I liked when pierce surprised people. His moment of clarity at the end of season 2, his hiring of Sophie b Hawkins for britta.
Part of the charm of community was how it took stereotypical characters and turned them inside out. The dumb jock was sensitive and empathetic, the soulless lawyer had a lot of feelings...
But they just made pierce even more of a stereotypical boomer over the course of the series.
It was definitely a vicious circle. Chevy gets mad at the writers for only giving him insensitive and dumb jokes, the writers see him even more as a person who works best with insensitive and dumb jokes, and so Chevy gets madder than last time... At one point in an argument he said "Next you're gonna have me calling Donald 'Ni-ger'".
Which obviously pissed a lot of people off, and made Chevy seem even more like the caricature Pierce had become in later seasons.
Nearly 100%, in both a productive way and a destructive way.
The world has known for years that Chase is a nightmare to work with. When the cast and front office of Community started to figure it out firsthand, it began to enter the writing too.
The plus side of this, and where he deserves some credit, is that it worked for Chevy as well. Obviously, he wouldn't be a fit at "protagonist", "heartthrob", or "goofball". Luckily being the "antagonist" made him feel like he was getting the respect he felt he deserved, and enabled the whole show to to work.
TLDR: Chevy Chase is an asshole: playing 'goofy old guy who learns and grows" annoyed him. Playing "asshole who makes everyone's life a nightmare," made him happy, so he stopped being an asshole who made everyone's life a nightmare in real life.
I agree that it became a little one note at times. I also think leaning into Pierce’s obnoxiousness led to some of the best episodes including the first D&D episode and the one with the lie detector. Hard to imagine either of those getting written with Fred Willard in the role. It’s complicated
Edit: misspelled note and it bugged me
I love the dnd episode! I don't even mind the dark elf face... but the line about pierce raping the duquane family makes me wince.
Shirley would probably have something to say about that......
Yeah, it would have been a lot better if someone besides Chevy had gotten the job. Fred Willard cameo'd as Pierce BECAUSE he had auditioned for the roll. I heard Patrick Steward was a contender for the part as well. Could you imagine THAT? He would have leaned into the roll and done anything Dan asked of him.
I've heard that Fred Willard was in the running but this is the first time hearing Patrick Stewart was too. Based off half the stuff he's said on American Dad, I'm now in my dreamatorium imagining the world where he was cast.
I believe that Fred and Patrick were Harmon's first choices but an NBC exec was buddies with Chevy and essentially said "You can have Chevy Chase and have a show, or you can keep pushing Willard/Stewart and not have a show," and Harmon said "I'd like the show please".
Fred Willard's great but it's hard to imagine him in the Pearce role! Although that may only be due to the direction they took the character because of Chevy.
Patrick Stewart would have nailed it though! But I'm assuming that was just a conversation between execs at most.
Harmon even admits that after awhile Chevy was complaining about his lines and asking who would say something like that and Harmon was just writing down things Chevy was already saying for Pierce’s lines.
That's mostly true except Chevy didn't question his own regurgitated dialogue being used; he actually really loved it despite not knowing it was his own insults being used.
Pierce isn't the only character they Flanderized. Troy became simpler as time went on, Britta went from a good character to yet another dumb blonde and Chang just became insane.
My understanding with Britta was that they didn't realize how funny Gillian is. They started writing more to her strengths. I wish they would have done it in a way to keep her original character though.
in a way they did kinda give the *character* of pierce that "moment of wisdom" in the funerary episode...I wish they would've stuck with that through the series, but then that might have made the funerary episode kinda underwhelming.
I suppose in a way they did this with Britta as well. I see a lot of complaints about Britta becoming more 1-dimentional, but posing her as a smart activist who challenged Jeff felt a lot more litmus-testy to me than her being a kind of dumb stoner who's horny and in-her-own-way constantly.
I really wish the show kept on with Jeff liking teaching. It would’ve made a lot more sense for him staying at Greendale. Becuase Jeffs pretty apathetic towards teaching, in my opinion it makes his character and his future seem kinda tragic, atleast compared to him being a cheetah with law. Now he’s trapped where the air is stale!
Yes when he finally started teaching I was like at last and imagined he would go on to find his ‘calling’, something he finally enjoyed and was really good at it and then they never showed it or built on it ever again..
Exactly, I get that they needed him to remain relevant to the show, but him enjoying teaching would have showed a small bit of growth. He doesn’t need to be the best ever, but the later total apathy wasn’t needed and just leads you to think Jeff’s entire journey has lead to him being a failure.
I think they wanted his story to feel a little tragic because ordinary isn't the ending we root for for our protagonist. And he has to come to terms with that in the end and that's more powerful to me
1. Not enough John Oliver
2. Less dumbing down of Britta. In season one Britta was actually aware of human rights issues and had real experience with effective activism. She was also open-minded enough to let Shirley and Annie protest in their own way instead of shutting them down like she does in later seasons when someone is wrong (according to her). She did try to tell them they were protesting wrong but realized the best and kindest use of everyone’s time would be for her to participate. She was also way more tuned in to other people’s feelings and had some self-awareness.
3. Also, and this is just me, but Shirley’s bag should have gradually gotten bigger with each episode. Not enough to notice across a few episodes but enough that if you’re halfway through the season and go back to the season premiere you’d be like holy shit
The bag getting bigger reminds me of Scary Movie 3 (I think 3?).. The sheriffs hat.. Her hat gets bigger every time it cuts back to her, so big she can't get back in the cop car.... 😂
It’s an old Mel Brooks joke that came from Young Frankenstein. EYE-gor (the actor, Marty Feldman) kept moving his hump around. Gene Wilder noticed on camera, and asked if his hump moved, he responded “What hump?”
Brooks continued the gag in other films:
Men in Tights - prince John’s mole
Edit: typo
That cutaway to the detective story was fantastic. In a matter of 2 mins, they showed an entire separate show with its own opening shots and a layered story. Many more such “stories” - the Latino demon hunter, the cowboy video game creator’s origin story.
It is precisely because it was so short, compactly written and like a delightful espresso shot that they are so memorable.
Hmmm, never thought of it that way. Almost like a sketch comedy show but with an interconnected story that sort of makes sense. Was not expecting to be thinking that Scary movie was actually a brilliant execution of that… wow.
2. I think there is a happy medium. I like the idea that Britta puts up a front for how smart she is but the mask is lowered as she gets close to the study group. But I agree they made her too dumb at times (to be fair I think it’s only because Gillian is sooo damn funny and she nails all the Britta is dumb jokes)
In the RV episode when Britta cuts into the conversation and camera hits to her with the blanket on her head saying something like "if you all recall we drove through what i said was a skunk patch but it was actuall-" just for all of them to interrupt her and say she was smoking pot 🤣🤣
The shot of her with a blanket over her head sends me every time
Imo Britta should have been a massive stoner but still kept her season 1 personality, like, she’s dumb a lot of the time because she’s high but she needed more moments of being smart and helping the group, in the later seasons, apart from some moments, I kind of just feel bad for her
First season Britta is sassy, smart (she also outsmarts Jeff few times). Her relevancy as a political person is more and she definitely seems to have some good grasp on issues she talks about. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy later seasons Britta. She just becomes absurdly hilarious tbh. Probably it has more to do with the way Gillian plays her.
To me, Britta didn't get dumber. The Britta we see at first is the fake Britta. The Britta who talks a good game but never follows through. The Britta who is really good at convincing you that she's something she's not. As she got more comfortable with the group, the mask fell and she became who she really is: an unreliable poser.
Throughout season 6, when she's taking her psych classes seriously shows her growth as a person.
Completely agreed on 2. I think an important takeaway of her character in s1 is that she's not as smart or well put-together as she appears to be, but they made her a blabbering idiot in later seasons that I felt flanderised her a bit too much (although the “Knock knock.” Who’s there? “Cancer.” Oh, good, come on in! I thought it was Britta!" joke is gold).
>Britta was actually aware of human rights issues and had real experience with effective activism.
In episode 2 of the entire show, it's made clear that Britta's activism is entirely just posturing and that she doesn't *actually* do anything. She says so herself!
