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 Here we are, the long-awaited/dreaded Inspector Spacetime convention episode. I know a rather large portion of this thread finds the entire joke overplayed, with a decent share of the blame going to the goddamn fans, but let's try to keep ourselves optimistic, alright? Please be civil. Now: This Week's Curriculum: Conventions of Space and Time The study group goes to the annual Inspector Spacetime Convention; Annie enjoys the luxuries of the hotel; Jeff spends time with an Inspector Spacetime fan in the bar. (zap2it) Greendale Students!                Presenting Greendale's Wonderful Dean!  Do Not Allow On Campus:  (I still think that this is a pretty funny picture)
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 19:21 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 08:35 |
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Well, expectations have been sufficiently lowered by critics, so this hopefully shouldn't be too disappointing if it ends up being as bad as they've said it was.
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 19:34 |
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My thought is everyone was eye rolling about the hunger games riff before the premiere came out, and they totally downplayed it and brought out other story elements. Hopefully this wont be "REMEMBER INSPECTOR SPACETIME GUYS?????" and more "inspector spacetime convention" as a backdrop to wacky hijinx
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 19:40 |
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I'm just not really sure what to expect going into it other than Troy and Abed nerding out, and everyone else being confused by all of the other convention goers. I'm not really looking forward to this episode at all, but I'll still watch it.
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 19:49 |
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Inspector Spacetime should have been a one time joke, or a recurring gag with occasional snippets of the show. The whole Dreamatorium plotline was pretty embarrassing for the most part. The sad part is I think a community at Comic-Con type episode would actually be incredible, but I imagine the licensing issues would make that impossible.
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 20:17 |
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I am.. Mildly not looking forward to this, especially after reviews, but I figure I'll try to stay optimistic. And this is as a person who LOVES Dr. Who, and chuckled when Inspector Spacetime first popped up. "Oh, huh, amusing reference." Brace yourselves, everyone.
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 20:32 |
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I haven't read any advanced reviews of this episode, so I choose to remain optimistic that the writers have seen own Inspect Spacetime has grown outside the show and instead of celebrating it choose to burn it to the ground.
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 20:48 |
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Hopefully this ep will bump the viewing figures up a bit more, it's something the Tumblr crowd have been waiting for for ages. I'm not too bothered about the theme, after the Hunger Games in the opener I'm confident it'll be more adventures in a convention rather than "hey look at this not-Doctor Who thing"
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 20:48 |
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Remember, this episode is so good that, out of the season's 12 episodes, this is the one producers decided to give to critics. Assuming the producers want this show to succeed, that means this episode is objectively the best episode of the season.
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 21:07 |
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bowser posted:Inspector Spacetime should have been a one time joke, or a recurring gag with occasional snippets of the show. The whole Dreamatorium plotline was pretty embarrassing for the most part. The sad part is I think a community at Comic-Con type episode would actually be incredible, but I imagine the licensing issues would make that impossible. It was a recurring gag much like the Cougartown references in season 2. The majority of the Dreamatorium episode was in Annie's drama hospital and really only used Inspector Spacetime as a plot device, not the actual focus of the episode (i.e., Abed and Annie's desires to control their lives and those around them).
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 21:18 |
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I'm going to be cautiously optimistic about this. I wasn't expecting "an episode all about Pulp Fiction" to be that great and it turned out to be a well done homage to one of my favorite movies so this could be better than it sounds as well.
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 21:30 |
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Irish Joe posted:Remember, this episode is so good that, out of the season's 12 episodes, this is the one producers decided to give to critics. Assuming the producers want this show to succeed, that means this episode is objectively the best episode of the season. Or maybe they thought it would be a good one to give to critics because it features special guest stars. Or maybe because it was one of the most "out there" episodes this season and they wanted to convince people that they weren't gonna dumb down the show. Or maybe they gave critics the first and third episodes of the season as the preview episodes because the second one wasn't ready yet. There are a myriad of reasons that they could have given this episode to critics. They probably didn't think it was the best one of the season. Honestly, it probably just was that it was the second episode to be ready in time for the screeners to be sent out. That all said, the episode does seem like it's acknowledging a fringe faction of the fandom and episodes of TV shows that do that almost never end up being good episodes of television.
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 21:58 |
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Irish Joe posted:Remember, this episode is so good that, out of the season's 12 episodes, this is the one producers decided to give to critics. Assuming the producers want this show to succeed, that means this episode is objectively the best episode of the season. I don't think you understand what 'objectively' means in this sentence
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 22:02 |
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Didn't Britta introduce Abed to Inspector Spacetime? There was a line last episode from her saying something like "tell me more about this tv show," which I thought was weird since she was the first person in the group to watch it. Not sure what episode it was from but I think it was pretty early on.
