Welcome to a new Sitcom Tuesday, on a Wednesday! This week, I’m wrapping Community (2009-2014, NBC; 2015, Yahoo!), which is currently available on DVD/Blu-Ray and streaming!
Community stars JOEL McHALE as Jeff, GILLIAN JACOBS as Britta, DANNY PUDI as Abed, ALISON BRIE as Annie, KEN JEONG as Chang, and JIM RASH as Dean Pelton. With PAGET BREWSTER as Frankie and KEITH DAVID as Elroy.
After finally getting the axe from NBC, Community jumped over to Yahoo! Screen for its sixth and final season. This made for the perfect narrative. Not only was it a step towards fulfilling the series’ “six seasons and a movie” mantra, it was also the ideal Peak TV journey for a show that had so foundationally previewed this ethos, rooting its own situation in the concept of media abundance. Now, by moving to a streaming platform (and a short-lived one at that!) — right in the heart of this decade defined by the medium’s corresponding expansion — it was completing its own arc as an ambassador for Peak TV, reflecting the transition not merely in spirit, but now practice. As for its quality here, well, we’ve been over all of that already. This idea-driven sitcom that’s come to regard itself through high-concept meta-reiterating media-on-media parody has long run out of good, fresh ideas. And the characters just aren’t well-equipped to compensate, for this isn’t a show that predicates the bulk of its value on them.
What’s more, as the centralized Jeff completed his arc years ago, there’s little to offer by way of character, especially as the rest of the ensemble continues to diminish as well. Following the earlier departures of Pierce and Troy, Six is also down Shirley — replacing her (and last season’s Hickey) with two new regulars who are, again, less comedically pitched than their predecessors: Paget Brewster’s Frankie, a Type-A admin, and Keith David’s genius Elroy, a collection of quirks searching for a guiding sensibility. More than that, they lack the emotional history needed to integrate at this late juncture — a fact exacerbated by ongoing strain to the premise as it tries to justify the sustained congregation of this rag-tag group (now including elevated participation from Chang and Dean Pelton). It’s all gotten fatigued, with too little to say about the characters, and too few ideas that satisfy the show’s conceptual needs. Oh, it’s not terrible — it’s like Parks And Rec in 2015: everything here is too irrelevant to be great; the show has basically ended several times already. And as the 2010s would increasingly make clear, Peak TV as an aesthetic does not encourage long, consistent runs for situation comedies anyway. So, the prescient Community was a warning — albeit a fun, better-than-baseline one — full of the exciting TV-loving air that sitcoms were breathing as the decade began. But, alas, nothing is forever…
01) Episode 101: “Queer Studies And Advanced Waxing” (Aired: 03/31/15)
Dean Pelton gets a job on the school board because he’s assumed to be gay.
Written by Matt Lawton | Directed by Jim Rash & Nat Faxon
This episode makes my list because it’s one of Six’s most laugh-filled. It also boasts stories for two long-time but peripheral ensemble players who’ve found their participation increasing as other members of the cast have disappeared. In particular, Dean Pelton is given a job on the school board here simply because they want to add a gay member — a notion that speaks to one of the overarching themes of this half hour (and most of the season) regarding identity and the way people can perform certain aspects of it for their advantage. There’s some of that in the amusing Chang subplot as well, as he gets cast in a stage adaptation of The Karate Kid — a setup that also enables the kind of media-centric parody on which this series has predicated so much of itself (and something it’s otherwise struggling to reflect with regularity at this juncture).
02) Episode 105: “Intro To Recycled Cinema” (Aired: 04/28/15)
The group repurposes footage from Abed’s incomplete cop drama into a movie.
Written by Clay Lapari | Directed by Victor Nelli Jr.
Succeeding by virtue of its logline, this entry sets up plenty of media-about-media comedy. Namely, the group rallies to repurpose footage that Abed shot for his cop drama show into a sci-fi movie, all to capitalize on the recent fame of Chang. (Whose catchphrase is “Ham, girl!”) It’s an amusing setup that then allows for allusions to blockbusters like Star Wars, along with an overt reference to The Big Bang Theory. Okay, that last gag is more indicative of the “kitchen sink” nature of this season and its attempts to generate explicit cultural satire. And that all goes to say that, no, this sample isn’t on the level of the series’ best. But in the context of this list, its sheer topic and the meta it invites is specific to Community. (Steve Guttenberg guests.)