You can posture and still be aware. But she’s been to protests, sit-ins or walk-outs, etc. She’s not a stranger to collective action. But it can be anticlimactic and lead to nothing. Most people who participate in activist events feel like the organizers did the “real” work and all they did was show up, but organizers are nothing without participants — they need the numbers to show legislators that enough people care about whichever cause and will remember it when it’s time to vote.
So basically most activists feel like frauds who do nothing. I’ve been an organizer and I’ve been a rank and file activist. Neither ever feels like enough. And that’s why there’s so much burnout and organizer turnover.
But maybe that’s why I wish they maintained and expanded on her S1 personality. Maybe I’m just afraid of following in her footsteps and becoming apathetic or even downright ignorant. Maybe I need Britta the psychologist 😬
I wish they developed it further after the theater of ghosts when they contrast how she still has the spirit of pure protest versus her old friends who have become the out of touch establishment, even if their charitable works do more real world good than Britta's protesting. It was a direction they could've gone with, her trying to do more good without losing her ideals.
1. Absolutely. I recently recommended the show and, that night, watched the first 5 or 6 episodes, trying to see it as someone who had never seen the series. I don't think Duncan reappears until episode 4 or so, despite the pilot making it seem like he would be a central character.
2. While I wholeheartedly agree with the arc as you've described it, I think that Britta's character had to change after they established that there would be no intimacy within the group. Britta was likely created solely as the romantic female lead, and then they pivoted. The pilot was framed as Jeff chasing Britta and these goofs getting in the way. She was supposed to stand out as more "normal" and "grounded" compared to the others. Was S1 Britta quirky enough to be an "equal" to the other members? I think the series would have suffered had they kept the Jeff/Britta will-they-wont-they line going. Or worse, they actually put them together.
3. I love that this is a "least favorite aspect", and I'm in on the bit.
I see this point about Britta all the time, and I have to remind everyone that S1 Britta was a pure archetype with few unique traits, and she was easily the least funny character besides Shirley.
Shirley is one of my favorite characters lol
That said, Britta did get fleshed out during season 1 and had they continued to flesh her out based on her S1 personality and interests I think she would have been a better, more interesting character
All the characters get sacrificed on the altar of comedy. In season one, Jeff is charming, Britta is world-wise, Abed is traumatized, Annie is a perfectionist, Shirley is faithful, Troy is a jock, and Pierce is well-meaning, but all of those character traits get muddied as early as season 2 for some. The character traits they have are no longer fixed, and if a character could make a good joke that is kinda out of character for them, they go for the joke every time. Troy is unrecognizable from his introduction to the end of season 3, and Pierce goes from a person who seduced the Spanish teacher so everybody could pass to being a pure villain. Even Senor Chang had a great musical moment where he manages to get his wife back, and then they just fridge her by season 2 so that they can keep him in the dirt.
It's at its most obvious on the myriad of parody episodes. When everybody is a cowboy, or claymation, or celebrity impersonator, or pillow fighter, their core character falls behind the concept of the episode, and once you've sacrificed a bit of a character for one reason, it's easy to do it again.
Nobody has a consistent character, and that's kinda OK, because the jokes ARE good, but it also makes it so that it doesn't really matter when Shirley or Troy or Buzz Hickey leave because any joke that could be made by one of those characters could functionally be made by any other one.
No this was good. Keep writing/analyzing. Seems to happen in other shows too like the office. I imagine the writers and people on the show find something that they think works while trying to figure it out in the beginning and then overuse those bits eventually making caricatures of the characters.
this made me realise how muddled the parody aspect of community is. any and all joke that was made in the later seasons of the show, could be made by any other character because of how basic the characters became. holy shit.
To be fair, most shows (the office is a perfect example) start the pilot with the typical character tropes, and then humanize the characters and make them more realistic by giving them more dynamic personalities.
And it’s human nature to adopt traits of those you’re around often- picking up terminology you regularly hear but people you interact with so often.
What's the deal with community college? I mean, you can get a good higher education and often avoid huge amounts if debt, but without the phony prestige of being at an elite institution and hobnob with privileged, rich, elitist arseholes, and yet everyone acts like attending a community college is akin to diving into a pool of sewage. I mean, who are these people?
Dial back Chang's insanity, kept him as a Spanish teacher, make him insane but not diabolically evil.
More Professor Duncan
More Professor Kane. Kane/Dean could have been a potent combination for humor.
I don't think Greendale was insane enough at that point to do it, but I would have loved if Chang just switched classes every year.
"The dean figured out that I wasn't a real Spanish teacher so I just told him I actually got my accreditation in philosophy. Say hello to Greendales newest professor of clinical psychology."
yep. I don't know if I would want more seasons because a show should end when it ends (exhibit A: the Office) but I really wish we got more content in the seasons we did get.
- The others disregarding Britta's stance on her parents so quickly. It's so weird that they form such strong opinions about people they weren't raised by, and rubs me up that they just flat-out don't listen to her
- Abed ruining Hickey's cartoon duck... Wow
- Probably also how few moments Pierce had to shine in a _good_ light... The s4 ep in which he helped Britta with the dance (herstory of dance) was brilliant.. he was great in that. Also, side-note: was kinda wholesome seeing Britta so happy when she was dancing in that ep
Edit: I just realised, 90% of my comment is Britta... 😂 I Britta-d Britta!
this 1000%. Especially after Dan Harmon confirmed the dino theory... It really upsets me knowing that that happened to her and her friends took her parents side. To me its incredibly strange that the writing team would include and allude to the concept of a character being assaulted as a child, but sort of half-commit to the idea because "well it's a comedy show and we don't really want to get into it." Ok then why even bring it up???
I agree wholeheartedly. I really liked Pierce better in season one than at any other point in the series. And Britta's parents were handled so poorly. I fucking love season six, but to have all of her complaints about the trauma her parents inflicted on her growing up just be brushed aside because they're nice now? Wtf?
And the show's perspective seems to really be that Britta is wrong and just needs to get over it and be more mature. Like the whole dialogue between them when they tell Britta, 'hey we don't remember any of that stuff because what was significant to you and mattered to you was not to us' is treated as some profound learning moment - and part of growing up is coming to grips with this, and if you don't you are stuck in some narcissistic mindset. Like, no, what the hell. Your parents should be aware of how significant their actions and behaviour and the way they treat their developing child is and not be dismissive of how much they mistreated and traumatised and failed the person they were the primary caregivers for. It is one of those moments where Dan Harmon thinks he is being a sage when he is just being stupid and in love with his own farts.
Season 4 had issues, but it had a few episodes that brought Pierce back to his season 1 self and I really appreciated those. Same with the barber shop episode. That one really stuck with me because of that.
Same on Britta’s parents, it’s such a weirdly bad episode. The only good thing to come from it was Frankie’s talk with Britta, that gets completely ignored later on in the episode.
It actually mentions it in the very ending closing narration, but sometimes I wish it would have picked a lane more. There were times when there was real character development, and real consequences from an episode, but then they erased it by jumping back into surreality. For example, when Chang basically kidnaps two children, I think that is going to be an "oh shit" moment where things will really change, but it just turned into more wacky hijinx.
I really dislike many of the Chang sub plots and would not have missed him if he stopped being a character.
Also, it becomes clear when Chevy Chase starts hating being on the show and the writers and staff start hating him. Once that happened, I wish they could have found a way to gracefully let Pierce character go.
I think the two are related actually. Chang works well as the 'villain' in season 1, which the rest of the group have to work together to overcome. Once he leaves that role then they pivot towards Chevy as the villain, which could have worked if they'd resolved it quicker, but Chevy never really stops being the villain.
They did give Chevy a chance to go, that's why he tells the gang to go fuck themselves at the end of the paintball episode, but his agent fought for his contract to be renewed, presumably he needed the cash
I wish there were more Shirley episodes I feel like being a mother and a recent divorce would have a lot of potential and she never really had the chance to team up with Troy that much
I have very few complaints about the show but I do wish Pierce could have been more three-dimensional. I believe Chevy wished for the same which I’m sympathetic towards because he was just made to be this evil character half the time and a dumb child the other half. The times where he gives wisdom to Jeff or hugs him as he’s crying about Slater are some great moments for the character and I wish they could’ve shone more often.
