RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Another example is how Abed has changed from a guy who mostly thinks in terms of movies ant tropes to a guy that's virtually incapable of dealing with the world outside of his own imagination.
He did... except in seasons 1 - 3 he was more about always recognizing which kind of story any episode was emulating rather than just churning out references.
Case in point:
* In season 2 there's that awesome episode where they all get stuck in the study room looking for a pen. Abed immediately recognizes that it's a bottle episode, which leads to some hilarious jokes.
* In season 4, in the Thanksgiving episode, when they get stuck in Shirley's house, Abed paints himself like in "Prison Break" and talks like he is in "The Shawshank Redemption". But that's it - he's JUST referencing pop culture prison movies. Not analyzing the situation in light of the trope it's emulating and acting in a way that ridicules the trope even while perpetuating it (indeed, many times Abed was the one who pushed the other characters into behaving more like the trope of the episode dictates, because it made sense to him). Just... referencing pop culture. We have Family Guy for that, and they do it waaay better than season 4 of community does.
Well, Abed did his share of churning out references in previous seasons too.
Look at Critical Film Studies from Season 2. He's not recognizing the tropes there, or dissecting the events of the episode as if it were a TV show, he's doing exactly what he did in the Season 4 Thanksgiving episode--he's pretending he's in a movie.
I just happen to think My Dinner with Andre is a much funnier reference to base an episode around. I also think the spoof actually contributed to the emotional journey of the characters rather than serving as a straight up gag.
In the long run, Critical Film Studies is one of my favorite episodes, whereas the Thanksgiving one didn't make much of an impact on me.
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I just happen to think My Dinner with Andre is a much funnier reference to base an episode around. I also think the spoof actually contributed to the emotional journey of the characters rather than serving as a straight up gag.
It got even better once I saw the episode of Cougar Town Abed is in. Which was a weird coincidence since it's the only episode of Cougar Town I've seen.
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Another example is how Abed has changed from a guy who mostly thinks in terms of movies ant tropes to a guy that's virtually incapable of dealing with the world outside of his own imagination.
He did... except in seasons 1 - 3 he was more about always recognizing which kind of story any episode was emulating rather than just churning out references.
Case in point:
* In season 2 there's that awesome episode where they all get stuck in the study room looking for a pen. Abed immediately recognizes that it's a bottle episode, which leads to some hilarious jokes.
* In season 4, in the Thanksgiving episode, when they get stuck in Shirley's house, Abed paints himself like in "Prison Break" and talks like he is in "The Shawshank Redemption". But that's it - he's JUST referencing pop culture prison movies. Not analyzing the situation in light of the trope it's emulating and acting in a way that ridicules the trope even while perpetuating it (indeed, many times Abed was the one who pushed the other characters into behaving more like the trope of the episode dictates, because it made sense to him). Just... referencing pop culture. We have Family Guy for that, and they do it waaay better than season 4 of community does.Well, Abed did his share of churning out references in previous seasons too.
Look at Critical Film Studies from Season 2. He's not recognizing the tropes there, or dissecting the events of the episode as if it were a TV show, he's doing exactly what he did in the Season 4 Thanksgiving episode--he's pretending he's in a movie.
I honestly can't imagine how you'd see those two episodes as comparable, really. "Critical Film Studies" is elaborate. Abed's entire point in that episode is to emulate a movie - and he does so by slipping into a real character - a character more real than he is. He shows just how much he is only capable of understanding life through the movie he watches. It's a ton of character development for him, and it's a clever reference - not, "oh, I guess we are doing prison break now", but rather "Abed is digging really, really deep into a movie - well enough to emulate it but not well enough to see how it relates to real life".
That's not reference churning, that's living the reference. In season 2 Abed is an interesting character. In season 4 he could be replaced by a robot that shouts the names of movies every scene or two.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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I honestly can't imagine how you'd see those two episodes as comparable, really. "Critical Film Studies" is elaborate. Abed's entire point in that episode is to emulate a movie - and he does so by slipping into a real character - a character more real than he is. He shows just how much he is only capable of understanding life through the movie he watches. It's a ton of character development for him, and it's a clever reference - not, "oh, I guess we are doing prison break now", but rather "Abed is digging really, really deep into a movie - well enough to emulate it but not well enough to see how it relates to real life".
That's not reference churning, that's living the reference. In season 2 Abed is an interesting character. In season 4 he could be replaced by a robot that shouts the names of movies every scene or two.
