series 4 is very good and maybe Harmon was part of the secret formula to success. Funny thing is, the one phrase I haven't seen used & yet I think is totally apt here - Community has possibly jumped the shark.

Oh and I officially hate the Dean now, he's a ludicrous over-the-top cartoon character.

Thinking along those lines myself. I don't know what show they think they're making but it isn't Community.

As said previously, the only good thing from that episode was seeing the situations from the other people's perspective.

This probably was one of my favourite episodes of this season, though I do think the whole Pierce being electrocuted thing was a bit too much on the sitcom-side for my tastes. That being said, there were some quite humourous lines.

BlitzKrieg

Well that resolved a large part of what I thought the previous episodes were missing. I found a lot of it to be quite funny, there were still bits where it fell back on some tired jokes and the subplot with the dean was very thin (but clearly it was just setting up for whatever role chang fills next episodes) but a lot of the self referential humour had returned and the premise of taking something stupid and applying a great moral dilemma to it made a happy return for the most part.

It's still hit and miss at points, sometimes the tone is just off (such as the *early morning* captions which didnt feel right for the war scenario they were going for) the germans were actually for the most part an improvement on how they were in their previous appearance, except for the evil laugh moment, which was very cliched, *except* I actually liked his excuse. *It doesnt translate* And Abed's die hard 3 line got a laugh from me too.


Also I must wonder how this episode went down in the US, where genuinely some of the jokes they cracked (loved the menkal one) really expected people to know a small bit about germany at least.

I've given up on pierce, it was clear from episode 1 that the character is not going to do anything interesting and chevy chase isnt making the effort.

I do wonder if the show will make moves to replace the character or will chang just become a member of the group again?

colinod0806

I'm struggling to understand how the same people who gave us Seasons 1-3 now seem to think that having the Dean shoehorn his name into sentences where it doesn't even make sense is funny.
I found it funny when Chang used to do it occasionally but it's just ridiculous now.
I also think they need to get Chang back to being Chang again as soon as they can.

pixelburp

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

[...]
I've given up on pierce, it was clear from episode 1 that the character is not going to do anything interesting and chevy chase isnt making the effort.

Chases lack of interest is fairly overt as one watches the episode - he's barely in it, but if you look at him in the background he just looks ... bored. Whatever else about my feelings on the series so far, the sooner they write Pierce out of the show the better - he's just a millstone around the casts neck; literally hanging about in the background dragging the mood down.

rossy1044

Its funny that theres a chance that the show could now actually get renewed since the ratings are ok but now I dont know whether i'd want to see another season!!

colinod0806

rossy1044 wrote: »

Its funny that theres a chance that the show could now actually get renewed since the ratings are ok but now I dont know whether i'd want to see another season!!

So it's gaining popularity so now you don't like it?? You dirty hipster.:pac::P:pac:

rossy1044

colinod0806 wrote: »

So it's gaining popularity so now you don't like it?? You dirty hipster.:pac::P:pac:

I don't know if its gaining popularity as much as everything else on NBC that isnt called The Office (finished) or Parks and Rec is tanking but I should have seen the hipster thing coming!! :pac:

BlitzKrieg

I like to think that maybe, just maybe if chevy chase had decided to quit during season 3 instead of drawing it out until season 4, that maybe NBC would not have fired Dan Harmon and season 4 would actually have a focus point to start from...

MOH

I've been getting really fed up of all the negativity so far this season.

That said, I thought that one was dire. The Germans were about as stereotyped as it's possible to get. Even having them in it didn't work for me, most of the callbacks this year to previous seasons have felt forced. They seemed to have shoehorned in as many minor characters as they could this week - Vicky, the school board, the Germans, the skinny guy whose name I can't remember, Garrett. I almost expected Starburns to turn up in the background.

The only ones that worked for me were when they showed other students trying to get into the study room while various previous events were playing out inside. In fact, if they'd based the episode around that idea, as part of the "opposing views of history" theme, I think it would have worked much better.

The war thing didn't work for me at all. The captions weren't funny, the exact same scene with Germans being in the office first 3 times in a row was just a waste of time.

What the heck was with the schmaltzy everyone cleaning up Greendale and making it a better place? I was hoping for a punchline at the end of that.

I think the worst bit of it was the whole "Greendale's given us so much, let's give something back bit". Greendale's been terrible to them, they've been fighting a running battle against the place for 3 seasons.

Only 3 episodes ago Jeff had done an extra class so he could try to graduate early, yet now he's giving this whole "you guys are my family, we have to get our room back" spiel. The real Jeff would want the room back, but only for pride because he didn't want to be outsmarted, not because of any sentimental guff. Or he'd at least pretend pride was the real reason.

Fortunately that seems to have been the only episode that guy wrote. Next week's writers did the Glee episode and last year's finale, so hopefully we'll be back to some semblance of the real characters.

120_Minutes

No Nick Kroll? I am disappoint.

expectationlost

didn't like that ep wasn't very funny, not many jokes

Washington Irving

Didn't enjoy that episode as much as Inspecticon but it was nice to be back in Greendale again. It felt more like an episode of Community than any of the previous three episodes but it was still pretty weak. I'd rank it maybe slightly ahead of the Hallowe'en episode and slightly higher again than the season opener.

Some of jokes were just plain terrible and as someone said previously the three separate scenes of the Germans getting to the sign in sheet first were completely unnecesary.

It was brilliant to see Chang back, can't wait to see his dastardly plan unfold, the shnake . And the Dean wasn't quite as annoying as he has been so far.

The show hasn't been near as good as it can be but it's still pretty great and it's showing signs of getting back to its best, I remain optimistic.

skeleton_boy

First episode that I felt a significant drop in quality. Hope it's not a sign of things to come.

alroley

FYI, Joel's in Belfast

mathproblem

Just watched all of this from the first season to the present based on a recommendation in another show's thread. Fantastic show, very intelligent and interesting, the whole meta/post-post modern thing is done very well, it feels like a comedy that treats you as a grown up & quite informative too.

It felt like a slight degradation in quality over the lot but that's probably from watching so much of it over a relatively short period of time & getting slightly weary of it. Wouldn't say it has too much to do with Harmon leaving. Over the first couple of seasons it felt so exciting to see them expose the various tv/movie genre staples/formulas with Abed acting like some postmodern version of the greek chorus. I'm looking forward to just watching it week by week now & seeing how fresh it still feels.

Have to say I love the more madcap absurd stuff coming from Pierce too & especially Chang who is one of the funniest characters around, provides a great counterbalance to Abed's technical speak.