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Arist
Feb 13, 2012

who, me?


Last year I put together a group rewatch thread for Hannibal Season 1. It went pretty well, but unfortunately logistical issues with the transition between shows meant it didn't continue, by which I mean I hosed it up. We're going to try it again now in this time of social distancing, but this time we're reducing the complexity of the transition. Hopefully.

First off, we're not doing the weekly episodes thing, it was annoying to deal with. Watch at your own pace, please, it'll make figuring out when we should move forward to another show much easier for me to figure out. These are old shows, so you probably don't need to spoil anything, but if you feel people deserve to see something cold, use your own discretion. Also, you can still suggest shows for this, but we're not going to do multiple seasons of the same show back-to-back, it got kinda complicated to deal with. I'm not sure yet if there'll be voting either, but overwhelming consensus on a show we should watch will be taken into consideration. My initial ideas for shows we should watch next are very digestible and bingeable because we're all quarantined right now, stuff like procedurals and light comedies. Hannibal was great, but I don't think it's the right tone for right now. The five shows I picked out for next time are:

Better Off Ted
Elementary
Person of Interest
Arrested Development
Limitless

All of these are currently available on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime in the US, and if you don't live there, I'm sure you can figure out a way to watch them.

All this is subject to change based on feedback, but I just want to try this again because I really like the idea.

Anyway, Community! I thought it'd be fun to revisit Season 1, a more innocent time in all our lives, because holy poo poo is it nothing like the later seasons. I don't even mean that to disparage those seasons, I love me some Season 3 and Season 6. But there's no denying Community jumped the shark directly into its own rear end in a top hat at some point in Season 3 (or even Season 2 by some accounts). Community Season 1 is much more of a standard network sitcom, while simultaneously being streets ahead of pretty much everything else that it could feasibly call a peer (This was 2009. Paul Schneider was still in Parks and Rec's cast). Community could have easily been great just by continuing to be the kind of show it was in Season 1, and while I'm personally glad it made the change, part of me has to wonder what Season 6 of this show would have looked like.

25 episodes in this season, but due to... circumstances I'm going to say we probably won't need that much time to watch them. Let's say, Saturday, April 4th is the deadline to watch them all? I hope this goes better than last time!

Past Shows:

Hannibal Season 1

Arist fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Mar 18, 2020

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Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer
While there are some bumpy moments in the early episodes this season is basically wall-to-wall single-camera sitcom perfection.

And as someone who started watching early on (because of Donald Glover), god drat was Modern Warfare such an incredible and unexpected episode.

muscles like this!
Jan 17, 2005


Stuck until we're out of Hellworld (there is an "indefinitely" option and guess what I chose!)

ONE YEAR LATER
Apr 13, 2004

Fry old buddy, it's me, Bender!
Oven Wrangler
My only real issue with season one is that The Dean isn't around all the time.

SixFigureSandwich
Oct 30, 2004
Exciting Lemon
I'm rewatching this by pure coincidence and it's still brilliant. Ear-noculars!

Randallteal
May 7, 2006

The tears of time
I think the show got better as it got bigger and weirder, but Season 1 Chang was the ideal version of that character. They never stopped trying but this was as good as it ever got (and it's pretty good. I like El Tigre.)

Arist
Feb 13, 2012

who, me?


Episode 1, "Pilot"

Pilots are always tricky. Not every show can spring fully-formed from the aether like The Good Place (though that one was ordered straight to series and didn't have a pilot, but I digress). In that regard, it's interesting to see which elements in Community's pilot pay off and which don't. The Dean and Duncan are both in this episode, though Duncan seems to have his role cut down to recurring from presumably a regular, probably because he didn't want to leave The Daily Show. There's a few meta-sitcom elements like the "cosmic mentor" joke as well, which while not my favorite is fascinating to me. On the other hand, no Chang, though the pilot is so dense it's kind of impossible to notice his absence (I wondered why they were having a Spanish test less than a week into the semester, but that's a very Chang move). There's clear attempts to pair Pierce and Troy as a comedic duo that they seem to realize is doomed even by the next episode, as the famous biblioteca rap between Troy and Abed is that episode's tag. In fact, Troy and Abed don't interact very much at all in this pilot, which is still kind of shocking.