03) Episode 108: “Modern Espionage” (Aired: 05/19/15)
The campus tries to hide their underground paintball game from Frankie.
Written by Mark Stegemann | Directed by Rob Schrab
Community offers another paintball excursion as it inches closer to its finale. And for good reason, as these have been some of the series’ most famous showings. Season One’s “Modern Warfare,” which cemented its commitment to full-on cultural parodies as a reflection of its own self-awareness and capacity for corresponding meta humor, was especially strong. Of course, just as the paintball two-parter at the end of Two didn’t exceed the comedic excellence of the original (and how could it, since this kind of idea-driven comedy is fundamentally fueled by sheer novelty?), this version also has nothing on what came before. But I like that it distinguishes itself with the help of new regular Frankie and tropes from the spy genre.
04) Episode 109: “Wedding Videography” (Aired: 05/26/15)
Abed films a documentary as the group attends their classmate Leonard’s wedding.
Written by Briggs Hatton | Directed by Adam Davidson
Another conceptual gimmick is recycled in the series’ penultimate outing, as Abed films another documentary. It’s the lens through which we then see this entire installment. But if that notion is tired, it’s actually made unique here by the particulars of the narrative, as long-time recurring player Leonard gets married, and the whole thing thus feels like one of those hand-held wedding videos. So, with this event as the setting for the bulk of the action, this entry gifts itself a natural arena for moments of cringe comedy. The kind of humor that works well in faux-documentaries, including sitcoms like The Office. Indeed, this appears to be another lampoon of that kind of show — not quite as critically incisive as “Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking” — but enough to be quintessential Community, justified by Abed and the meta he invites.
05) Episode 110: “Emotional Consequences Of Broadcast Television” (Aired: 06/02/15)
The group tries to imagine what a hypothetical seventh season of their show would be like.
Written by Dan Harmon & Chris McKenna | Directed by Rob Schrab
My choice for this season’s Most Valuable Episode (MVE), “Emotional Consequences Of Broadcast Television” is Community‘s actual series finale and the most explicitly metatheatrical showing in its entire run. Its story sees the characters literally sitting around and talking about the show in which they all exist as a show, as they each try to imagine what a hypothetical seventh season would be like. It’s a self-aware commentary on the fate of the series at this moment, where it was unlikely to be renewed. And it also speaks to the show at large, for this kind of personal understanding as a piece of media has been foundational, licensing the series to then lampoon individual pieces and chosen genres — including its own, the situation comedy — with self-interest. By leaning on this aspect of its situation so heavily here, this finale is not only emphasizing that key ethos, it’s also maximizing it to help earn emotional closure for the characters. Particularly for Jeff, whose personal arc has already ended, but who nevertheless anchors this half hour dramatically, as he ponders what exactly he wants in the future. Is it a happy rom-com ending, as the series once indicated in Season One before it stepped more fully into its own identity? Not really. Rather, he realizes that he simply must accept change. And in a genre built on the maintenance of a status quo, that’s a truly meta and thus appropriate notion to explore in a finale, where an ending is often justified by some major disruption. As such, the finale is using its main character to help reflect a metatheatrical, series-defining, notion. That’s the kind of thoughtful, cohesive sitcommery I’ve always sought from Community — where it uses its own strengths, on its own terms, in support of its genre’s necessities. So, this finale is a tribute to the show and what made it special — a fitting final encapsulation.
Other notable entries that merit mention include: “Grifting 101,” a parody of The Sting that easily could have been featured above. I’ll also take this space to cite “Basic Crisis Room Decorum,” a solid ensemble show with a fun logline that enables tropes associated with political dramas, and “Basic RV Repair And Palmistry,” a meta showing that traps the ensemble in the same place for an extended period of time; I just wish it was funnier.
*** The MVE Award for the Best Episode from Season Six of Community goes to…
“Emotional Consequences Of Broadcast Television”
Come back next week for Modern Family and a new Wildcard!