Community: #twentyseasonsandabuttflagonthemoon

[GallowKnight]

I was thinking it was Cussack movie of some sort. I think it was a good example of Abed managing to utilize his fantasy life as a means of bolstering real existence, instead of using it as a retreat into the imagination.

Isn't a confession/declaration of love in the pouring rain a rather common image within romantic movies, and Abed was just using that particular trope to get his point across.

FYI it reminded me of Four Weddings and a Funeral.

[Jabronius Maximus]

Isn't a confession/declaration of love in the pouring rain a rather common image within romantic movies, and Abed was just using that particular trope to get his point across.

FYI it reminded me of Four Weddings and a Funeral.

I had to sit through several terrible Bollywood rom-coms during 'family movie nights' when I was younger. That 'confession in the rain' scene was in 99.9% of them. It was definitely a trope lol.

[SpaceChampion]

I would have thought there was a romantic comedy rain apology supercut but I haven't found any. Instead watch this just for the hell of it.

[Sci-2]

I would have thought there was a romantic comedy rain apology supercut but I haven't found any. Instead watch this just for the hell of it.

You know.....Jeff runs in the rain when we think he's asking Annie out but he really goes to talk to Rich.

So Harmon may just be pulling one of his Ouroboros meta things on us.

[Datepalm]

I would have thought there was a romantic comedy rain apology supercut but I haven't found any. Instead watch this just for the hell of it.

Now I must fight a faint but genuine urge to watch Space Jam.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

So the AV Club posted an article on this website which graphs show's IMDB ratings. Taking a closer look at Community's graph, I noticed that Ep8, App Development and Condiments (MeowMeowBeenz episode), way outscored Ep7, Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality (Jeff/Duncan bro-pisode), which is the lowest rated episode of the season on the graph. My first thought was, "suck it VanDerWerff! You rated these almost exactly opposite, I'm right and you're wrong!"

I kid, of course, I actually really enjoy his reviews of Mad Men, and have no animosity towards him. Really I think the problem with his Community reviews might just be that the weekly sit-com review is a hopeless critical form. In any case, it's kind of a cool website and I enjoy the comforting sense of ordinariness that goes along with my mostly agreeing with each of the episode ratings (for the current season, at least, I haven't looked at all the past episode points).

If I'm not mistaken, tonight's episode

has David Cross as Hickey's son, and will be another D&D episode. The first D&D is one of my all time favorites, if not my outright favorite, so I'm pretty excited. Just give me the return of Brutalitops and I'll be a happy guy.

[Reposado]

So the AV Club posted an article on this website which graphs show's IMDB ratings

holy last season of dexter. im surprised that there wasnt more drop in the previous few seasons, but wow

lost is cool too. you can see that run of episodes towards the end of 3 that ive always thought was one of the best of any show.

also like how breaking bad uniformly gets higher rankings at the end of seasons

(maybe this should be its own thread)

I kid, of course, I actually really enjoy his reviews of Mad Men, and have no animosity towards him. Really I think the problem with his Community reviews might just be that the weekly sit-com review is a hopeless critical form.

ive thought that for a while. since its not much of a review to just point out the things that are funny the reviewer spends a good chunk of the review looking for something to write about and thus becomes biased in favor episodes that have things to write about. which for sitcoms doesnt necessarily mean it was good.

i find that over time, the reviewer tends to reward shows that have "character development" and things like timing and delivery and all the things that make comedy work.

of course now that im aware of this, i would probably have spent an entire review of chaos theory talking about the editing and how if the buzzer goes off even a fraction of a fraction of a second earlier or later, the episode is lesser. and i doubt any one would have wanted to read that

eta: in summation, comedy reviewing is a fool's game to begin with. those that do it tend to review the non-comedy aspects of the show and eventually are biased in favor of comedies that have more non-comedy elements, even if those elements aren't particularly good

[Datepalm]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but we've had perfectly fine critical discussion of sitcoms here which has been considerably more interesting than most AV Club reviews, in terms of deconstructing, analyzing, looking at patterns, considering genre context, comparing to different things to look for connections, etc, etc. I don't know that all of it is necessarily scintillating insights, but there are plenty of far more creative and interesting approaches to the medium then a recap that lists which jokes made the reviewer laugh and which didn't. I'm not crazy about his Mom reviews either - the issue doesn't strike me as a difference in taste, just a staggering lack of imagination. I don't really care about the ratings AV Club gives (tbh, i've never been graded on an A-F system and am kind of fuzzy about what the value of an A- vs a C+ or whatever even is, exactly) it's that the reviews themselves sometimes lack any kind of new insight, synthesis or food for thought, (which is a shame, because I like the site in general) and instead function purely on an I agree/No I don't basis, which we do in a more interesting and egalitarian way here anyway. :dunno:

ETA - series graphs - man, poor Dexter. That cliff at the end is hilarious. Interesting how most shoes seem to have positive trends for each individual season though (particularly strong with Buffy.)

