When the new seasons of hit comedies Modern Family and Community premiered something like a month ago, I was disappointed to find that the openers didn't really live up to the standard of their previous seasons. Now of course I could have romanticised the shows with multiple viewings, but the high standards both shows set just didn't seem to be present.
Don't worry Jeff, they might not be bothering you much longer...Now that Modern Family has (hopefully) gotten back into the swing of things with yesterday's hilarious episode 'Unplugged' (Cameron's last ditch attempt at pre-school membership being the highlight), my fears for the series have been conquered. But Community is still rambling along, with one mediocre episode after the other. The problems? Taking it outside of the college, altering the characters too much and trying too hard to be "meta". The show is based around the idea of a group of misfits brought together by going to this awful "school", tackling problems as a group and overcoming their own personal issues. So don't take you characters out of the college, and don't have them facing situations alone, especially one's that appear completely unrelated to their lifestyle, personality and situation (see Jeff's struggle with his own mortality in 'The Psychology of Letting Go'). Oh, and don't make Senor Chang a student, he was great as the insane Asian, Spanish teacher, not a fellow student desperate to join the study group.
So: don't mess with the format too much, sure, tweak it a bit to flesh out some storylines BUT MAKE SURE THEY'RE GOOD ONES. If they aren't, you're going to lose viewers, and that's never a good thing for a TV show in tenuous syndication.
Well, this turned into a rant about Community rather quickly, so i'll wrap up by saying: I realised I have an amazing opportunity to review comics before anyone else due to Australia being in the future. Stay tuned for more.
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