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Community S4 |OT| I Remember When This Show Was About Community College

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Honestly, if Dan Harmon hadn't been fired, fans would have forgiven the couple bad episodes as the recent stuff has been very Community-esque. Everyone is just worried right now because it's hard to trust these new creators.
 
Mariolee said:
If this happens, then I will revoke anything bad I've stated about Season 4.

Edit: May 23rd, 2013 is a Thursday 11 weeks from now and there are 7 episodes left. D:
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Bobrow already said in the writer's AMA before the season premiere that they wouldn't be paying this off in s4:
I'll answer the May 23rd thing because we don't want to build up expectations. Unfortunately, when we wrote and shot this batch of episodes, we believed we would be airing from October through January. So we never even thought to plan a May 23rd thing. Then, when we were postponed, we didn't know when we would start airing, so even if we wanted to do a May 23rd thing, we wouldn't know which episode to put it in.

So unfortunately, there's no May 23rd shout-out. We will have to explain it away next season if there is one.
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This reminds me, I briefly talked to one of the writers after Paleyfest 2013. I mentioned that I kinda wish the original airing order for s4 had been followed*. They said that originally, the Halloween ep was bumped up when NBC decided to start on Oct 19th. There might have been some thought to undoing this once NBC put Community on hiatus, but apparently NBC felt "Alternative History of the German Invasion" was weaker than the Halloween ep anyways. =/


* because it sets up the flow of the season better. First, you have Jeffrey try to get everyone into History of Ice Cream, and then right after that, you have the entire study group try to reclaim the study room. And also, we wouldn't have had four straight episodes without a study table scene.
 
beat said:
This reminds me, I briefly talked to one of the writers after Paleyfest 2013. I mentioned that I kinda wish the original airing order for s4 had been followed*. They said that originally, the Halloween ep was bumped up when NBC decided to start on Oct 19th. There might have been some thought to undoing this once NBC put Community on hiatus, but apparently NBC felt "Alternative History of the German Invasion" was weaker than the Halloween ep anyways. =/


* because it sets up the flow of the season better. First, you have Jeffrey try to get everyone into History of Ice Cream, and then right after that, you have the entire study group try to reclaim the study room. And also, we wouldn't have had four straight episodes without a study table scene.
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That actually makes a lot of sense.
 
Tabris said:
Honestly, if Dan Harmon hadn't been fired, fans would have forgiven the couple bad episodes as the recent stuff has been very Community-esque. Everyone is just worried right now because it's hard to trust these new creators.
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I disagree. First of all, it isn't just Harmon who left. "Fat Neil" Goldman and Garrett Donovan were the co-showrunners with Harmon, and they both left too. Chris McKenna would have been next in line, but he left too. The Russo brothers directed 32 episodes in the 1st 3 seasons as well as being executive producers, but both left too. There is also not a single writer left from season 1, the crew was replaced, and the budget was slashed. So essentially everyone who was either a co-showrunner or close to it, who was involved in shaping the direction of the show, is gone. In many ways it is a whole new show. Even if Harmon was still there these would have been big changes, and the 1st 4 episodes were bad enough that most would still have been very worried.

The question then is "is it possible to view a show without bias when you know there was such huge change behind the scenes?" By the way, that bias could go either way. I could just as easily argue that some people are giving more leeway to the show now as a backlash against their perceived negative bias of others.

Personally I do think it is possible to view with very little bias. For starters, we have a built in, uncontrollable method of judging comedy, called laughter. The 1st 4 episodes this season had almost zero laughs for me, while the most recent episode had lots. That was my tip off that the 1st 4 episodes were bad and the 5th was good. Of course laughter isn't everything, but thinking more about it seems to confirm it. The lack of study table time was a mistake. The numerous lazy costume gags seemed to have no real thought behind them. Overall there seems to be more thoughtless craziness with nothing behind it. Pierce electrocuted like Wile E Coyote with no effect, Abed digging a hole through Shirley's wall and she doesn't care, even the hunger games and beer fest. There needs to be something real behind the craziness. A paintball war that affects Jeff and Britta's relationship. A zombie invasion that leads to real life drama later for Shirley. Wearing a crazy outfit in public leads to a meaningful conversation. Multiple timelines that reveal the relationships of the characters. Not just "haha electrocuted, hole in the wall, nurse outfit, dean'nt you know the show hasn't chang'd".
 
Rewatching some older episodes and forgot about Jeff saying

"I have one unmovable appointment May 23rd, 2013… I have a table for one at Morty’s Steakhouse, where I will celebrate becoming a lawyer again."