[Reposado]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but we've had perfectly fine critical discussion of sitcoms here which has been considerably more interesting than most AV Club reviews, in terms of deconstructing, analyzing, looking at patterns, considering genre context, comparing to different things to look for connections, etc, etc. I don't know that all of it is necessarily scintillating insights, but there are plenty of far more creative and interesting approaches to the medium then a recap that lists which jokes made the reviewer laugh and which didn't. I'm not crazy about his Mom reviews either - the issue doesn't strike me as a difference in taste, just a staggering lack of imagination. I don't really care about the ratings AV Club gives (tbh, i've never been graded on an A-F system and am kind of fuzzy about what the value of an A- vs a C+ or whatever even is, exactly) it's that the reviews themselves sometimes lack any kind of new insight, synthesis or food for thought, (which is a shame, because I like the site in general) and instead function purely on an I agree/No I don't basis, which we do in a more interesting and egalitarian way here anyway. :dunno:

i dont mean that there isnt a ton of deconstruction/analysis that can be done with a good sitcom. i think a forum discussion is much more capable of doing all those things. and i think its because you(or we, us, whatever) dont watch the show looking for things to post in the forum. we watch the show to enjoy it and then later think of things to say, or respond to things others say.

which is a different style of watching than watching it in order to review. looking for insights instead of just seeing them.

thats the way i think about it and in general, i tend to agree with drama reviews but typically find comedy reviews to be worthless, and the tastes of comedy reviewers to often be subpar

[Datepalm]

Well, you know, find reviewers who see insights. :dunno: Considering what the organic viewer response is - someone watching just for fun - and keeping track of a given thing's context (is it meant to be camp/lowbrow/etc?) is also a part of reviewing and criticizing.

[awesome possum]

I honestly only read reviews of one show and that's Survivor because I can't get enough of it. Every other show I watch I come here for review/discussion. I feel I don't need more after reading these threads.

[Jaime L]

So the AV Club posted an article on this website which graphs show's IMDB ratings. Taking a closer look at Community's graph, I noticed that Ep8, App Development and Condiments (MeowMeowBeenz episode), way outscored Ep7, Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality (Jeff/Duncan bro-pisode), which is the lowest rated episode of the season on the graph. My first thought was, "suck it VanDerWerff! You rated these almost exactly opposite, I'm right and you're wrong!"

I kid, of course, I actually really enjoy his reviews of Mad Men, and have no animosity towards him. Really I think the problem with his Community reviews might just be that the weekly sit-com review is a hopeless critical form. In any case, it's kind of a cool website and I enjoy the comforting sense of ordinariness that goes along with my mostly agreeing with each of the episode ratings (for the current season, at least, I haven't looked at all the past episode points).

If I'm not mistaken, tonight's episode

has David Cross as Hickey's son, and will be another D&D episode. The first D&D is one of my all time favorites, if not my outright favorite, so I'm pretty excited. Just give me the return of Brutalitops and I'll be a happy guy.

Nice, the wisdom of the masses work. The top 3 rated Community episodes are Modern Warfare, Remedial Chaos Theory and a Fistful of Paintballs as they should be. All are big time crowd pleasers and awesomely pulled off. A bit disappointed Geothermal Escapism is #4 but it's Troy's last episode, so people might be extra sentimental to it. Also fitting that the best Gas Leak season episodes only rate as high as the least watched ones from any other season.

Again, one need only read the AV Club comments to see how out of touch the reviewer is with the primary things people like about the show. I think Resposado has the right of it why this is, but I disagree with the notion that reviewing comedy is "hopeless". Felt like Slate had quick reviews on Community back in the day that always seemed to "get it". I check out reviews for an objective summation of why this episode was the best ever or not up to the usual standards to reinforce or help me organize my thoughts on it or even to point out some of the small, clever little metajokes I might've missed that this show specializes in I think if you look at the ratings chart, you're seeing a relatively objective measure of quality. But when the reviewer is so consistently off base in what he is focused on, if it doesn't feel like a fair summation of what I just witnessed, it loses its appeal quick.

I like(d) the AV Club for Breaking Bad and SNL but for Community, man, it's just not been good as of late. A well written review enhances my enjoyment of the show or crystallizes for me what did or did not work - his does the opposite.

[Datepalm]

I'd love to get the spread on each episode. Nevermind which the crowd thinks is best/worse - which is the crowd most polarized by?

[OnionAhaiReborn]

Well, I'll cop to pretty much only reading AV Club weekly reviews of sitcoms (I sometimes read Slate's TV stuff but I don't generally enjoy it and never saw their Communiy reviews). That's only one site so it's possible I'm missing out on better stuff elsewhere, but it is multiple contributors and I've always felt like the sitcom reviews were weak across the board, which I've attributed to problems with doing weekly sitcom reviews rather than to the writers themselves.

