(Edit: As of June 30, 2014, "Community" has been renewed for a sixth season on Yahoo!'s video-streaming service! Leading to much joy from fans such as myself! This ongoing series of reviews will continue as I have time to write them, however.)
Today, May 9th, 2014, marked a very sad day for fans of the cult NBC TV- show "Community"- it is the day the series has been officially canceled after 5 seasons.
"Community" has been a big part of my life during the past few years. Its beautiful writing and wonderful humor have gotten me through some hard times. And it does very-much hurt to see it go. But I am planning on going back and re-watching the entire series start-to-finish again. And in honor of the series- possibly my favorite sitcom of all time- I have decided to have some fun by writing short reviews for each and every episode, one- by-one. (Although I will warn people- I tend to hold controversial views with some episodes- I love some episodes that others hate, and I somewhat dislike a few episodes that fans otherwise hold in high regard.)
Who knows how long this will take? Maybe it'll be done within a few months... maybe a few years. But I will finish it eventually. (Plus, I've always thought it would be fun to review every episode of a show, so this presents a good opportunity to do so.)
The appropriately-named pilot episode... erm... "Pilot", is a really good establishment for the series. We follow disbarred lawyer Jeff Winger (Joel McHale), as he enrolls in the seemingly-underwhelming Greendale Community College as part of a deal to get his license back. During the first week of classes, he meets a rather gorgeous fellow student named Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs), and feigns being a tutor as a way to be able to get close to her. His ruse is to start a fictitious study-group and only invite her, so they will be forced to spend time together. However, this plan backfires when Britta invites five other students to join them- Troy Barnes (Donald Glover), Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi), Annie Edison (Alison Brie), Shirley Bennet (Yvette Nicole Brown) and Pierce Hawthorne. (Chevy Chase)
Now I would be lying if I said this was a perfect episode. It falls into many of the tropes that pilots must unfortunately go through in order to establish tone and characters. And as a result, it emerges as one of the less-humorous episodes of the season, because so much time has to be spent setting things up. Something about pilot-episodes, especially for comedies and sitcoms just makes them stand out as slightly less organic than subsequent episodes.
That being said, I do think this is a fundamentally good episode. The cast meshes well here in their introductions to one-another. Jeff and Britta shine in particular, and it was this episode that started my secret hopes and shameless "shipping" of them them. They just seemed perfect together to me, even when others disagree. The humor is also quite solid. Particularly amusing are some of the silly quips passed back and forth between Troy and Pierce during while the group is seated at the study-table. And the episode does just drip of style... even though it's slightly darker and more restrained than the episodes that come after it. It has a very cinematic feel to it. Which I really admired.
For a pilot episode, this is surprisingly solid. And it set up for what I feel is one of the best sitcoms to grace our screens in the past 10 years.
"Pilot" for me gets a very-good 8 out of 10.
Today, May 9th, 2014, marked a very sad day for fans of the cult NBC TV- show "Community"- it is the day the series has been officially canceled after 5 seasons.
"Community" has been a big part of my life during the past few years. Its beautiful writing and wonderful humor have gotten me through some hard times. And it does very-much hurt to see it go. But I am planning on going back and re-watching the entire series start-to-finish again. And in honor of the series- possibly my favorite sitcom of all time- I have decided to have some fun by writing short reviews for each and every episode, one- by-one. (Although I will warn people- I tend to hold controversial views with some episodes- I love some episodes that others hate, and I somewhat dislike a few episodes that fans otherwise hold in high regard.)
Who knows how long this will take? Maybe it'll be done within a few months... maybe a few years. But I will finish it eventually. (Plus, I've always thought it would be fun to review every episode of a show, so this presents a good opportunity to do so.)
The appropriately-named pilot episode... erm... "Pilot", is a really good establishment for the series. We follow disbarred lawyer Jeff Winger (Joel McHale), as he enrolls in the seemingly-underwhelming Greendale Community College as part of a deal to get his license back. During the first week of classes, he meets a rather gorgeous fellow student named Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs), and feigns being a tutor as a way to be able to get close to her. His ruse is to start a fictitious study-group and only invite her, so they will be forced to spend time together. However, this plan backfires when Britta invites five other students to join them- Troy Barnes (Donald Glover), Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi), Annie Edison (Alison Brie), Shirley Bennet (Yvette Nicole Brown) and Pierce Hawthorne. (Chevy Chase)
Now I would be lying if I said this was a perfect episode. It falls into many of the tropes that pilots must unfortunately go through in order to establish tone and characters. And as a result, it emerges as one of the less-humorous episodes of the season, because so much time has to be spent setting things up. Something about pilot-episodes, especially for comedies and sitcoms just makes them stand out as slightly less organic than subsequent episodes.
That being said, I do think this is a fundamentally good episode. The cast meshes well here in their introductions to one-another. Jeff and Britta shine in particular, and it was this episode that started my secret hopes and shameless "shipping" of them them. They just seemed perfect together to me, even when others disagree. The humor is also quite solid. Particularly amusing are some of the silly quips passed back and forth between Troy and Pierce during while the group is seated at the study-table. And the episode does just drip of style... even though it's slightly darker and more restrained than the episodes that come after it. It has a very cinematic feel to it. Which I really admired.
For a pilot episode, this is surprisingly solid. And it set up for what I feel is one of the best sitcoms to grace our screens in the past 10 years.
"Pilot" for me gets a very-good 8 out of 10.