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 22:03 |
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LSD-25 posted:Didn't Britta introduce Abed to Inspector Spacetime? There was a line last episode from her saying something like "tell me more about this tv show," which I thought was weird since she was the first person in the group to watch it. Not sure what episode it was from but I think it was pretty early on. She introduced Abed to the show knowing it has a bunch of episodes after the failing of Cougertown Abbey, and in the most recent episode she tells Troy "I've never seen a full episode". No real inconsistency.
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 22:06 |
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Alison Brie was on last night's episode of The Daily Show and they played a brief clip from this episode. Apparently Jeff looks just like a previously unmentioned Inspector Spacetime villain, Thoraxis, who, going by a picture in the background, is a green Joel McHale with mantis claws. They ran the Inspector Spacetime gag into the ground last year. Going into this season I've been worried that the new showrunners would attempt to lessen any backlash by pandering to the fanbase and leaning too heavily on old running jokes, and hearing about this episode's plot doesn't exactly fill me with tons of optimism.
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 22:20 |
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LSD-25 posted:Didn't Britta introduce Abed to Inspector Spacetime? There was a line last episode from her saying something like "tell me more about this tv show," which I thought was weird since she was the first person in the group to watch it. Not sure what episode it was from but I think it was pretty early on. She only did it because she knew it had been on the air since the 60's and had a ton of episodes, unlike cougarton abbey, which only ran for a season. She didnt really know anything about the show, it was just a surefire fix to the cougarton abbey problem, which was a terrible fix to the cougartown problem
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| # ? Feb 21, 2013 04:36 |
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I know this is the Inspector Spacetime Episode thread but I have to say that I thought the halloween episode was a huge improvement over the season opener. So even if this episode is a huge flop, I'll still hold out to see how the rest of the season goes. That said though, I'm not too optomistic because this feels like it's going for another "cram a lot of poo poo in" like the season premier.
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| # ? Feb 21, 2013 06:21 |
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I'm wondering if this Halloween episode had been the season 3 one, it'd be getting a lot less poo poo.
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| # ? Feb 21, 2013 06:39 |
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Has anyone else noticed that there's a really drastically different camera and lighting style this season? I still love watching but it doesn't even look like the same show anymore. Edit: when I was a kid in 1986 a Doctor Who convention came to my town. It was AWESOME.
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| # ? Feb 21, 2013 14:19 |
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bad day posted:Has anyone else noticed that there's a really drastically different camera and lighting style this season? I still love watching but it doesn't even look like the same show anymore. This is probably due to budget cuts. Back in season 1 they had a lot more money to play with.
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| # ? Feb 21, 2013 15:25 |
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Chamberk posted:This is probably due to budget cuts. Back in season 1 they had a lot more money to play with. The camerawork and lighting are somewhat different, but I really doubt it would have anything to do with budget cuts, they'd still more than likely have the same sets/cameras/lights available to them. I think the changes are more likely to be related to the fact that they lost/replaced 3 executive producers, the showrunner, and another producer between seasons 3 and 4.
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| # ? Feb 21, 2013 15:52 |
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thexerox123 posted:The camerawork and lighting are somewhat different, but I really doubt it would have anything to do with budget cuts, they'd still more than likely have the same sets/cameras/lights available to them. No, it's pretty clear they don't have access to a lot of sets from season one (the most notable being the actual college campus + parking lot), and they hardly ever shoot anything on location (eg any restaurant/bar besides little restaurant set they went to a lot in season 3). Everything after season two looks a lot cheaper, I think.
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| # ? Feb 21, 2013 16:29 |
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Last Chance posted:No, it's pretty clear they don't have access to a lot of sets from season one (the most notable being the actual college campus + parking lot), and they hardly ever shoot anything on location (eg any restaurant/bar besides little restaurant set they went to a lot in season 3). They haven't shot anything on location since Season 1. They've been confined entirely to sets, or (rarely) a park right outside the Paramount lot. In fact, I'm reasonably certain that the bar set from Mixology Certification was borrowed from a different show.