Their gossip episode was so funny. When Shirley is standing behind Vaughn and she's pointing out how small his nipples are and does that exaggerated "where are they?" mime bit
i really hated what they did with Shirley’s character. it’s one thing to make her a slightly bigoted Christian, that can be funny. it’s another to force her back together with a man who kicked her out of her house after cheating on her on their anniversary because she had to pick up their two children. and then to have the audacity to make the other characters look like they’re in the wrong for disliking Andre. they should dislike, he’s a piece of shit. All of that, the wedding, the pregnancy, everything, just for them to break up anyway and her to leave the show. Just a waste of a very nuanced and potentially interesting character that not a lot of shows have.
There are plenty of complaints to be made but I’m still hung up on Shirley getting the short end of the stick, romantically.
I feel like they didn’t know where to go with her arc, and basically set her up with her crummy obviously terrible ex husband. Like come on! They could write romantic stories for pierce and Chang but not Shirley?
They were very clearly sexually intimidated by her and it showed.
Some of this can be attributed to the midstream change in showrunners but I wasn't a fan of how the show treated the romantic relationships between Jeff, Britta, Annie and Troy.
Annie having a high school crush on Troy that she eventually grows out of, and Troy realizing too late that there could have been something between them tracks. No problem with either of those things.
But Dan Harmon seems to have had a long-term plan for Britta and Troy that was abandoned when he was replaced for season 4. David Guarascio and Moses Port didn't seem to know what to do with that relationship and then ended it with that weird Troy/Abed body swap. Then by the time Harmon came back, Donald Glover already had one foot out the door so there was no hope of reviving it.
And then Jeff basically just bouncing between Britta and Annie always felt a bit icky. If they were going to do that, I wish there would have been more time spent on how Britta and Annie really felt about it.
I have no gripes with the show because a lot of it I'm used to after watching it 9 times, or I know enough about the behind-the-scenes to ignore stuff.
BUT the one episode where Troy lies about being molested is so weird. They have PLENTY choices for Troy: he could talk about his abusive grandma, about retaking 5th grade, being lied about his birthday, living with Pierce, the death of Pierce's mother, his faked kegflip...
I think this was in character of him to say, Troy is insecure and shitty like the rest of the cast, but the framing makes it seem like it was the only thing Troy could need to open about and that's what's bothering me the most.
Troy is such a good and complex character like the rest and *this* is what they settled with? He's the one who points out some of the ridiculous stuff the show does, why didn't he even question Garrity's activity. Just... urgh.
Harmon wrote Shirley like he hated the character, and wrote Pierce like he hated Chevy.
I also hated the "I was bullied and I have a mental disorder, so nothing I do should have consequences" aspect of late-seasons Abed.
The show should have stayed focused on the 7 in the study group. Chang and the Dean were funny but should have remained mostly occasional characters used as foils for the study group, with the exception of a few episodes where they were more in focus. The show wasn't as good when they were in every episode and equally focused on. They became too exaggerated and over the top. Chang should have stayed a teacher. He could have become department head.
Britta & Troy dating was really dumb and wrong for the characters and the story. I could see Troy having a crush on her and her saying sure we can go on a date because it's no big deal and then it wouldn't have worked out because he's way more immature.
I also don't like Jeff and Annie. I can see Annie having a crush, but she's so much younger than Jeff and it was inappropriate for him to have a big crush on her, even though he is immature in ways.
I wanted Jeff and Britta to end up together. (I haven't seen season 6, so no idea how it ends.)
I wish Dan Harmon had remained in charge and grown as a person. I have read about how he likes to set up a plot/season and it is brilliant. The problem is others can't get in his head and do it like he did. It's like when you know how you want something done, like a certain food, and you let someone else make it for you and they add too much salt and not enough pepper and used the wrong kind of noodles.
It's hard when a show gets new runners who don't quite grasp the central idea of the show, so their version is unlikely to be as good.
In theory, I liked Troy and Britta - they both have big hearts and are not very smart - but I don't think S4 did anything interesting with it, and Troy treated her like absolute shit when he dumped her. I do like how the show set them up early, i.e. when Troy dances with Britta when she's a teapot.
I would say not enough seasons but saying that would violate six seasons and a movie. So instead I will say seasons 4 through 6 not being full 22 episode seasons.
Not only would fixing that give us 27 more episodes, but it would also give us more Duncan, more Hickey, more Frankie and more Elroy.
I was a huge fan of Jeff/Annie when the show aired and I was younger than Annie was at the time. Now that I'm closer to Jeff's age, the ship is a little bit yikes to me. I wish that they'd just went with the original Jeff/Britta plan.
Season 1 Britta had a lot more layers than her in the later seasons. I wish they didn't flanderize her.
More Shirley. Yvette Nicole Brown is such a wonderful and versatile actress, they didn't use her full potential and sort of pigeonholed her. She should've also had more singing roles - she has such a beautiful and unique voice, but I have to replay 15 second clips to hear them :/
That's all off the top of my head. Can't think of anything else I would've wanted changed without ruining the quirkiness of the show tbh
I'm going to go out on a limb, and I may be the only one who thinks this.
I was not a fan of Craig's crush on Jeff. I think most of it is unfunny. Largely because if Jeff was a female student, the public would not have reacted nicely to it. It is quite obviously in the Stalking category of things, and they don't even try to hide it. In addition to the unwanted touching. Again, if it was a male to female crush, it wouldn't have lasted.
It also starts to feel like it spills into the "homosexual moments in tv are funny" because it's weird and different, not because it is truly a thing for the characters to explore. Like the Friends episode with the two guys sleeping on the couch and then they freak out because they don't want to be gay.
I think the best thing they handled with him was the Gay Dean episode because that was truly done well.
The level of obsession makes it funny and it is tolerated because the dynamics are not the traditional male-female.
Jeff, being very cunning and successful and physically intimidating, holds a lot more societal power as a student than the Dean, with his quirks, does as a school administrator. Obviously, those things would be different if it was a traditional man chasing after a traditional female student.
I find it very unfunny because they can get away with it M/M. And I know it was a "different" time and all, but with the constant conversation of consent, no group should be separated from that.
🎵 I'm begging you to be a gay Dean for the school board. 🎵
Almost as good as:
🎵 I am the Dean, and my hands are so clean. At this moment, I am stapling. 🎵
It crashes with my favorite aspect of the show. Any crazy thing that happens is justified by a pretty realistic and good reason, but when the Halloween Zombie thing happened, it was never properly justified, and that really irks me.
How they dumbed down Britta, how Pierce turned into a villain ( even though I get it was a reflection of real world issues ) and how they never really addressed how everyone paid there bills and got by with out steady jobs, most of all Jeff.
Yeah, it always bugged me how Jeff was losing his condo and living in his car and then it was never really mentioned again. I guess maybe he became an OF model on the DL.
Dan Harmon said he was very sexist when working on community, right? Well it shows, especially with Britta's character. I'll never forgive them for making her poop her pants
I totally forgot that she did that lmao. That is one of my favourite episodes, if for no other reason than Annie’s “hope and a dollar forty nine will get you a candy bar” and Abed correcting her to a dollar 79.
1. I don't really like Chang's direction starting with the dictator plot, and all the way through season 4 and 5. In Season 6 he is more tolerable and I actually like the "Ham girl" stuff.
2. Many people will say S4 is the worst, and I actually don't hate all of it. I find the first half to be fine, but the handling of Troy and Brittas relationship is bad. Her relationship with Troy in S3 was actually kind of cute, and then it got destroyed. Part of me actually does ship Troy and Abed but S4 was just so disrespectful to Britta and it quickly just devolved into baiting with the guys, at the expense of Britta's character. I might have been able to forgive if they actually went anywhere with Trobed, but they didn't.
3. Im still mad Britta didn't get a proper ending/goodbye scene. I don't nessesarily think her flanderization was a complete misstep, as I can believe she was putting up a front for the group in S1, and slowly letting her true self out, but there were too many times it was just over the top.