Perhaps reference churning was the wrong term. I agree with pretty much everything you say about Critical Film Studies, that's why as I said it's one of my favorite episodes :)
But that doesn't change the fact that it's a reference gag. An incredibly elaborate and well done reference gag that actually drives Abed's character development, but a reference gag nonetheless. What separates Season 2 and Season 4 isn't what they're doing, it's how they're doing it. The difference is in execution, not concept.
EDIT: If you want a closer analog, try the Season 2 finale, where Abed pretends to be Han Solo.
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Benchak, I agree with you, though I do think that there's an inherit enough difference between referencing something and making a parody of it to warrant calling them different things. What season 4 did was closer to "The Starving Games" and it's ilk (confusing humor with just mentioning things people know about), while the other seasons are more like some of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels - Moving Pictures, for example. It's distilling a pop culture ingredient to it's bare essence and exposing it's most ridiculous aspects in a loving way.
However, that is really just about semantics. I think we both have the same idea in mind.
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This week's episode was a huge letdown, given that it featured both Game of Thrones and Nathan Fillion. There were some low, obvious gags, and the mingling party of janitors was an amusing idea (anyone knows why there were people in military outfits there?), but all in all I barely laughed the entire episode, and Abed's references were BAD. season 4 level bad.
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Reviving (cloning?) the thread: I'd recently watched "Logan's Run" on TV so I had a lot of fun watching last week's episode. The way Jeff became a 5 was hilarious! Some of my favorite scenes in the show are between Shirley and Jeff, so I liked getting to see them spar once again. Joel McHale and Yvette Nicole Brown are my 2 favorite actors on the show.
What is it with twos and apples, huh?
I really liked this episode.
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Streets ahead.
I haven't seen much of this show, but I was over my buddy's house and I saw a picture of David Cross playing D&D and I might have climaxed then and there. I loved it, my buddy loved it, and even my buddy's wife loved it.
Huzzah!
The preview for the upcoming "G.I.Jeff" animated episode looks promising.
For those in the UK, Series 2 of Community (the one with the first D&D episode) is on Sony Entertainment TV (channel 157) starting Monday 31/03 at 7am.
Sky Never Miss FTW! Series Record and you're done.
Series 5 on in the UK starting this week - Thursday 10th, at 9pm on Sony.
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It's been going for a few weeks over here, and is great. Enjoy!
So, when will we see season 6? The answer is at the end of season 5.
"This summer, or fall, or, possibly next winter. Depends on what fails."
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Season 6 will premiere October 19th.
Cancelled. :( Oh, well.
Why does everything I love always leave me?
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Cancelled. :( Oh, well.
Why does everything I love always leave me?
I have to admit I'm somewhat relieved about this. Most of season 5 was not much better than season 4. The last few episodes were a jumbled mess. Maybe it's time to just let the first 3 seasons be the best thing that ever happened on TV and move on, as the it seems like most further episodes only retract from the mythos.
It's coming back!
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Liches be like: "Daaaaaaaaamn, Community, where did you hide your phylactery?!"
Whoo! Now we just need to kickstart the movie!
Uh. So. What's a yahoo?
Whoo! Now we just need to kickstart the movie!
Uh. So. What's a yahoo?
Yahoo Screen is their free web portal for viewing content. You should also be able to watch it via a Roku box, Apple TV, or Chromecast.
Yahoo Screen is their free web portal for viewing content. You should also be able to watch it via a Roku box, Apple TV, or Chromecast.Whoo! Now we just need to kickstart the movie!
Uh. So. What's a yahoo?
Ah so that's what it's called. Cheers! My searching led to a lot of articles going "Yahoo is doing this!" and no actual site. :)
Edit: Urgh, I predict an awful lot of "This video is currently not available due to provider license restrictions" in my future.
I actually happen to have my real-life-boring-normal-stuff email through Yahoo. My fun-games-and-other-stuff email has bounced around lots of different places since but that one I havent stopped using for quite some time.
Will they be adding older episodes to their catalog as well as new stuff? I might actually be able to get caught up on this.
I still have an MSN email address… don't judge me!
ANYHOO, I love Community, but I wonder at Yahoo as a development partner. We'll see...
This news is fascinating. I don't watch community... well I tried season 1 for a bit but just never came back to it. BUT think about what this means! Now failed shows that still have fans can get new life on the internet! Totally awesome.
Not a failed show "failed" is a bit trollish... Its show that does not fit with the mainstream but its fans have the power to keep it going.
How is it trollish? It gets cancelled that's failure isn't it?
That it can keep going on the internet is the real cool news. I hope to see other shows I like in the future saved this way.
Firefly was a failed show but I loved it... I think you are seeing trolls in your imagination.
I'll watch the 6th season. I'll watch the movie. I'll buy it all at once to watch again.