We're so close.
 
shawshank stuff in this episode was fairly bad. stuff with jeff's dad actually worked pretty well. was the funniest episode of the season so far, still topped out at average.
randomwab said:
Rewatching some older episodes and forgot about Jeff saying

"I have one unmovable appointment May 23rd, 2013… I have a table for one at Morty’s Steakhouse, where I will celebrate becoming a lawyer again."

We're so close.
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yeah this is what 80% of the discussion over the past day or so has been about, it's what everyone was talking about already
 
I don't understand why the last episodes (Post-Christmas) couldn't have just fast-forwarded to graduation, maybe the first of the episodes could have had some silly flashbacks to the previous few unseen months then graduation. I mean graduation is the main goal of the show. If it doesn't end with graduation, even if it's just season 4 and we still somehow got a season 5, 4 still needs to end with graduation. At least Jeff's graduation.

We don't know much about the later episodes yet so they might still do it that way. Still, it makes no sense to not go to the restaurant if that's the case. So one must assume they don't show graduation at all which makes even less sense.
 
I think Jeff doing summer classes to be one history credit away from graduating was how they were planning to make that work with a truncated season.
 
not psycho said:
I disagree. First of all, it isn't just Harmon who left. "Fat Neil" Goldman and Garrett Donovan were the co-showrunners with Harmon, and they both left too. Chris McKenna would have been next in line, but he left too. The Russo brothers directed 32 episodes in the 1st 3 seasons as well as being executive producers, but both left too. There is also not a single writer left from season 1, the crew was replaced, and the budget was slashed. So essentially everyone who was either a co-showrunner or close to it, who was involved in shaping the direction of the show, is gone. In many ways it is a whole new show. Even if Harmon was still there these would have been big changes, and the 1st 4 episodes were bad enough that most would still have been very worried.

The question then is "is it possible to view a show without bias when you know there was such huge change behind the scenes?" By the way, that bias could go either way. I could just as easily argue that some people are giving more leeway to the show now as a backlash against their perceived negative bias of others.
Click to expand...
True.
Personally I do think it is possible to view with very little bias. For starters, we have a built in, uncontrollable method of judging comedy, called laughter. The 1st 4 episodes this season had almost zero laughs for me, while the most recent episode had lots. That was my tip off that the 1st 4 episodes were bad and the 5th was good. Of course laughter isn't everything, but thinking more about it seems to confirm it. The lack of study table time was a mistake. The numerous lazy costume gags seemed to have no real thought behind them. Overall there seems to be more thoughtless craziness with nothing behind it. Pierce electrocuted like Wile E Coyote with no effect, Abed digging a hole through Shirley's wall and she doesn't care, even the hunger games and beer fest. There needs to be something real behind the craziness. A paintball war that affects Jeff and Britta's relationship. A zombie invasion that leads to real life drama later for Shirley. Wearing a crazy outfit in public leads to a meaningful conversation. Multiple timelines that reveal the relationships of the characters. Not just "haha electrocuted, hole in the wall, nurse outfit, dean'nt you know the show hasn't chang'd".
Click to expand...

I agree the show hasn't been terribly funny, but the laughter test is pretty easily messed with by bias.

That said, I thought the show was always more hit and miss than fans admitted. This season has had 1/2 of a good episode, so Im not holding my breath.

Meanwhile GIRLS had several awful episodes with hoorid writing and acting in a row this season and noone blinked. THAT rabid fanbase still has it's massiah.
 
Staccat0 said:
Meanwhile GIRLS had several awful episodes with hoorid writing and acting in a row this season and noone blinked. THAT rabid fanbase still has it's massiah.
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Say what. The GIRLS thread is pretty much exactly as negative as the Community thread right now.

If you mean critical response I think both shows have enjoyed a similar reputation buoyed positive response. That said I think GIRLS is the better show right now, if only because I think it's staying much truer to its vision.
 
Just watched the most recent. Ugh.
So Britta and Troy just aren't in a relationship now, huh?
Chevy Chase is obviously only turning up for quick cameo's.

Didn't hate the Dad stuff but I also did not see the point. Very 'huh'.
Would have been fine with it but the very very unfunny Prison Break stuff wreaked anything good. The writers have no new ideas for these characters; its really sad.

Alison Brie continues to be constrained by poor writing for Annie too; its clear shes going through the motions with the character.

Damn :(
 
I thought the Thanksgiving ep was pretty good. A big step up from the rest of the season. I was starting to dread the weekly Community because it was destroying my love for the series 30 minutes at a time, but I'm actually looking forward to the next episode, for once.
 
