Community seems to have come out of nowhere and has been gaining viewers and getting funnier with each episode. It’s not a science fiction show but geeks will love it. It is almost the same level of geeky hilarity as Big Bang Theory. If you’ve never seen Community, below is a brief description of the characters and the second season.
Community is about Jeff Winger who used to be an attorney before it was discovered that he falsified his credentials. He has to go back to school to get real degree this time and meets a group of misfits. He eventually forms a study group with them and they become good friends. There is Shirley Bennett, a baker who is in school to learn more about business. She also is recently divorced, has two kids and is a vocal, devout Christian. There is Chevy Chase’s character Pierce Hawthorne who is a callous, out-of-touch old man who says inappropriate things. Troy Barnes used to be a popular quarterback but dislocated both his shoulders but ended up at Greendale Community College. Annie Edison also known as “Little Annie Adderall” is an over-achieving perfectionist who tries extra hard to fit in and has a heart of gold. Britta Perry is an opinionated, vegan, half-femnazi and half-hippie. She is often the wetblanket of the crew but Jeff thinks she’s hot so she stays around. The last member of the crew and my favorite is Abed. He sees the world through TV and movies and mostly communicates by using a movie reference or quote. A worthy honorable mention is Senor Chang. In the first season, he was a hardnose psycho Spanish teacher. Like Winger, he faked his credentials and had to actually go back to school to make things right. I can’t fail to mention the Dean who is flamboyantly and awesomely gay. He’s a wackadoo but he’s lovable.
On paper, these characters are underwhelming. Put them together in wacky situations that can only happen at Greendale Community College and every episode is a bizarre adventure that keeps piling on the insanity week to week. This semester, the gang was taking Anthropology and their teacher is Betty White. She turned out to be crazy and was let go for tranquilizing and almost bashing Jeff’s head in with an ancient weapon. In order to best another Community College at building a flight simulator, the crew is tasked with repairing the Greendale flight simulator. They ended up paying homage to/ re-enacting Apollo 13 all while doing KFC product placement. In another episode, Sherry wants Troy and Abed to make a Christian rap video. Abed ends up becoming a messianic figure on campus complete with a long Jesus-like hair extensions. For Halloween, they went all out and turned everyone to zombies. There was a lot of zombie movie references and the day was saved by turning up the air conditioning! There was a magic trampoline that was kept secret by an undercover Nazi. There was an entire “bottle episode” where they locked themselves in the study room and stripped to their underwear because Annie was certain one of them was stealing her pens. One episode was a fun conspiracy theory about Jeff’s imaginary class meanwhile Abed and Troy make an elaborate blanket fort that spanned the whole college. There were even different districts. It was insanely awesome. The episode that absolutely shines is ‘Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas’. The entire crew was stop-animated and they went on a grand Rudolph-sytled adventure to discover the meaning of Christmas.
So go ahead and start this show from the first episode. It’s just 30 minutes and it goes by fast because the episodes keep you laughing.
Community airs on Thursdays at 8/7c on NBC.
References:
Community Wikia