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It wasn't the shows that failed - it was the network that failed in both cases.
Failed shows are ones that don't have any fans.
Like American Red Dwarf or American IT Crowd or American Life on Mars.
Both Community and Fire Fly have active fan bases and audiences.
Well no. The networks are for profit companies, so they have to make the tough call; any shows that draw fewer than X number of viewers don't draw enough advertising revenue to justify being aired. So if too small a group loves the show then it fails and gets cancelled... it could be the greatest show on earth but if only 13 people think so then that isn't enough. It is a testimony to the Community fan base that their "activeness" has postponed a cancellation as long as it did. All shows have fans... just some have fewer fans than others.
Oh I suppose I should clarify by failed I mean it failed to make enough money for it's network. Even C-Span has devoted fan followers.
I do love the quote from Harmon
I am very pleased that 'Community' will be returning for its predestined sixth season on Yahoo, I look forward to bringing our beloved NBC sitcom to a larger audience by moving it online. I vow to dominate our new competition. Rest easy, 'Big Bang Theory.' Look out, 'Bang Bus!”
Well no. The networks are for profit companies, so they have to make the tough call; any shows that draw fewer than X number of viewers don't draw enough advertising revenue to justify being aired. So if too small a group loves the show then it fails and gets cancelled... it could be the greatest show on earth but if only 13 people think so then that isn't enough. It is a testimony to the Community fan base that their "activeness" has postponed a cancellation as long as it did. All shows have fans... just some have fewer fans than others.
Oh I suppose I should clarify by failed I mean it failed to make enough money for it's network. Even C-Span has devoted fan followers.
I do love the quote from Harmon
I am very pleased that 'Community' will be returning for its predestined sixth season on Yahoo, I look forward to bringing our beloved NBC sitcom to a larger audience by moving it online. I vow to dominate our new competition. Rest easy, 'Big Bang Theory.' Look out, 'Bang Bus!”
To be fair, it doesn't help when networks screw shows over by airing episodes out of order, jerking their time slots around before they've had a chance to establish a fanbase, and so on. I'd count that as network failure.
As for that quote. Something tells me I shouldn't be googling the name of the new competition at work.
I think that there are more than 13 Browncoats in the world, firefly was hugely successful in spite of Fox and it's mismanagement of the show.
Community is not a failure as there is enough support for 6 seasons and a movie I hope.
TG yeh don't google it - that's a sackable websearch.
" To be fair, it doesn't help when networks screw shows over by airing episodes out of order, jerking their time slots around before they've had a chance to establish a fanbase, and so on. I'd count that as network failure."
To be even more fair, none of that happened to Community.
I didn't say it had. I was making a general comment regarding the way networks air certain shows in response to Arrana's post. Firefly was given this treatment, which is what prompted me to mention it given that 8th Dwarf had brought that show up. Same deal occurred with Babylon here in Australia, which severely impacted the popularity of the show. Please don't make it sound like I'm saying something I'm not. My comment had nothing to do with Community, and was a direct response to Arrana and 8th Dwarf's discussion about Network vs Show failure.
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TG yeh don't google it - that's a sackable websearch.
Curses, now I'm even more curious! Why is the forbidden fruit so sweet?!
" To be fair, it doesn't help when networks screw shows over by airing episodes out of order, jerking their time slots around before they've had a chance to establish a fanbase, and so on. I'd count that as network failure."
To be even more fair, none of that happened to Community.
To be even more fair than that, it was probably a reference to the Firefly debacle.
Dan Harmon was pushed out by Sony and that is why Season 4 was not as good.
Yeah it's sad that we will never really know how well Firefly would have done because of the way it was mismanaged. But regardless of the fact that it was probably the network's fault that the show failed it did still fail (at least in the case of that show).
Community has had good network support however. The number of fans it has wasn't harmed by anything more than the show itself. I am actually eager to see if the number of fans changes significantly when it starts up as a web show. If the number does change dramatically we could see a big move to start new shows direct to the web.
Curses, now I'm even more curious! Why is the forbidden fruit so sweet?!...
TG yeh don't google it - that's a sackable websearch.
lol. Perhaps you should wait till your home alone to search the new competition.
I think that there are more than 13 Browncoats in the world, firefly was hugely successful in spite of Fox and it's mismanagement of the show.
Community is not a failure as there is enough support for 6 seasons and a movie I hope.
The number 13 was just an off the tip of my tongue randomly low number. ALL shows have fans, just some have fewer than others was my point.
As for Community, it did fail on network TV... that said it might still be a huge success on web TV. We shall see when the show airs it's 6th season and people can see the numbers. I for one am routing FOR Community because I want more web TV.