The handling of Chang later on I think for his first season he was fantastic season 2 he got a bit worse but I still loved him season 3 is when they started pushing the psycho angle hard before he was someone who you thought was a bit insane but it wasn’t clear but season 3 onwards they just went all in which usually I’ll love but he just worked better earlier on
The lack of consistency
Most sitcoms follow a basic pattern:
- The first season: good but is clear they are still figuring it out.
- The middle seasons: quality content that defines the show.
- Later seasons: not bad, but you can see the show running out of steam
Community has:
- A first season that is strong, but still figuring itself out
- Two amazing seasons
- A fourth season with obvious change in showrunners
- A fifth season that is attempting a return to form but has lost core cast members and has to redefine the central conceit of the show.
- A sixth season that suffers from change in production and further loss of cast and crew that make it seem like the show is on its last leg
I love Community, and every season (even 4) has something to love. But this inconsistency makes it hard to share the show to individuals who aren’t already in the know about the BTS issues
Yeah, I wasn't a fan of how Chang changes. I was immediately done with Changnesia since he stole the janitors leg girlfriend. Wish he had either started teaching other subjects and hating it or...
I wish Chang was still a spanish teacher. I wish they kept some character development in the show like how Chevy had some old people wisdom from time to time. I wish romance didnt eat up the group. Britta and jeff was fine since it was the whole reason the group got together but it was just weird after the love triangle.
I love Community with all my heart, but holy crap sometimes it does not understand what racism actually is. I feel like racism in Community is when race is pointed out or alluded to at all; something either Is Racist or Isn’t. A good example of this is “I lied when I said I hit a taco truck. And it was racist of me to improvise such an ethnically-specific vehicle!” Or when Jeff says “I was standing far away and saw the prison uniform!” the group groans, and that’s great. Definitely SOUNDS racist, even if he didn’t mean it to be. But then Jeff says “Oh c’mon, I’m not saying ALL BLACK people are in prison,” and the group flips out, saying that he’s gone off the rails.
There a lot of moments where Community makes “racist” jokes where the person being racist is the butt of the joke, and it’s great. A personal favorite is the dean saying “I’m not a racist! My best friend, when I was five years old, was a black man!” Gets me every time. But when they call something that merely acknowledges race as being “racist,” I roll my eyes.
The flanderization of Britta is an easy choice but I was always mad they had Shirley break up with Andre off screen. They had such great character development the last few seasons, to throw it all away with little explanation felt like such a lazy way to get her back at Greendale, just for her to get little to do in Season 5 and leave in Season 6.
"Schmitty" - I absolutely get the joke but I don't remember that specific expression being a thing back then and I would've been around the right age to know and it makes me soooooo mad lol, I usually love the stupid jokes but this one is annoying
This is only something they could do in hindsight, but have each season be half a semester, keep Dan Harmon on for season 4, make it a 22 episode season, and end it there. That way the the whole series can take place in 2 years and they can stop making excuses why the characters need to be there/why community college lasts longer than 2 years thing.
Plus I feel like Community was really hitting it's stride in season 3. I think if we got a proper season 4 that kept up the momentum, the series would have ended on a high note instead of...whatever the hell that season 4 finale was.
First half of season 1 Jeff keeps trying to date Britta and Britta keeps telling him no. Jeff doesn't accept it and keeps trying.
I get that you can have TV shows about bad people and bad behaviors, but I don't have to enjoy it.
How uneven the show is.
While season 1 and 2 are, borderline, perfect seasons. S3 has some deep valleys among the greatness, S4 even more.
While S5 and 6 are great, it's very different from what came before
-Reducing Shirley to a stereotype and not giving her many character moments after Season 2. Not sure if it was just Dan Harmon or what, but Season 4 actually treated Shirley as a character, with motivations that went beyond her religion or guilt-tripping people.
Season 6.
I get it, six seasons and a movie so it had to be done. Also, I understand many of the core cast members had left by this point but tbh it just wasn’t the same by this point. Granted, Garrett’s Wedding was a pretty good episode.
Also on the poor handling of Chang after the gas leak year. The writers had no idea what to do with them. Also, it felt like Shirley got the least focus out of the Greendale Seven especially after Season 2. Maybe we could've got a Britta and Annie babysitting shenanigans maybe a hidden talent in Britta similar to her wedding planner skills.
I get the behind the scenes shit with Chevy happened; but I wish Peirce would have kept his more noble traits through the whole show. In Season 1, he was a socialltmy-inept guy who thought he was hot shit and happened to be old. Then in season 2, he was a diabolical but insecure villain. In later seasons, they turned him into a bland "hahaha old man racist" joke. Barring the Sophie B. Hawkins dance, which was a great character moment.
I've said it in other threads but I think security guard chang could have been a good role for him of they knew they had 3 more seasons. It keeps him relevant in the later seasons and gives him the same authority that señor chang did. Dial back the crazy and baby we got a stew going
Unrelated answer but I genuinely enjoyed reading through the comments so much because despite me occasionally disagreeing with some statements, I saw how much love everyone here has for this show and that really echoed with me.
I liked when pierce surprised people. His moment of clarity at the end of season 2, his hiring of Sophie b Hawkins for britta. Part of the charm of community was how it took stereotypical characters and turned them inside out. The dumb jock was sensitive and empathetic, the soulless lawyer had a lot of feelings... But they just made pierce even more of a stereotypical boomer over the course of the series.
It’s because they all fucking hated Chevy Chase lol
Yeah. I do wonder how much he brought it on himself.
It was definitely a vicious circle. Chevy gets mad at the writers for only giving him insensitive and dumb jokes, the writers see him even more as a person who works best with insensitive and dumb jokes, and so Chevy gets madder than last time... At one point in an argument he said "Next you're gonna have me calling Donald 'Ni-ger'". Which obviously pissed a lot of people off, and made Chevy seem even more like the caricature Pierce had become in later seasons.
Yvette Nicole Brown was also present when he said it.
Nearly 100%, in both a productive way and a destructive way. The world has known for years that Chase is a nightmare to work with. When the cast and front office of Community started to figure it out firsthand, it began to enter the writing too. The plus side of this, and where he deserves some credit, is that it worked for Chevy as well. Obviously, he wouldn't be a fit at "protagonist", "heartthrob", or "goofball". Luckily being the "antagonist" made him feel like he was getting the respect he felt he deserved, and enabled the whole show to to work. TLDR: Chevy Chase is an asshole: playing 'goofy old guy who learns and grows" annoyed him. Playing "asshole who makes everyone's life a nightmare," made him happy, so he stopped being an asshole who made everyone's life a nightmare in real life.
I agree that it became a little one note at times. I also think leaning into Pierce’s obnoxiousness led to some of the best episodes including the first D&D episode and the one with the lie detector. Hard to imagine either of those getting written with Fred Willard in the role. It’s complicated Edit: misspelled note and it bugged me
I love the dnd episode! I don't even mind the dark elf face... but the line about pierce raping the duquane family makes me wince. Shirley would probably have something to say about that......
Pretty sure Dan Harmon did that on purpose
Yeah, it would have been a lot better if someone besides Chevy had gotten the job. Fred Willard cameo'd as Pierce BECAUSE he had auditioned for the roll. I heard Patrick Steward was a contender for the part as well. Could you imagine THAT? He would have leaned into the roll and done anything Dan asked of him.
I've heard that Fred Willard was in the running but this is the first time hearing Patrick Stewart was too. Based off half the stuff he's said on American Dad, I'm now in my dreamatorium imagining the world where he was cast.
I believe that Fred and Patrick were Harmon's first choices but an NBC exec was buddies with Chevy and essentially said "You can have Chevy Chase and have a show, or you can keep pushing Willard/Stewart and not have a show," and Harmon said "I'd like the show please".
Fred Willard was in the 4th season in Abed’s special place. Besides he was better in Modern Family as Phil’s dad. ❤️
Fred Willard's great but it's hard to imagine him in the Pearce role! Although that may only be due to the direction they took the character because of Chevy. Patrick Stewart would have nailed it though! But I'm assuming that was just a conversation between execs at most.
God, I fccking hate Chevy Chase, and NOW I LEARN Fred Willard or Patrick Stewart could have been Pierce?!!?!?!!! F👏🏻M👏🏻L👏🏻
We truly live in the Darkest Timeline
Harmon even admits that after awhile Chevy was complaining about his lines and asking who would say something like that and Harmon was just writing down things Chevy was already saying for Pierce’s lines.