As for the characters, the pilot is really economical, introducing everyone before the halfway mark even if most of them in a batch. Britta is useful in this episode as a plot generator, but not much as a character in and of herself, which is going to be a recurring theme through most of these episodes until at least "The Science of Illusion." Gillian Jacobs is a brilliant performer and I can't wait for her to get to cut loose. Donald Glover is getting A+ material and selling it perfectly even before they figure Troy out at all with the keg flip line. Abed feels more like a stereotype here, but later seasons basically turn him into a space alien so it's hard for me to judge. Pierce has a bizarre moment early on where he somehow fails to make a hotdog. I assume they decided or were told they needed to have Chevy Chase doing some funny physical comedy thing but it's completely unrelated to everything else and doesn't really fit in, just making me think they already didn't know how to use him. Annie and Shirley feel probably the most shafted by the script here, but Alison Brie and Yvette Nicole Brown are brilliant and they'll more than prove themselves even if they eventually can't figure out how to use Shirley either. And Jeff as the viewpoint character through this is trying to ride a fine line where he's not too much of a dick but also enough of one to be funny. They don't always succeed, but to be fair, he's really funny. Joel McHale sells the poo poo out of Jeff immediately. There's a joke in the first act where Jeff bluffs Britta on his Spanish knowledge, and while the subtitles that pop up are a bit incongruous (as well as extremely 2009), the way they reveal character by all being phrases he's picked up interacting with service workers is fan-loving-tastic. What a douche.

And above all else, it's just really, really loving funny. Here's the part where I just list quotes I loved: "2002 was a simpler time" (surprisingly dark, honestly), "What's your deal and is God dead?", "I'm gonna go to the bathroom and bring my jacket, wallet, and keys with me, in case there's a fire.", "'What are you doing?' 'I'm certified.'", etc. Pretty sure I knew I loved this show at the immediate instant Jeff murders Steve the pencil. But even as solid as the writing is, this show would never have gotten anywhere without its legendary cast. Every single one of them rules. I love it. I love them all, even Chevy kind of. This is a very, very good pilot, but as an episode of Community, there's lots of room to grow. And that's exciting.

(Also it's weird looking back at the Ben Affleck shade considering now he's better known as a triple threat instead of that dude what was in Daredevil).

Arist
Feb 13, 2012

who, me?


I'm on the Halloween episode, number 7, now, and it's amazing how every single end-of-episode tag, out of the six that have occurred so far, were Troy and Abed scenes. They just knew immediately how strong that pairing was, huh?

Randallteal
May 7, 2006

The tears of time

Arist posted:

I'm on the Halloween episode, number 7, now, and it's amazing how every single end-of-episode tag, out of the six that have occurred so far, were Troy and Abed scenes. They just knew immediately how strong that pairing was, huh?

Those were the first thing I remember seeing of the show. I think someone must have sent me the Spanish rap one on Youtube or something. Troy's my favorite, but I'm glad they pretty much ditched his setup as a former high school football star. It just never went anywhere that interesting when it came up.

A weird thing about watching Community now is it also brings back so many actual memories from when I went to community college from 2008-2010. They nailed the look and feel of a community college campus and the atmosphere of cheap (mostly) good-natured optimism and suspended adolescence.

cant cook creole bream
Aug 15, 2011
I think Fahrenheit is better for weather
Man, community is kinda weird to me. When I decided to watch it, I was in college and just wrote my final exams for the semester. I was completely disappointed with myself with regards to those exams and decided to isolate myself for a few days from everyone. Then I binged through the whole show. I believe it was up through Season 5 back then and slowly felt like everything is gonna be okay and I don't need to set such high standards for myself.

I basically never rewatch shows, but I guess I'll give it a spin soon.

egon_beeblebrox
Mar 1, 2008

WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.



Arist
Feb 13, 2012

who, me?


this song's for pierce, cause him so old
his body made of wrinkles and folds
stupid and ugly, he smell like a fart,
poopoo in his pants and poopoo in my heart

ONE YEAR LATER
Apr 13, 2004

Fry old buddy, it's me, Bender!
Oven Wrangler
Ken Jeong and Joel McHale started a podcast called The Darkest Timeline to talk about random stuff and ostensibly answer some Community questions from twitter. They've only released one episode so far and it's basically just them talking about general stuff and Ken talks a little about COVID but it was a pretty fun 90 minutes.

e:. Literally after I posted this my podcast app downloaded a new episode, apparently they talk to Andrew Yang in the second episode? Uh sure, why not.

