You really should watch the show this image comes from

Just promise me one thing, entertainment system:

Say you won't typecast the hell out of him when this is all over.

2010 Retrospective, pt. 3: Television vs. Extinction

My enthusiasm for television has never really changed. I lived without a TV up until the point someone asked me, "Are you one of those people who watch TV?" At that point, of course, I knew exactly what my life was missing. That said, I never really watched much. I did the thing where I would stare blankly at the television for a while, using it less as a source of information and entertainment (and never the twain should meet) than as a slack, mutable canvas on which to view my exact context in history.

Now one autumn day in 2009, following my usual after-work routine, I encountered a shock. I stumbled into an episode of a show that I had some dim awareness of. Slick dialogue and editing; snappy and unerringly clean characters; white male lead - yep, another bland and demoralizing situational comedy show. American TV at its best, in the most savage satiric sense. So kept watching, irritated that anyone had the gall to pull this kind of leprous rabbit out of the sleazy magic hat of television. It appeared to be unoffensive, silly, acceptable writing... and wait a minute, that's Chevy Chase, isn't it? And who is that free radical?

Community thus gained a faithful viewer. This show which was on nobody's radar at all, that I hadn't even seen on many network ads, actually entertained me. Sure, I knew about 30-Rock, the other sitcom on NBC, which was always good for a laugh but obviously a glass cannon. I had been getting tired of How I Met Your Mother, because I'd seen enough episodes to know that its main conceit was a red-herring, and that it was really just a very, very impressive remake of Friends. The rest of my faith in network programming had been slain by the enthusiasm over The Big Bang Theory, the appeal of which was lost on me.

With all of those odds stacked against it, plus the internet, television still managed to hook me. Thursdays I knew where to go to shake off my boredom. Community really is unimpressive on paper: Cynical failed lawyer goes to school, accidentally creates a study-group in order to get laid, finds out that the consequences are heartwarming but inescapable. It also has a really flat title, the sort of title that could've easily belonged to another 100 Questions. 

But the first season of Community was worth every episode. By the end of the Halloween special I knew what I had suspected when Troy and Abed first rapped together en Espagnol. The hippest of you are saying, "That was 2009, and standards were different. The 'meta-goldrush' is over, and meta-humor is played out and lame." Well, in 2010 I watched Community regularly. That show owned 2010. I know this because nobody else thinks so, and nobody else says so, but I couldn't find a single DVD of Season 1 when I went to the store recently. So what if it was on sale?

Which begs the question, "Is it shameful to admit you like Community?" Local 'TV Critics' who are published in newspapers did not mention Community in their predictable 'Best of 2010' lists so the show obviously lacks critical praise. In more realistic terms, maybe a third (33%) of people I know watch the show, and the rest do not care for it. I will watch that show until it's cancelled or someone steals my TV. When the season finale aired I actually (and this is shameful stuff) wished there were more episodes - and the show ended on a tone-perfect idiot note. The reruns were sobering reminders of what I might have missed if I thought that television was objectively bad, which in itself is kind of depressing, because I could've been an anti-TV rebel.

Season 2 of Community has been difficult. Three hundred people literally felt betrayed by the recent Christmas episode. Some accuse the program of being too clever by half, which is at least half of its charm to begin with. My opinion is that they have done no wrong at all, and that this season is at least as good as the least of the last one. There are some high points they'll never hit again, but they'll replace them with other distractions. Chevy Chase could quit, Dan Harmon might even drive the show off a cliff out of sheer perversity, or meddling hands will destroy it, but nothing can kill what they quoted, alluded to, or made fun of - especially 80's rapists, Goodfellas, and Cookie Crisp.

Television Event of the Week

It was a big night on the television...

Community arrived as if nothing had happened, to start its second season. The show was perfectly nonchalant about this, which I approve of. This was probably the only reason I even turned the TV on tonight, because I wasn't about to miss it. Last year, I had pretty much given up on television as a drug, but I experimented with an episode of Community and sure enough I was in the ditch the next day.

Anyways, for those who missed the show but enjoy synopses (and who doesn't like either of those): nothing really happens. There were the prerequisite zeitgeist moments including a recurring gag aimed at Shit My Dad Says, which is later dismissed as "bad development planning' by Abed, in a moment of delicious metavision. Oh and Betty White was on, but as much as I am happy for her, the whole thing is getting out of hand, and I don't know if any show that is supposed to be self-aware can actually invite her to guest star. On the other hand, it makes perfect sense, and will attract hordes who aren't feeling blue about her sitcom, or her new upcoming movie, or the Snickers commercial (which is funny, after all). In my mind, overexposure is iffy, but then again the elderly have been given short shrift for so long that it makes sense that everyone will vote for Betty White on Facebook. It makes sense to me, and that's not saying much, so: have fun out there Betty, for the rest of us and especially for the rest of your under-appreciated cohort. 

Anyways, the Betty White overdose seems to have made me a little overbearing – if not outright annoying. Time to digress: the best part of Community S2x01 was when Chang got the pay-as-you-go thing on his phone, let it report his balance, and told Jeff he was "Chang-ed"... outrageous, pathetic, inexplicably funny: this is how I remember the show working best. New professor Betty White's anthropology course is as madcap as you'd expect. After the paintball episode, of course, the fanbase was split among the lines of 'plot 'n writing' versus 'outrageous exploit' and... well I won't go there. No point in it.

This post is too long, and it might upset you, but even if it does, you (yes, you) must return to read it again. I can't wait to see where Community goes this season. This first episode is kind of exactly what it had to be, all things considered, and more or less a smirking send-up of the pilot.

And later that night Ferguson had Betty White on his show, while Jimmy Fallon countered with Pavement, Amy Poehler, and Rashida Jones. Why do I list it so? Why indeed...