Can anyone explain why Season 3 and Season 4 seem to have different camera work from the other seasons? Obviously the sets are cheaper and there are absolutely no outside shots at all aside from the Documentary episode. It seems to be lit up different overall and the camera seems to be much more stiff and less dynamic, but I can't exactly put my finger on why it looks so different.
 
Mariolee said:
Can anyone explain why Season 3 and Season 4 seem to have different camera work? Obviously the sets are cheaper and there are absolutely no outside shots at all aside from the Documentary episode. It seems to be lit up different overall and the camera seems to be much more stiff and less dynamic, but I can't exactly put my finger on why it looks so different.
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They are using sets in season 4, while season 3 was mostly done on location.
 
Mariolee said:
Can anyone explain why Season 3 and Season 4 seem to have different camera work? Obviously the sets are cheaper and there are absolutely no outside shots at all aside from the Documentary episode. It seems to be lit up different overall and the camera seems to be much more stiff and less dynamic, but I can't exactly put my finger on why it looks so different.
Click to expand...
I heard a lot of the crew got hired onto another show after season 3, so there was a big crew turnover. Maybe the camera operators have changed. OTOH, Tristram Shapeero's a returning director, and for this season he directed every other episode, I'm told.

Maybe compare the feel of S4 to Shapeero's S1-S3 episodes?

The Broken Ska Record said:
They are using sets in season 4, while season 3 was mostly done on location.
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What? No. No no no. S3 was largely on set too. They were on set basically all the time in S2-S4. That's why in the S2 clip show episode the commentary track makes note of the unusual circumstance that they went out to a Universal studio lot to shoot all that clip show stuff rather than stay on the Paramount lot like usual.
 
The Broken Ska Record said:
They are using sets in season 4, while season 3 was mostly done on location.
Click to expand...

beat said:
I heard a lot of the crew got hired onto another show after season 3, so there was a big crew turnover. Maybe the camera operators have changed. OTOH, Tristram Shapeero's a returning director, and for this season he directed every other episode, I'm told.

Maybe compare the feel of S4 to Shapeero's S1-S3 episodes?


What? No. No no no. S3 was largely on set too. They were on set basically all the time in S2-S4. That's why in the S2 clip show episode the commentary track makes note of the unusual circumstance that they went out to a Universal studio lot to shoot all that clip show stuff rather than stay on the Paramount lot like usual.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I meant to say that both Season 3 and 4 both have different camerawork when compared to Seasons 1 and 2. For example, Season 1 looks more like 30 Rock while Season 4 looks more like a staged sitcom.
 
So about 9 years ago, I discovered this comedy troupe called Derrick Comedy. I assume everyone here knows them but after re-watching (for probably like the 100th) time some of their skits, it feels good to have discovered Donald Glover, Dominic Dierkes, and DC Pierson way before they made it big. The other 2 outside of Donald Glover have appeared on Community multiple times.

This was also always my favourite Derrick Comedy skit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLJCMzBiqh0
 
Tabris said:
So about 9 years ago, I discovered this comedy troupe called Derrick Comedy. I assume everyone here knows them but after re-watching (for probably like the 100th) time some of their skits, it feels good to have discovered Donald Glover, Dominic Dierkes, and DC Pierson way before they made it big. The other 2 outside of Donald Glover have appeared on Community multiple times.

This was also always my favourite Derrick Comedy skit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLJCMzBiqh0
Click to expand...

DC wrote the outro of one of Donald's songs on his last album. They also all starred in Mystery Team.
 
Getting close. Hope it's good because it's all we're getting for at least 14 days and it'll be a long 14 days if it's a bad episode. But a looooong 14 days if it's a great one.
 
Garrett
ro7Q5.gif
 
Also, I love the "MacGuffin" joke.

Oh, and I forgot to mention but the Señor Chang/Señor Kevin/Kevin joke is amazingly layered. It's as layered as that dip. Literally. They obviously named him Kevin to make the real Community fans laugh. People who never really watched the first season won't get it.

I can't wait to see where the Kevin/Chang thing is heading this season. It's hard to figure out for sure whether he's faking it, whether he's a sleeper, whether it's real...

Oh, and good one Britta. You Britta'd it again.
 
My partner "Partner".
No! I'm Partner!

lol

Edit: Ha! Troy lied to by his parents once again. All his pets were older than him and that's why they all died early.

Oh.. Oh.. my.. where's this going...
 
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