ONE YEAR LATER fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Apr 4, 2020

Hasselblad
Dec 13, 2017

My dumbass opinions are only outweighed by my racism.

No one forgot that I exist to defend violent cops, champion chaining down immigrants, and have trash opinions on cooking.
Oh hey look at that, Community is now on Netflix (after I bought the complete boxed set)

Arist
Feb 13, 2012

who, me?


There's a complete boxed set?????

Yannick_B
Oct 11, 2007
It's one of my favorite shows ever and I do think season 1 is underrated. It doesn't go buckwild and meta like the following seasons (or even in wilder episodes in later season 1) but there's
an efficiency in their characters and plot structure. The Debate episode is perfect and showcases all of the show's burgeoning strenghts.

Arist
Feb 13, 2012

who, me?


Oh, the deadline passed, oops. Pretend I extended it to the 18th, I've been busy

Pussy Quipped
Jan 29, 2009

One of my all time favorite moments is Troy desperately trying to come up with a joke about the STD fair during the opening table scene, and the look on his face when he finally blurts out " DONT EAT THE CRAB DIP YAYEEE" The delivery is just so good.

ONE YEAR LATER
Apr 13, 2004

Fry old buddy, it's me, Bender!
Oven Wrangler

Yannick_B posted:

It's one of my favorite shows ever and I do think season 1 is underrated. It doesn't go buckwild and meta like the following seasons (or even in wilder episodes in later season 1) but there's
an efficiency in their characters and plot structure. The Debate episode is perfect and showcases all of the show's burgeoning strenghts.

My favorite scene in the whole series is at the end of that episode, when the debate moderator shouts "Greendale wins!" and Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros kicks in and it's just :kiss:

My absolute favorite episode of the whole series is s3e8: Documentary Filmmaking: Redux. Jim Rash is amazing and his breakdown at the end always hits me. "I just want to be a good Dean!"

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

Pussy Quipped posted:

One of my all time favorite moments is Troy desperately trying to come up with a joke about the STD fair during the opening table scene, and the look on his face when he finally blurts out " DONT EAT THE CRAB DIP YAYEEE" The delivery is just so good.
His delight at having cracked the puzzle is fantastic.

GoutPatrol
Oct 17, 2009

*Stupid Babby*


I remember this episode being slightly longer when they first showed this (it was like the whole lineup that night did it.) Does Netflix have the longer version because the DVD version I have is shorter.

Arist
Feb 13, 2012

who, me?


The version on streaming services is the original broadcast version, not the DVD.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

ONE YEAR LATER posted:

My favorite scene in the whole series is at the end of that episode, when the debate moderator shouts "Greendale wins!" and Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros kicks in and it's just :kiss:

My absolute favorite episode of the whole series is s3e8: Documentary Filmmaking: Redux. Jim Rash is amazing and his breakdown at the end always hits me. "I just want to be a good Dean!"

I think it's in season 5 where the Dean shows up to do a goofy sitcom rap that suddenly turns fierce, and it is loving amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fSW3vmRpV0

In regards to season 1, I only watched through the whole series roughly a year or so ago but I do agree that it's a show that finds its feet astonishingly quickly, and even though they get meta later on I think the first season characters are still largely in line by the end with who they were when they began, just with the benefit of a few more years worth of experiences, which of course is what college should do for a person.

I was glad they largely abandoned the Chevy Chase physical comedy bits, the show always ground to a halt for them and it did feel like it was something they felt they HAD to do rather than it happening organically.

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Apr 12, 2020

Open Source Idiom
Jan 4, 2013

Jerusalem posted:

I think it's in season 5 where the Dean shows up to do a goofy sitcom rap that suddenly turns fierce, and it is loving amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fSW3vmRpV0

Love -- what looks to me like -- Gillian Jacobs breaking character at the very end there. She looks genuinely impressed by Jim Rash.

Grenrow
Apr 11, 2016

Jerusalem posted:


In regards to season 1, I only watched through the whole series roughly a year or so ago but I do agree that it's a show that finds its feet astonishingly quickly, and even though they get meta later on I think the first season characters are still largely in line by the end with who they were when they began, just with the benefit of a few more years worth of experiences, which of course is what college should do for a person.


My biggest issue with character shifts through the season is how hard they leaned into making Britta a pathetic failure who can't accomplish anything and the whole group dunking on her constantly. I think season 1 does a better job of making her a gently caress-up but still a reasonably intelligent person.