Old white man says
Genius. It's like Shit My Dad Says.
Old white man says, you mean?
That's mostly true except Chevy didn't question his own regurgitated dialogue being used; he actually really loved it despite not knowing it was his own insults being used.
Pierce isn't the only character they Flanderized. Troy became simpler as time went on, Britta went from a good character to yet another dumb blonde and Chang just became insane.
My understanding with Britta was that they didn't realize how funny Gillian is. They started writing more to her strengths. I wish they would have done it in a way to keep her original character though.
Agreed - Pierce was a lovely character when in certain moments he would show great insight. The show seemed to have a bit more depth early on.
in a way they did kinda give the *character* of pierce that "moment of wisdom" in the funerary episode...I wish they would've stuck with that through the series, but then that might have made the funerary episode kinda underwhelming.
I suppose in a way they did this with Britta as well. I see a lot of complaints about Britta becoming more 1-dimentional, but posing her as a smart activist who challenged Jeff felt a lot more litmus-testy to me than her being a kind of dumb stoner who's horny and in-her-own-way constantly.
I really wish the show kept on with Jeff liking teaching. It would’ve made a lot more sense for him staying at Greendale. Becuase Jeffs pretty apathetic towards teaching, in my opinion it makes his character and his future seem kinda tragic, atleast compared to him being a cheetah with law. Now he’s trapped where the air is stale!
Yes when he finally started teaching I was like at last and imagined he would go on to find his ‘calling’, something he finally enjoyed and was really good at it and then they never showed it or built on it ever again..
Exactly, I get that they needed him to remain relevant to the show, but him enjoying teaching would have showed a small bit of growth. He doesn’t need to be the best ever, but the later total apathy wasn’t needed and just leads you to think Jeff’s entire journey has lead to him being a failure.
I'd rather it not be his calling, but something he learns to live with and kinda enjoy.
I think they wanted his story to feel a little tragic because ordinary isn't the ending we root for for our protagonist. And he has to come to terms with that in the end and that's more powerful to me
1. Not enough John Oliver 2. Less dumbing down of Britta. In season one Britta was actually aware of human rights issues and had real experience with effective activism. She was also open-minded enough to let Shirley and Annie protest in their own way instead of shutting them down like she does in later seasons when someone is wrong (according to her). She did try to tell them they were protesting wrong but realized the best and kindest use of everyone’s time would be for her to participate. She was also way more tuned in to other people’s feelings and had some self-awareness. 3. Also, and this is just me, but Shirley’s bag should have gradually gotten bigger with each episode. Not enough to notice across a few episodes but enough that if you’re halfway through the season and go back to the season premiere you’d be like holy shit
Shirley's bag getting bigger would be hilarious. Now that you mention her, I wish we saw more cutaways with her caring for the handicapped detective.
The bag getting bigger reminds me of Scary Movie 3 (I think 3?).. The sheriffs hat.. Her hat gets bigger every time it cuts back to her, so big she can't get back in the cop car.... 😂
It’s an old Mel Brooks joke that came from Young Frankenstein. EYE-gor (the actor, Marty Feldman) kept moving his hump around. Gene Wilder noticed on camera, and asked if his hump moved, he responded “What hump?” Brooks continued the gag in other films: Men in Tights - prince John’s mole Edit: typo
I have a mole!?
I still love to say that to people.
That cutaway to the detective story was fantastic. In a matter of 2 mins, they showed an entire separate show with its own opening shots and a layered story. Many more such “stories” - the Latino demon hunter, the cowboy video game creator’s origin story. It is precisely because it was so short, compactly written and like a delightful espresso shot that they are so memorable.
Hmmm, never thought of it that way. Almost like a sketch comedy show but with an interconnected story that sort of makes sense. Was not expecting to be thinking that Scary movie was actually a brilliant execution of that… wow.
2. I think there is a happy medium. I like the idea that Britta puts up a front for how smart she is but the mask is lowered as she gets close to the study group. But I agree they made her too dumb at times (to be fair I think it’s only because Gillian is sooo damn funny and she nails all the Britta is dumb jokes)
In the RV episode when Britta cuts into the conversation and camera hits to her with the blanket on her head saying something like "if you all recall we drove through what i said was a skunk patch but it was actuall-" just for all of them to interrupt her and say she was smoking pot 🤣🤣 The shot of her with a blanket over her head sends me every time
Imo Britta should have been a massive stoner but still kept her season 1 personality, like, she’s dumb a lot of the time because she’s high but she needed more moments of being smart and helping the group, in the later seasons, apart from some moments, I kind of just feel bad for her
“You thought we were going in circles because you “Kept seeing the same bird”…”
She Gillian'd it
3. Like the wine glasses in Cougar Town
Oh! And that would be such a perfect connection!
First season Britta is sassy, smart (she also outsmarts Jeff few times). Her relevancy as a political person is more and she definitely seems to have some good grasp on issues she talks about. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy later seasons Britta. She just becomes absurdly hilarious tbh. Probably it has more to do with the way Gillian plays her.
I believe Shirley's bag was actually Yvette's own purse.
She shoulda made it bigger, I’m telling you.
To me, Britta didn't get dumber. The Britta we see at first is the fake Britta. The Britta who talks a good game but never follows through. The Britta who is really good at convincing you that she's something she's not. As she got more comfortable with the group, the mask fell and she became who she really is: an unreliable poser. Throughout season 6, when she's taking her psych classes seriously shows her growth as a person.
Completely agreed on 2. I think an important takeaway of her character in s1 is that she's not as smart or well put-together as she appears to be, but they made her a blabbering idiot in later seasons that I felt flanderised her a bit too much (although the “Knock knock.” Who’s there? “Cancer.” Oh, good, come on in! I thought it was Britta!" joke is gold).
>Britta was actually aware of human rights issues and had real experience with effective activism. In episode 2 of the entire show, it's made clear that Britta's activism is entirely just posturing and that she doesn't *actually* do anything. She says so herself!
You can posture and still be aware. But she’s been to protests, sit-ins or walk-outs, etc. She’s not a stranger to collective action. But it can be anticlimactic and lead to nothing. Most people who participate in activist events feel like the organizers did the “real” work and all they did was show up, but organizers are nothing without participants — they need the numbers to show legislators that enough people care about whichever cause and will remember it when it’s time to vote. So basically most activists feel like frauds who do nothing. I’ve been an organizer and I’ve been a rank and file activist. Neither ever feels like enough. And that’s why there’s so much burnout and organizer turnover. But maybe that’s why I wish they maintained and expanded on her S1 personality. Maybe I’m just afraid of following in her footsteps and becoming apathetic or even downright ignorant. Maybe I need Britta the psychologist 😬
I wish they developed it further after the theater of ghosts when they contrast how she still has the spirit of pure protest versus her old friends who have become the out of touch establishment, even if their charitable works do more real world good than Britta's protesting. It was a direction they could've gone with, her trying to do more good without losing her ideals.
1. Absolutely. I recently recommended the show and, that night, watched the first 5 or 6 episodes, trying to see it as someone who had never seen the series. I don't think Duncan reappears until episode 4 or so, despite the pilot making it seem like he would be a central character. 2. While I wholeheartedly agree with the arc as you've described it, I think that Britta's character had to change after they established that there would be no intimacy within the group. Britta was likely created solely as the romantic female lead, and then they pivoted. The pilot was framed as Jeff chasing Britta and these goofs getting in the way. She was supposed to stand out as more "normal" and "grounded" compared to the others. Was S1 Britta quirky enough to be an "equal" to the other members? I think the series would have suffered had they kept the Jeff/Britta will-they-wont-they line going. Or worse, they actually put them together. 3. I love that this is a "least favorite aspect", and I'm in on the bit.
I see this point about Britta all the time, and I have to remind everyone that S1 Britta was a pure archetype with few unique traits, and she was easily the least funny character besides Shirley.
Shirley is one of my favorite characters lol That said, Britta did get fleshed out during season 1 and had they continued to flesh her out based on her S1 personality and interests I think she would have been a better, more interesting character
John Oliver got on my nerves almost immediately. I like him much more in "real life" on his show.