I should say, though, that I do think there is plenty of interesting material for review and discussion on Community, it wouldn't be possible for me to love this show as much as I do- and I really do- without also thinking there's plenty to say about it, and I think that holds true for any good comedy. I just don't think the week-by-week form lends itself to doing this well.

I think there's plenty to be said about how and why Community works, what it's about, what its context is, what's exceptional about its format, how it's evolved over time, and even about what parts don't work so well. All of this is better handled holistically than piecemeal, particularly when the pieces are 20 minute episodes telling largely self-contained stories. Taking it bit by bit seems not to result in a more in-depth understanding, but a weekly word-churning that over-hashes the specific story conflicts and character 'developments' of an episode. I think it would be very difficult to have something interesting to say about the deeper elements each week, especially when the reviews need to be out a few hours after the episode airs, so it just seems not to work out well.

[Reposado]

Perhaps its that, while very possible to do interesting and insightful reviews of sitcoms, the skills needed for and/or experience gained by, being a good reviewer of serialized dramas, are liabilities for writing reviews of sitcoms

[SpaceChampion]

Hitfix interviews Dan Harmon: Part 1, Part 2, and a forthcoming Part 3 (but discussing Rick & Morty instead of Community)

[Sci-2]

Perhaps its that, while very possible to do interesting and insightful reviews of sitcoms, the skills needed for and/or experience gained by, being a good reviewer of serialized dramas, are liabilities for writing reviews of sitcoms

I kinda think this too. Usually a comedy should simply make people feel good, beyond most other considerations. That can be done in a variety of ways, as there are episodes or jokes that might make me smile (or not even that) but others say they're on the floor laughing.

That makes reviews so subjective they are much less useful than for something like True Detective.

That said there are times when a review can make me think about things a new light, or at least call back to references from previous seasons I'd forgotten.

[Datepalm]

Well, I'll cop to pretty much only reading AV Club weekly reviews of sitcoms (I sometimes read Slate's TV stuff but I don't generally enjoy it and never saw their Communiy reviews). That's only one site so it's possible I'm missing out on better stuff elsewhere, but it is multiple contributors and I've always felt like the sitcom reviews were weak across the board, which I've attributed to problems with doing weekly sitcom reviews rather than to the writers themselves.

Off the top of my currently open browser tabs, here's Adam Roberts on Victoriana and YA lit and here's Anne Helen Petersen on cinematic spectacle in Kesha's new music video. They're analytical, but are also perfectly aware and respectful of what it is they're analyzing, what it's trying to do and how it's intended to be viewed. They bring in some academic stuff, but it's explained and accessible. Both are interesting. I don't necessairly agree or disagree with them - they generate food for thought, show the works in a new light and from directions I had never through of, and make the works themselves more interesting to look at. And the essays/reviews themselves are just fun to read.

It is perfectly possible to write in depth criticism on lowbrow media - I grant that going episode by episode is more challenging, but if the AV Club was interested, they could try and find someone who would at least try to write further reaching, more ambitious Community reviews. Say Adam Roberts, while we're at it (i'd read the hell out of that.) They seem to prefer what they've got. It must be working for someone, I suppose, but it doesn't do much for me.

[Jaime L]

Just want to comment to say I'm loving the thread title.

"It's not fair I should be the only one here saddled with a total waste of space loser! No offense, Todd" -- Pierce

[Reposado]

They seem to prefer what they've got. It must be working for someone, I suppose, but it doesn't do much for me.

i think that part of this is because review readers want different things, and some review readers want different things at different times

a. they want a cheerleader, someone to loudly proclaim that the thing that the reader liked is good(or that the thing they did not like was bad)

b they want someone to disagree with

c they just want a place to comment themselves.

d they want deep exploration/insight, etc,

we could go but i feel that while many reviewers are trying to satisfy reader d, even if they fail, they are still commonly satisfying reader a. and i think review reader a may be the most common type. website owners are probably much more aware of this and thus perfectly happy to keep on people who keep providing reader a with satisfaction.

its also apparent that readers a b and c want their review asap. this is when weekly reviews generally happen, with advance copy, reviews are up within an hour after the airing.

reader d would be perfectly happy to read a review of an episode from a last year if there was something interesting in it, and these do happen, but they arent as prominent on the web because reader d is a minority.

on a personal level, sometimes i'm any of the above. i'll admit that after a particularly bad episode of parks i'm reader b, going straight to sepinwalls blog to see what how he talked himself into liking the episode. and sometimes i'm A, but I do recognize that what I just read was not a good review. I'm rarely C, as I if just want to comment, I can come to the forum.