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| # ? Feb 21, 2013 16:32 |
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Last Chance posted:No, it's pretty clear they don't have access to a lot of sets from season one (the most notable being the actual college campus + parking lot), and they hardly ever shoot anything on location (eg any restaurant/bar besides little restaurant set they went to a lot in season 3). I don't disagree with you, but what does the lack of on-location shooting have to do with the original question? bad day posted:Has anyone else noticed that there's a really drastically different camera and lighting style this season? My point was, in the premiere, for example, they were probably still shooting in the exact same cafeteria/hallway sets as before, with the same cameras and lights available to them. Budget cuts/the lack of other locations shouldn't have any effect on how the camera and lighting styles look in those scenes. thexerox123 fucked around with this message at Feb 21, 2013 around 16:35 |
| # ? Feb 21, 2013 16:32 |
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thexerox123 posted:I don't disagree with you, but what does the lack of on-location shooting have to do with the original question? Oh, I didn't know you meant the same sets+lighting+cameras as a package, because it's clear the number of sets has been slashed. Still, though, it's entirely possible that the crew numbers are smaller too (hence a dip in production quality) since their budget is now approximately a few nickels.
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| # ? Feb 21, 2013 17:48 |
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The_Doctor posted:I'm wondering if this Halloween episode had been the season 3 one, it'd be getting a lot less poo poo. No, because the biggest problem with this season is that they are trying to imitate (successfully or not) season 3, which was far from universally loved.
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| # ? Feb 21, 2013 18:36 |
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MrAristocrates posted:They haven't shot anything on location since Season 1. They've been confined entirely to sets, or (rarely) a park right outside the Paramount lot. In fact, I'm reasonably certain that the bar set from Mixology Certification was borrowed from a different show. They shot on location a bit, at least. The season finale paintball episodes in season 2 looked like it was back at LA City College. They shot all around the Universal backlot for the flashback episode, as well. But looking back on it, I guess they haven't set much of the show outdoors since season 1. And when they do it's in places they probably just filmed at the studio.
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| # ? Feb 21, 2013 21:22 |
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AlliedBiscuit posted:They shot on location a bit, at least. The season finale paintball episodes in season 2 looked like it was back at LA City College. They shot all around the Universal backlot for the flashback episode, as well. But looking back on it, I guess they haven't set much of the show outdoors since season 1. And when they do it's in places they probably just filmed at the studio. Nope. That was in the park on the Paramount lot. I know this because in the Season 3 commentaries they repeatedly and explicitly say "we haven't been off the lot in 2 years." Borrowing sets is a completely different matter.
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| # ? Feb 21, 2013 21:24 |
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MrAristocrates posted:Nope. That was in the park on the Paramount lot. I know this because in the Season 3 commentaries they repeatedly and explicitly say "we haven't been off the lot in 2 years." Borrowing sets is a completely different matter. Crazy. I think, having rewatched the first 2 seasons back to back they all blended together. They do still use the map of LA City College as the official map of Greendale, though. In other news, I'm hitting up Paleyfest for the third year in a row! Time to get my Community poster autographed by the rest of the cast :-).
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| # ? Feb 21, 2013 21:31 |
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Am I the only one who found the 'Ring' costume intro to be jarring? I loved the rest of that episode, but I really hated that 2 second visual and wish they'd cut it
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| # ? Feb 21, 2013 21:47 |
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Twee as gently caress posted:Am I the only one who found the 'Ring' costume intro to be jarring? Kind of hated the whole episode but that really was the gateway to me not liking it.
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| # ? Feb 21, 2013 22:52 |
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thexerox123 posted:My point was, in the premiere, for example, they were probably still shooting in the exact same cafeteria/hallway sets as before, with the same cameras and lights available to them. Budget cuts/the lack of other locations shouldn't have any effect on how the camera and lighting styles look in those scenes. I wasn't really talking about the sets - look at any frame from this season compared with an older one. Colors are brighter. Lighting differences are more dramatic. Shots in general are tighter, there are more stylistic edits. Even the blocking is different. I'm not complaining, it's just there seems to be a big aesthetic difference in how they shoot the show.
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| # ? Feb 22, 2013 00:54 |
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bad day posted:I wasn't really talking about the sets - look at any frame from this season compared with an older one. Colors are brighter. Lighting differences are more dramatic. Shots in general are tighter, there are more stylistic edits. Even the blocking is different. I'm not complaining, it's just there seems to be a big aesthetic difference in how they shoot the show. Yeah, that's what I was saying, that they're definitely differences that are more likely to be due to changes in the creative team rather than budget cuts.
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| # ? Feb 22, 2013 00:58 |
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Oh boy, here we go 
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| # ? Feb 22, 2013 00:58 |
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Oh boy, it's time for this thing I'll probably hate
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| # ? Feb 22, 2013 01:00 |
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Totally wanna do that.
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| # ? Feb 22, 2013 01:00 |
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Okay, I liked that.
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| # ? Feb 22, 2013 01:01 |
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Hey, Matt Walsh! Hey, Britta in her underwear!
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| # ? Feb 22, 2013 01:01 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 08:35 |
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I love donuts.
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| # ? Feb 22, 2013 01:02 |
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