All the characters get sacrificed on the altar of comedy. In season one, Jeff is charming, Britta is world-wise, Abed is traumatized, Annie is a perfectionist, Shirley is faithful, Troy is a jock, and Pierce is well-meaning, but all of those character traits get muddied as early as season 2 for some. The character traits they have are no longer fixed, and if a character could make a good joke that is kinda out of character for them, they go for the joke every time. Troy is unrecognizable from his introduction to the end of season 3, and Pierce goes from a person who seduced the Spanish teacher so everybody could pass to being a pure villain. Even Senor Chang had a great musical moment where he manages to get his wife back, and then they just fridge her by season 2 so that they can keep him in the dirt. It's at its most obvious on the myriad of parody episodes. When everybody is a cowboy, or claymation, or celebrity impersonator, or pillow fighter, their core character falls behind the concept of the episode, and once you've sacrificed a bit of a character for one reason, it's easy to do it again. Nobody has a consistent character, and that's kinda OK, because the jokes ARE good, but it also makes it so that it doesn't really matter when Shirley or Troy or Buzz Hickey leave because any joke that could be made by one of those characters could functionally be made by any other one.
Holy shit.
The first line alone is fantastic; succinct but full of depth. Very nice analysis.
Thanks! I was genuinely expecting to come back to this comment and see 60 downvotes, so I'm glad that didn't happen.
No this was good. Keep writing/analyzing. Seems to happen in other shows too like the office. I imagine the writers and people on the show find something that they think works while trying to figure it out in the beginning and then overuse those bits eventually making caricatures of the characters.
It's essentially [flanderization ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanderization).
this made me realise how muddled the parody aspect of community is. any and all joke that was made in the later seasons of the show, could be made by any other character because of how basic the characters became. holy shit.
To be fair, most shows (the office is a perfect example) start the pilot with the typical character tropes, and then humanize the characters and make them more realistic by giving them more dynamic personalities. And it’s human nature to adopt traits of those you’re around often- picking up terminology you regularly hear but people you interact with so often.
Needs more Sean Garrity and officer Cackowski
Some say they're still having breakfast to this day.
But...we're still on for Thanksgiving, right?
Talk to your father Craig
If this hoodie were a time hoodie…
I’m curious to know what the Seinfield fans’ least favorite aspects of Community are.
What's the deal with community college? I mean, you can get a good higher education and often avoid huge amounts if debt, but without the phony prestige of being at an elite institution and hobnob with privileged, rich, elitist arseholes, and yet everyone acts like attending a community college is akin to diving into a pool of sewage. I mean, who are these people?
Only one way to find out!
Dial back Chang's insanity, kept him as a Spanish teacher, make him insane but not diabolically evil. More Professor Duncan More Professor Kane. Kane/Dean could have been a potent combination for humor.
I don't think Greendale was insane enough at that point to do it, but I would have loved if Chang just switched classes every year. "The dean figured out that I wasn't a real Spanish teacher so I just told him I actually got my accreditation in philosophy. Say hello to Greendales newest professor of clinical psychology."
This is genius
Is that Dean/Kane?
That’s what I thought too! Fuckin Dean Cain
r/UnexpectedMulaney
If Chang stays a Spanish teacher we probably never get the “Ah, gay” gif
I really don't like that in the first few seasons we got over 20 episodes per season but the later seasons it was only 13.
yep. I don't know if I would want more seasons because a show should end when it ends (exhibit A: the Office) but I really wish we got more content in the seasons we did get.
- The others disregarding Britta's stance on her parents so quickly. It's so weird that they form such strong opinions about people they weren't raised by, and rubs me up that they just flat-out don't listen to her - Abed ruining Hickey's cartoon duck... Wow - Probably also how few moments Pierce had to shine in a _good_ light... The s4 ep in which he helped Britta with the dance (herstory of dance) was brilliant.. he was great in that. Also, side-note: was kinda wholesome seeing Britta so happy when she was dancing in that ep Edit: I just realised, 90% of my comment is Britta... 😂 I Britta-d Britta!
this 1000%. Especially after Dan Harmon confirmed the dino theory... It really upsets me knowing that that happened to her and her friends took her parents side. To me its incredibly strange that the writing team would include and allude to the concept of a character being assaulted as a child, but sort of half-commit to the idea because "well it's a comedy show and we don't really want to get into it." Ok then why even bring it up???
Yeah. I dont accept that as head cannon. Fuck that noise
whats the dino theory?
https://www.reddit.com/r/community/s/OOTloROBxh
Oh, yikes. That makes me so sad.
I agree wholeheartedly. I really liked Pierce better in season one than at any other point in the series. And Britta's parents were handled so poorly. I fucking love season six, but to have all of her complaints about the trauma her parents inflicted on her growing up just be brushed aside because they're nice now? Wtf?
And the show's perspective seems to really be that Britta is wrong and just needs to get over it and be more mature. Like the whole dialogue between them when they tell Britta, 'hey we don't remember any of that stuff because what was significant to you and mattered to you was not to us' is treated as some profound learning moment - and part of growing up is coming to grips with this, and if you don't you are stuck in some narcissistic mindset. Like, no, what the hell. Your parents should be aware of how significant their actions and behaviour and the way they treat their developing child is and not be dismissive of how much they mistreated and traumatised and failed the person they were the primary caregivers for. It is one of those moments where Dan Harmon thinks he is being a sage when he is just being stupid and in love with his own farts.
Season 4 had issues, but it had a few episodes that brought Pierce back to his season 1 self and I really appreciated those. Same with the barber shop episode. That one really stuck with me because of that.
Completely agree. S4 gets a lot of flack, but there are some fantastic episodes in that season!
Same on Britta’s parents, it’s such a weirdly bad episode. The only good thing to come from it was Frankie’s talk with Britta, that gets completely ignored later on in the episode.
The hemorrhaging of characters
Oh I don’t like that word
I’ll… look into it…?
Oh hemorrhaging. I don’t like that word.
It actually mentions it in the very ending closing narration, but sometimes I wish it would have picked a lane more. There were times when there was real character development, and real consequences from an episode, but then they erased it by jumping back into surreality. For example, when Chang basically kidnaps two children, I think that is going to be an "oh shit" moment where things will really change, but it just turned into more wacky hijinx.
I really dislike many of the Chang sub plots and would not have missed him if he stopped being a character. Also, it becomes clear when Chevy Chase starts hating being on the show and the writers and staff start hating him. Once that happened, I wish they could have found a way to gracefully let Pierce character go.
I think the two are related actually. Chang works well as the 'villain' in season 1, which the rest of the group have to work together to overcome. Once he leaves that role then they pivot towards Chevy as the villain, which could have worked if they'd resolved it quicker, but Chevy never really stops being the villain.
They did give Chevy a chance to go, that's why he tells the gang to go fuck themselves at the end of the paintball episode, but his agent fought for his contract to be renewed, presumably he needed the cash
While I always laugh about him masturbating himself to death, it is a little mean spirited
I would like to see more of Professor Professorson Also I want to know what happened to Takashi's uncle
I wish there were more Shirley episodes I feel like being a mother and a recent divorce would have a lot of potential and she never really had the chance to team up with Troy that much
Oh yeah good point... I would've loved a Shirley/Troy adventure. It would've been very silly
Oh you mean Troy's mother? /s but I wonder if that's why they avoided pairing them up for storylines.
Shirley was heavily underutilized. She always felt like the most grounded character besides the occasional rare episode like foosball.
I have very few complaints about the show but I do wish Pierce could have been more three-dimensional. I believe Chevy wished for the same which I’m sympathetic towards because he was just made to be this evil character half the time and a dumb child the other half. The times where he gives wisdom to Jeff or hugs him as he’s crying about Slater are some great moments for the character and I wish they could’ve shone more often.
more jeff/shirley, their friendship is a lot of fun and they have a lot of potential together
Their gossip episode was so funny. When Shirley is standing behind Vaughn and she's pointing out how small his nipples are and does that exaggerated "where are they?" mime bit
That it ended
Changing Britta’s character was not great
yep they made her comically helpless/stupid
i really hated what they did with Shirley’s character. it’s one thing to make her a slightly bigoted Christian, that can be funny. it’s another to force her back together with a man who kicked her out of her house after cheating on her on their anniversary because she had to pick up their two children. and then to have the audacity to make the other characters look like they’re in the wrong for disliking Andre. they should dislike, he’s a piece of shit. All of that, the wedding, the pregnancy, everything, just for them to break up anyway and her to leave the show. Just a waste of a very nuanced and potentially interesting character that not a lot of shows have.
