Community - Season One

My history with Community is as follows: last year I watched the episode "Social Psychology" and was not a fan, so I didn't bother checking back. But because Community was followed by Parks and Recreation every week, I caught a lot of the "tags" at the end of each episode that featured the silly and brilliant comedy team that is Troy and Abed. This summer I decided to give it another shot, watching the final handful of episodes and then going back to the pilot (which then ended up feeling like a cool flashback episode about how the study group was formed) and continued in order on the DVD. "Social Psychology" is still the weakest episode of the season, but watching it again in the proper context made it slightly better.

I want to take a quick moment to point out how awesome the DVD is. When I bought it, I was able to enjoy it before even popping in a disc thanks to the creative packaging (written and doodled on by the show's lovable characters) and a Kickpuncher comic book written by Troy. Like the amazing menus on the IT Crowd DVD's, I love it when a DVD can offer more than just the episodes and some featurettes. Not that there's anything wrong with the simplicity of that.

As for the show itself, I shudder to think I almost missed out on this series altogether, because it turned out to be one of the most entertaining television shows I've ever seen. It may not always be hilarious - though most of the time it is - and when it isn't, that's perfectly fine because it's just so damned fun to sit in on these seven characters and their study group sessions. It's such a diverse group of people who would probably never be friends had they not all come to the same community college, and that is what makes it awesome. It's also interesting to see the changes in group dynamic when one of them isn't there, because it really shows what everyone brings to the table. It may have been Troy and Abed who convinced me to give Community another chance, but I stayed for the entire cast.

Best Episode: There are so many gems here, including "Contemporary American Poultry", a parody of mafia movies involving cafeteria chicken fingers; "Investigative Journalism", involving Jack Black as a student trying to force his way into the study group when nobody wants him there and nobody wants to do the deed of telling him as much (I'm sure we've all been in situations like that, I know I have); and "Beginner Pottery", in which no one in the pottery class is allowed to reenact the famous scene from Ghost. But those are my honourable mentions, because the crown jewel of season one is "Modern Warfare", a hilarious, cool, and spot-on parody of war/action movies as the students on campus play an intense round of paintball.