(no subject)

[skygiants]

Every so often, when I was in high school, I would go through short periods of time when I would feel the urge to devour a sitcom whole - the greater the backlog the better. This inevitably happened around finals week. I have had no finals since I graduated, so I pretty much haven't been watching sitcoms, but I think something about the grad school application process triggered the same urge in my brain, because very shortly after sending in my December 1st application I started watching my way through Community at record (for me) speeds.

Community is a show about a lovable assortment of misfits who for various reasons are attending community college, and form a study group together for their Spanish class. At first I was pretty much characterizing it as 'fun and relatively inoffensive,' but before I realized it, it was hitting many of my buttons - highly meta genre-play! Unlikely groups of people bonding and ~discovering the power of friendship!~ - and then I was zooming through Yuletide fic, and then they did their own zombie apocalypse episode, and now I seem to be hooked.

Other things that make me respect the show: they make an effort to ensure that all of the characters interact in different combinations; they generally do their best to challenge stereotypes, although they don't always succeed; they focus on everyone's character development; they have one of the better and more thoughtful portrayals of a non-neurotypical character that I've ever seen on TV. In other words, unsurprisingly, Abed is my favorite. But I like pretty much everyone! I went in expecting to hate Jeff, the smarmy privileged lawyer who is the show's ostensible lead, but then I found myself strangely fond of him, mostly because the show acknowledges when he is terrible and because pretty much every episode ends with him endorsing the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP despite himself. I love Troy and Abed's friendship, and I like it even better when Annie comes along, as in the taser episode, but I also like it when all the ladies hang out together. I wish they generally made more and better use of Shirley, but on the other hand there is the episode where she captains a pirate ship. (I can usually do without Pierce.)

I also don't ship anyone; I want them all to stay occasionally-awkward platonic friends forever. DON'T MESS WITH THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP.

Comments

[rahkan.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I was doing exactly this thing at exactly the same time!

[skygiants]

Maybe it's something about the community-college setting of the show . . . it's like, if we don't get in to the grad schools of our choice, we can always go hang out with Troy and Abed!

[rahkan.livejournal.com]

I would go Greendale forever! I wish I was there now. But the community college setting is genius. I can't think of the last show set in college that has really "worked". By setting it in community college, they somehow just created a weird sort of alternate-universe high school composed of idle people of all ages, races, and social classes (who don't have jobs, or money woes....)

[skygiants]

They're allowed to not have jobs! They're in COLLEGE. I love that justification. (I still don't know where, like, Jeff gets his money from, but then there was the episode where he was sleeping in his car . . .)

[wickedtrue.livejournal.com]

That is a show SO UP YOUR ALLEY.

I am super sad it is not on huluplus so I can easily mainline it at the housemates. OH DEAR, I WILL HAVE TO FIND IT SOMEWHERE.

[skygiants]

OH THE HARDSHIP. (Most of it is available on megavideo! I have discovered in my totally legitimate searching.)

[wickedtrue.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna make the boxee work OVERTIME tonight! :D!!

[skygiants]

. . . boxee? *fails at lingo*

[wickedtrue.livejournal.com]

Oh, whoops!

That's our internet TV box. There is Roku, Google TV, and Boxee, the open source option. It pretty much acts as brain for the TV so it can access all the media files on our network so they can be played on the TV, as well searches all the internet for tv shows/movies I can watch for free. It also does Netflix but not Hulu. That's cool, though because our xbox and ps3 do it instead.

Somehow, our household has cobbled together a shrine to 21st century multimedia entertainment. :D?

[skygiants]

Hahahaha AWESOME. I would expect nothing less from your household!

[tenillypo.livejournal.com]

I watched the first episode of Community when it aired and was put off by the fact that it seemed like it would be all about Jeff and his pursuit of Brita. Thankfully, later in the season, friends forced me to watch the paintball episode and I realized I had been missing AWESOMENESS all year.

All of your favorite things are pretty much my favorite things -- especially the fact that it really is a true ensemble and even though there are definite characters who hang out more, the try to shake up the combinations a lot more than most shows. And Abed and Troy are love.

[skygiants]

My friends forced me to watch the paintball episode, but I'd been hearing for ages that the paintball episode was awesome, so while it was indeed awesome, I was like "well, now I've seen it, clearly I've fulfilled my cultural Community-watching responsibility" and prepared to think no more of it. Then I ended up seeing the conspiracy theories episode by chance, and I enjoyed that so much (especially since I took a conspiracy theories class in college too) that I was finally like, "okay, I should be watching this show!"

[blacksheep91.livejournal.com]

:D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8kKbbdJTFA

[skygiants]

I have no idea what that is because I can't watch youtube vids at work, but I will when I get home!

[littledust.livejournal.com]

I love Community so much! It's like everything Glee was supposed to be and then... wasn't.

[skygiants]

HAHAHA TRUE. They even did a better musical episode!

[aberration]

I'm kind of the same on shipping - I'm not anti shipping, and I do like Jeff/Britta as Friends with Benefits (but definitely not romantic), but I am enjoying the friendships!

Also, just generally: Yay Community!

[skygiants]

I am okay with Jeff/Britta as friends with benefits, I think! But I also suspect I just hated the season finale of s1 so much that it has turned me off all romance in this show for a while. Maybe I'll feel differently after I've had ~time to heal~.

Yay Community! I think I need an icon. :D

[aberration]

But I also suspect I just hated the season finale of s1 so much that it has turned me off all romance in this show for a while.

Ha ha ha ha YEAH. Before that I was more open to a Jeff/Britta romance (I didn't have any other shipping preferences beyond Troy and Abed's obvious bromance) but since then it has been very much UGH NEVER AGAIN.

[skygiants]

The only shippy fics I can read with Jeff are, like, Jeff/Shirley. I think JUST OUT OF SPITE at how Jeff/everyone else was handled.

[ristrettoette.livejournal.com]

Divebombing in from outer space to say that I love Community! It is pretty much the only thing on TV that I find genuinely funny and actually oddly moral in its refusal to equate success in the world with human success. I also love Abed, mostly because his observations remind me of my own inner monologue. And the Christmas episode was The Best.

[skygiants]

Hello from outer space! Yeah, for me too it's the only show I'm watching on US TV right now - and I do love what seems to lie at the heart of it all the time, even when it occasionally screws up around the edges. (I also love that apparently it's based on the showrunner's experiences with a study group at community college; it's somewhat heartening to think that such unlikely bondings of people do happen.) And yes! I think they do a really good job with Abed - and I also really respect that every time someone tries to make him an object of pity, as would happen on like any other show, the show (and Abed) ends up smacking that down.