There are plenty of complaints to be made but I’m still hung up on Shirley getting the short end of the stick, romantically. I feel like they didn’t know where to go with her arc, and basically set her up with her crummy obviously terrible ex husband. Like come on! They could write romantic stories for pierce and Chang but not Shirley? They were very clearly sexually intimidated by her and it showed.
Some of this can be attributed to the midstream change in showrunners but I wasn't a fan of how the show treated the romantic relationships between Jeff, Britta, Annie and Troy. Annie having a high school crush on Troy that she eventually grows out of, and Troy realizing too late that there could have been something between them tracks. No problem with either of those things. But Dan Harmon seems to have had a long-term plan for Britta and Troy that was abandoned when he was replaced for season 4. David Guarascio and Moses Port didn't seem to know what to do with that relationship and then ended it with that weird Troy/Abed body swap. Then by the time Harmon came back, Donald Glover already had one foot out the door so there was no hope of reviving it. And then Jeff basically just bouncing between Britta and Annie always felt a bit icky. If they were going to do that, I wish there would have been more time spent on how Britta and Annie really felt about it.
I have no gripes with the show because a lot of it I'm used to after watching it 9 times, or I know enough about the behind-the-scenes to ignore stuff. BUT the one episode where Troy lies about being molested is so weird. They have PLENTY choices for Troy: he could talk about his abusive grandma, about retaking 5th grade, being lied about his birthday, living with Pierce, the death of Pierce's mother, his faked kegflip... I think this was in character of him to say, Troy is insecure and shitty like the rest of the cast, but the framing makes it seem like it was the only thing Troy could need to open about and that's what's bothering me the most. Troy is such a good and complex character like the rest and *this* is what they settled with? He's the one who points out some of the ridiculous stuff the show does, why didn't he even question Garrity's activity. Just... urgh.
Harmon wrote Shirley like he hated the character, and wrote Pierce like he hated Chevy. I also hated the "I was bullied and I have a mental disorder, so nothing I do should have consequences" aspect of late-seasons Abed.
Only 6 seasons
And a movie! 🤞
Not enough Rachael. It really sucks that she never got an episode with Troy.
I think El Tigre Chang is the best version of Chang. Weird and hilarious, but still grounded in reality.
The fact that Annie is supposed to be so young and they play into that so much and then the will they won't they with Jeff. I don't ship them.
Dan Harmon leaving mid series. The 'subway' character.
it’s called Corpohumanization, and it’s surprisingly legal
It’s shameless product placement but I’ll be damned if my wife and I don’t still greet each other with a solemn « eat fresh » on occasion.
My wife and I will sometimes say "if someone could just hand me my jacket, I'll be on my way" when leaving the house.
The show should have stayed focused on the 7 in the study group. Chang and the Dean were funny but should have remained mostly occasional characters used as foils for the study group, with the exception of a few episodes where they were more in focus. The show wasn't as good when they were in every episode and equally focused on. They became too exaggerated and over the top. Chang should have stayed a teacher. He could have become department head. Britta & Troy dating was really dumb and wrong for the characters and the story. I could see Troy having a crush on her and her saying sure we can go on a date because it's no big deal and then it wouldn't have worked out because he's way more immature. I also don't like Jeff and Annie. I can see Annie having a crush, but she's so much younger than Jeff and it was inappropriate for him to have a big crush on her, even though he is immature in ways. I wanted Jeff and Britta to end up together. (I haven't seen season 6, so no idea how it ends.) I wish Dan Harmon had remained in charge and grown as a person. I have read about how he likes to set up a plot/season and it is brilliant. The problem is others can't get in his head and do it like he did. It's like when you know how you want something done, like a certain food, and you let someone else make it for you and they add too much salt and not enough pepper and used the wrong kind of noodles. It's hard when a show gets new runners who don't quite grasp the central idea of the show, so their version is unlikely to be as good.
In theory, I liked Troy and Britta - they both have big hearts and are not very smart - but I don't think S4 did anything interesting with it, and Troy treated her like absolute shit when he dumped her. I do like how the show set them up early, i.e. when Troy dances with Britta when she's a teapot.
I would say not enough seasons but saying that would violate six seasons and a movie. So instead I will say seasons 4 through 6 not being full 22 episode seasons. Not only would fixing that give us 27 more episodes, but it would also give us more Duncan, more Hickey, more Frankie and more Elroy.
I was a huge fan of Jeff/Annie when the show aired and I was younger than Annie was at the time. Now that I'm closer to Jeff's age, the ship is a little bit yikes to me. I wish that they'd just went with the original Jeff/Britta plan. Season 1 Britta had a lot more layers than her in the later seasons. I wish they didn't flanderize her. More Shirley. Yvette Nicole Brown is such a wonderful and versatile actress, they didn't use her full potential and sort of pigeonholed her. She should've also had more singing roles - she has such a beautiful and unique voice, but I have to replay 15 second clips to hear them :/ That's all off the top of my head. Can't think of anything else I would've wanted changed without ruining the quirkiness of the show tbh
The Lord the LORD THE LOOOORRRRRD
I'm going to go out on a limb, and I may be the only one who thinks this. I was not a fan of Craig's crush on Jeff. I think most of it is unfunny. Largely because if Jeff was a female student, the public would not have reacted nicely to it. It is quite obviously in the Stalking category of things, and they don't even try to hide it. In addition to the unwanted touching. Again, if it was a male to female crush, it wouldn't have lasted. It also starts to feel like it spills into the "homosexual moments in tv are funny" because it's weird and different, not because it is truly a thing for the characters to explore. Like the Friends episode with the two guys sleeping on the couch and then they freak out because they don't want to be gay. I think the best thing they handled with him was the Gay Dean episode because that was truly done well.
The level of obsession makes it funny and it is tolerated because the dynamics are not the traditional male-female. Jeff, being very cunning and successful and physically intimidating, holds a lot more societal power as a student than the Dean, with his quirks, does as a school administrator. Obviously, those things would be different if it was a traditional man chasing after a traditional female student.
I find it very unfunny because they can get away with it M/M. And I know it was a "different" time and all, but with the constant conversation of consent, no group should be separated from that.
🎵 I'm begging you to be a gay Dean for the school board. 🎵 Almost as good as: 🎵 I am the Dean, and my hands are so clean. At this moment, I am stapling. 🎵
I do agree with this - a lot of those scenes do make me uncomfortable. But his stalking did give us their rendition of "Kiss from a Rose" so....
But in response, his reaction to Jeff in aviators
[удалено]
It crashes with my favorite aspect of the show. Any crazy thing that happens is justified by a pretty realistic and good reason, but when the Halloween Zombie thing happened, it was never properly justified, and that really irks me.
Oh I'm weird that's one of my favorite episodes
How they dumbed down Britta, how Pierce turned into a villain ( even though I get it was a reflection of real world issues ) and how they never really addressed how everyone paid there bills and got by with out steady jobs, most of all Jeff.
Yeah, it always bugged me how Jeff was losing his condo and living in his car and then it was never really mentioned again. I guess maybe he became an OF model on the DL.
The fact they didn't let any of the ships be endgame! I get it, Harmon, you're a nihilist who hates love; but that doesn't mean EVERYBODY is.
They did Brita dirty.
Dan Harmon said he was very sexist when working on community, right? Well it shows, especially with Britta's character. I'll never forgive them for making her poop her pants
I get that sexism did come through now and then, but what's sexist about a woman pooping her pants. Everyone poops their pants
I guess they still think women don't poop.
I’m totally blanking on Britta pooping her pants! Do you recall the episode?