Spacebump
Dec 24, 2003

Dallas Mavericks: Generations
Isn't everyone at Greendale a failure by the end of the series?

GoutPatrol
Oct 17, 2009

*Stupid Babby*

Spacebump posted:

Isn't everyone at Greendale a failure by the end of the series?

Isn't everyone at Greendale a failure?

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Most of the core cast seem to find a measure of peace and happiness by the end that I really liked. Jeff even starts hanging out with the Dean :shobon:

Also I know it's outside of the scope of season 1, but Paget Brewster as Frankie was a shockingly great addition to the cast considering how late she came in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PngPQluO1jI

SimonChris
Apr 24, 2008

The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.
Grimey Drawer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui9Qycjk3ic

Chang was such a great character in Season 1. I love the idea of a Chinese Spanish teacher who is pissed that people expect him to be good at stereotypically Chinese stuff. A pity they never figured out what to do with his character in later seasons.

SimonChris
Apr 24, 2008

The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.
Grimey Drawer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8fSnMqQQYk

Also, I really like this song from episode 16.

DOPE FIEND KILLA G
Jun 4, 2011

yeah they really did say 'gently caress it' with chang after season 1

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

When was it that Chang revealed that he barely knew any Spanish and was basically just staying a week or so ahead of the students? Or did I just make that up in my head and convince myself it was a memory?

Randallteal
May 7, 2006

The tears of time
I think Chang's character bottomed out between Emperor Chang and Changnesia, but they more or less pulled it back and made him funny again in season 5. "Bear... down... for midterms!" and the Fat Dog Dance still make me laugh (also his deadpan fake video confession in the episode about stealing textbooks).

ONE YEAR LATER
Apr 13, 2004

Fry old buddy, it's me, Bender!
Oven Wrangler

Jerusalem posted:

When was it that Chang revealed that he barely knew any Spanish and was basically just staying a week or so ahead of the students? Or did I just make that up in my head and convince myself it was a memory?

End of season 1, it's why he returns as a student in season 2.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

I really dug the episode where Chang has become famous and they try to construct a film around a tiny amount of footage that Abed had shot of him when trying to make his cop film.

Steve Guttenberg getting so invested in the plot of the film in that episode is the best.

ONE YEAR LATER
Apr 13, 2004

Fry old buddy, it's me, Bender!
Oven Wrangler
Hammmmm, girl!

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

Jerusalem posted:

I really dug the episode where Chang has become famous and they try to construct a film around a tiny amount of footage that Abed had shot of him when trying to make his cop film.

Steve Guttenberg getting so invested in the plot of the film in that episode is the best.
It's a great episode. There are so many good moments in season 6.

Sleeveless
Dec 25, 2014

by Pragmatica

Spacebump posted:

Isn't everyone at Greendale a failure by the end of the series?

Outside of the show they are for sure. Aside from Donald Glover giving up being an amazing comedian for being a less amazing musician everyone is just a string of failed sitcoms and bit parts.

Arist
Feb 13, 2012

who, me?


christ, go away

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Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

I rewatched the pool episode from season 1 - Episode 17, Physical Education - and it reminded me of how tightly packed and efficient this show was, especially given the size of the cast. It is really fun that Jeff's plot is so distinctly separate from the rest of the study group's, but the revelation he needs to step forward and resolve it comes from rejoining the group at the two-thirds mark of the episode. Abed's plot is also effectively wrapped up early with a a neat subversion of the "let Abed be himself" moral lesson turning out to be that Abed actually has a pre-established routine for letting women pick HIM up. Normally in a sitcom like this he'd either change or he'd find somebody who liked him for him and he would achieve the same end result anyway, but here we find out that the group was simply basing their desire to help on preconceived notions that he just didn't bother to correct due to an entirely unrelated personality quirk where he fears being abandoned by people who he likes.

And seriously, these episodes are so loving dense. There's so much going on, and Pierce being such an active participant in the group work is something I had forgotten how much I enjoyed. The music is great, White Abed/Brown Joey is hilarious, Chang isn't a caricature, the Dean is till fairly contained (not that I resent him becoming a more out there character) and the final pool scene and the aftermath where Jeff retains the lesson he learned and simply offers good advice to the girl he wanted so she can make a move on Abed is surprisingly heartwarming.

Also....

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Apr 15, 2020

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