Making a television show is work. The job of a TV writer or director or actor may seem pretty simple to anyone with a job outside of the entertainment industry; if not simple, it may seem like a hell of a lot of fun. I mean, you get to work on TV! Who wouldn't love to work in Hollywood, making a television show week after week? Even if it's not a show you're a big fan of, it has to be cool, right? I'm sure that, in many ways, it is, but a majority of the output of television and movies doesn't capture even a smidgen of fun on the part of those in front of the screen, or even that the people working on the show or movie are enjoying themselves. Obviously, not every TV show or movie is going to be a barrel of laughs; that some actors on the darkest and most dramatic shows, such as a majority of the ensemble of AMC's Mad Men, have proven to be such adept comic performers elsewhere is truly remarkable.
But it's rare that a show is just full of unbridled joy, from top to bottom. Most of the best shows on television are compelling, filled with complex, three-dimensional characters, and keep audiences tuned in with sometimes dense plots and mythologies. Mad Men, Lost, Breaking Bad are all great shows, and they have had moments of humor, and there are rare happy moments, but most TV shows don't have what the best comedy on television, Community, has: infectious enthusiasm. It's impossible to fake, but from pretty much the first moment of the pilot episode, this NBC single-camera comedy has been filled with confident, assured storytelling, strong and well-defined characters, and tons of high and low humor of all types.
As an example, I remember the moment where I completely, fully realized that I was going to stick with Arrested Development until its dying breath. Though I'd been watching it since the beginning, and I liked it a lot, it didn't become a classic sitcom for me until the moment Carl Weathers walked onscreen, playing a skinflint version of himself. Something of the concept and execution of this gag just made me laugh and laugh and laugh, so much so that I was probably missing half of the jokes that followed his appearance. Now, mind you, as I've rewatched the first season of the series, I realize that I was a moron for not appreciating fully how brilliant Arrested Development from its pilot (arguably the best comedy pilot of the past decade, if not longer).
For Community, the moment is just as memorable (and in rewatching the early episodes, I realize that I was wrong for not fully loving the show from the beginning). In the 12th episode of the show's first season, "Comparative Religion," the show's ostensible lead character, Jeff Winger, is goaded by a jerk who bullies Jeff's friend Abed around to get into a fight. Jeff, a charming yet vain disbarred lawyer, has never even gotten punched in the face, let alone gotten in a fight, so a a few of his friends from his Spanish study group (Abed, a pop-culture encyclopedia of a man; Troy, Abed's best friend and an ex-high-school football player; and Pierce, who was once the magnate of a moist-towelette company) teach him how to fight.
Of course, this being a comedy, the advice Jeff gets isn't going to be, you know, helpful. The moment that solidified my love for Community comes when Troy approaches Jeff and, after telling him to start out his fight by asking the rhetorical question " 'Sup?'" multiple times in a high-pitched yet threatening voice, tells him to bust out the "Forest Whitaker eyes". This consists of Troy scrunching his face up a bit and letting one of his eyes go a bit lazy, a la Forest Whitaker, and, like many great moments in comedy, it isn't going to be as funny when you read it as when you see it. Donald Glover, the comedian and former writer on 30 Rock who plays Troy, doesn't do the face as cheap mugging, but it's easily one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. I don't reach for the TiVo remote often to pause something as I laugh, but it was more than helpful this time.
What separates Community--a comedy about the seven misfits who make up a study group at a community college--from a show like Arrested Development, however, is that it manages to ground each of its ridiculous stories and its more conventional stories in reality. What's so intriguing about the show is that it often acknowledges its place as a TV show, no more so than in last night's episode, "Cooperative Calligraphy," which falls under the category of the TV staple known as bottle episodes. Bottle episodes are a simple and common practice in TV land. For the uninitiated, it goes like this: a show is given a certain budget for each season of episodes. Sometimes, an episode will cost more than normal, which is fine, as long as another episode costs a lot less. When this happens, writers create bottle episodes, which are when the regular characters on a show, or just a few of those characters, are confined to one place for an episode. The difference with last night's Community is that the characters--starting with Abed--acknowledge and seemingly encourage the fact that they are in a bottle episode. The premise is self-consciously silly: Annie, the study group's most determined and driven member, has lost her pen. It's happened before many times, and this is the last straw. What's more, this time, there's no way that anyone outside of the group could have stolen it. As the situation escalates, the group locks themselves in the study room to find out who stole the pen, because if one of them did and refuses to own up to it, how can they trust each other as close friends?
What makes the episode work so well within this very rigid format is how it pays off so often on the relationships the characters have with each other, how the script builds growth for each of them, and how much fun they all are and have in the group. Community is--if it isn't obvious from the episode description--deliriously silly sometimes, but it can also have sentimentality, or genuine drama. The show is extremely well-cast, of course. Joel McHale is the snarky, Bill Murray-esque lead, Jeff. Jeff has become more human, and more of a misfit since the show began; he was originally an outsider to the group, having accidentally formed it just so he could hook up with Britta (Gillian Jacobs), the would-be ultra-hipster who easily saw through his fake Spanish skills. There's Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown), the single mother who's a devout Christian without having been turned into a stereotype or one-note gag. Annie (Alison Brie) started as more of a Tracey Flick type, but has become more confident and human, less rigid as a person. Abed and Troy (Danny Pudi and Glover) were originally diametric opposites: the nerd and the jock. They've become best friends, uniting over their love of pop culture in all forms, whether it's cheesy action movies like Kickpuncher or puppy parades. Pierce (Chevy Chase) manages to be the most cartoonish of characters while also having an overdose of humanity: on the one hand, he can be off-puttingly racist and sexist, but he's a fallen entrepreneur who's desperate to fit in.
I won't go much further on telling you how Community can be funny. To me, the evidence is in the countless scenes and episodes set in the study room, where it's just the seven main characters (who have now all become pretty much equals in terms of screen time) bouncing off one another. There are many other noteworthy elements--the performances from Ken Jeong and Jim Rash as an ex-professor and the college dean, in particular--but what makes Community so solid, so consistent, and so enjoyable to watch is that we believe these people are friends. There are lots of shows that intend to create unity and friendship among the cast of characters; few achieve them as well as Community, which has now become the most must-see show each week. I sincerely hope it lasts for years and years to come; this is something to treasure, and you really need to watch if you aren't already.
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