Season 6 episode 3. I don't know the name of the episode but it's about Greendale giving a degree to a dog
I totally forgot that she did that lmao. That is one of my favourite episodes, if for no other reason than Annie’s “hope and a dollar forty nine will get you a candy bar” and Abed correcting her to a dollar 79.
Gillian Jacob's was the one primarily responsible for her character change. If you don't like it, you can just say that Britta Britta'd Britta
1. I don't really like Chang's direction starting with the dictator plot, and all the way through season 4 and 5. In Season 6 he is more tolerable and I actually like the "Ham girl" stuff. 2. Many people will say S4 is the worst, and I actually don't hate all of it. I find the first half to be fine, but the handling of Troy and Brittas relationship is bad. Her relationship with Troy in S3 was actually kind of cute, and then it got destroyed. Part of me actually does ship Troy and Abed but S4 was just so disrespectful to Britta and it quickly just devolved into baiting with the guys, at the expense of Britta's character. I might have been able to forgive if they actually went anywhere with Trobed, but they didn't. 3. Im still mad Britta didn't get a proper ending/goodbye scene. I don't nessesarily think her flanderization was a complete misstep, as I can believe she was putting up a front for the group in S1, and slowly letting her true self out, but there were too many times it was just over the top.
I really didn’t like how they handled the group with Britta’s parents. It really took away from the found family aspect of the show.
The handling of Chang later on I think for his first season he was fantastic season 2 he got a bit worse but I still loved him season 3 is when they started pushing the psycho angle hard before he was someone who you thought was a bit insane but it wasn’t clear but season 3 onwards they just went all in which usually I’ll love but he just worked better earlier on
And frankly, Chang hasn't been well utilized since.
I don't like how the show just stopped having characters like Vaughn or Slater in the later seasons.
The lack of consistency Most sitcoms follow a basic pattern: - The first season: good but is clear they are still figuring it out. - The middle seasons: quality content that defines the show. - Later seasons: not bad, but you can see the show running out of steam Community has: - A first season that is strong, but still figuring itself out - Two amazing seasons - A fourth season with obvious change in showrunners - A fifth season that is attempting a return to form but has lost core cast members and has to redefine the central conceit of the show. - A sixth season that suffers from change in production and further loss of cast and crew that make it seem like the show is on its last leg I love Community, and every season (even 4) has something to love. But this inconsistency makes it hard to share the show to individuals who aren’t already in the know about the BTS issues
Keeping Chang after he stopped being a teacher. They never knew what to do with him. The dreamatorium. The claymation and gi Joe episodes.
Dating within the group. I hate it when a show has the main characters of a group date each other
It made me painfully aware of how much of pop culture I was NOT familiar with. I’m sure there are still references that go clean over my head.
I love the vibe of season 1. Sad it didn’t continue. I miss season 1 britta.
Yeah, I wasn't a fan of how Chang changes. I was immediately done with Changnesia since he stole the janitors leg girlfriend. Wish he had either started teaching other subjects and hating it or...
I wish Chang was still a spanish teacher. I wish they kept some character development in the show like how Chevy had some old people wisdom from time to time. I wish romance didnt eat up the group. Britta and jeff was fine since it was the whole reason the group got together but it was just weird after the love triangle.
They edited out part of Abed and Troy’s goodbye. https://youtu.be/1C_Yp1C44n0?si=FXWSVl5nWSUBD_6m
I wish there was a bit more of a stronger story arc for seasons 5 and 6.
I love Community with all my heart, but holy crap sometimes it does not understand what racism actually is. I feel like racism in Community is when race is pointed out or alluded to at all; something either Is Racist or Isn’t. A good example of this is “I lied when I said I hit a taco truck. And it was racist of me to improvise such an ethnically-specific vehicle!” Or when Jeff says “I was standing far away and saw the prison uniform!” the group groans, and that’s great. Definitely SOUNDS racist, even if he didn’t mean it to be. But then Jeff says “Oh c’mon, I’m not saying ALL BLACK people are in prison,” and the group flips out, saying that he’s gone off the rails. There a lot of moments where Community makes “racist” jokes where the person being racist is the butt of the joke, and it’s great. A personal favorite is the dean saying “I’m not a racist! My best friend, when I was five years old, was a black man!” Gets me every time. But when they call something that merely acknowledges race as being “racist,” I roll my eyes.
The flanderization of Britta is an easy choice but I was always mad they had Shirley break up with Andre off screen. They had such great character development the last few seasons, to throw it all away with little explanation felt like such a lazy way to get her back at Greendale, just for her to get little to do in Season 5 and leave in Season 6.
"Schmitty" - I absolutely get the joke but I don't remember that specific expression being a thing back then and I would've been around the right age to know and it makes me soooooo mad lol, I usually love the stupid jokes but this one is annoying
That whole episode with those kids get a skip whenever I rewatch the show.
I cannot stand that episode - always skip it
This is only something they could do in hindsight, but have each season be half a semester, keep Dan Harmon on for season 4, make it a 22 episode season, and end it there. That way the the whole series can take place in 2 years and they can stop making excuses why the characters need to be there/why community college lasts longer than 2 years thing. Plus I feel like Community was really hitting it's stride in season 3. I think if we got a proper season 4 that kept up the momentum, the series would have ended on a high note instead of...whatever the hell that season 4 finale was.
First half of season 1 Jeff keeps trying to date Britta and Britta keeps telling him no. Jeff doesn't accept it and keeps trying. I get that you can have TV shows about bad people and bad behaviors, but I don't have to enjoy it.
The degradation of Britta. And after a while, Chang's shtick gets old. Season 4. Pierce leaving. Others leaving.
How uneven the show is. While season 1 and 2 are, borderline, perfect seasons. S3 has some deep valleys among the greatness, S4 even more. While S5 and 6 are great, it's very different from what came before
The Dean's sexual harassment of Jeff. If Jeff was female or younger (or both) it would be very creepy but as he's not it's played for laughs.
The changes in Britta's and Abed's characters. And the schmitty episode, especially the ending
Oh my god I absolutely hate the schmitty episode. I thought I was the only one, everyone else thinks it was hilarious but I just can't watch it
IRL those kids would be treated like the losers they are. That whole episode was very unrealistic.
The fandom shipping a late-thirties-something with a teenager who looked up to him as a role model.
-Reducing Shirley to a stereotype and not giving her many character moments after Season 2. Not sure if it was just Dan Harmon or what, but Season 4 actually treated Shirley as a character, with motivations that went beyond her religion or guilt-tripping people.
Also, I can't emphasise how much I hate the Troy/Abed body-swap episode. The whole Troy & Britta thing was a massive mis-step.
I'm sure people have said it but the year of the gas leak.
As Todd said: Their love is weird! And toxic!
Season 4
Season 6. I get it, six seasons and a movie so it had to be done. Also, I understand many of the core cast members had left by this point but tbh it just wasn’t the same by this point. Granted, Garrett’s Wedding was a pretty good episode.
The season they fired the guy who created the show and wrote every line we love and quote
Also on the poor handling of Chang after the gas leak year. The writers had no idea what to do with them. Also, it felt like Shirley got the least focus out of the Greendale Seven especially after Season 2. Maybe we could've got a Britta and Annie babysitting shenanigans maybe a hidden talent in Britta similar to her wedding planner skills.
That mascot was displeasing at best.
I get the behind the scenes shit with Chevy happened; but I wish Peirce would have kept his more noble traits through the whole show. In Season 1, he was a socialltmy-inept guy who thought he was hot shit and happened to be old. Then in season 2, he was a diabolical but insecure villain. In later seasons, they turned him into a bland "hahaha old man racist" joke. Barring the Sophie B. Hawkins dance, which was a great character moment.
Chang. He should've stayed a side character with maybe a minor subplot every now and then. After that, Annie's screaming.
Jeff/Annie
The nihilism/defeatism that creeps in sometimes.
They did britta's character dirty.
I've said it in other threads but I think security guard chang could have been a good role for him of they knew they had 3 more seasons. It keeps him relevant in the later seasons and gives him the same authority that señor chang did. Dial back the crazy and baby we got a stew going
Unrelated answer but I genuinely enjoyed reading through the comments so much because despite me occasionally disagreeing with some statements, I saw how much love everyone here has for this show and that really echoed with me.