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3/25/2013 3:09:33 PM

So last night I dreamed an entire episode of community.

Basic plot:

They all sit at the table and discuss what they should do for spring break. Annie suggests a boating/cruise so they all go out for a "3 hour tour" (a la Gilligan's Island). They get there and everyone is basically dressed like a character from Gilligan's Island. Annie = Mary Anne, Britta = Ginger, Pierce = Mr. Howell, Troy = Gilligan, Abed = Professor, Jeff no one but really he is the skipper.

They get on the boat and Pierce pulls out a box he refers to as a Mediterranean Bargining Chip. Annie opens it and sees its a box of cash and asks how much is in there. He says $400 or so depending on how you count it. She says its more than $10K in here, and he replies "i said depending on how you count it." She asks whats it for and Pierce says he can't wait until he gets to port because he can't wait to sleep with all the prostitutes. Annie says gross and tries to take the money away, the storm hits cash goes overboard and they crash. Everyone takes on their roles as their Gilligan character and now Mrs. Howell is the a drawing on Pierce's hand because he was all worked up about the prostitutes, "which annie ruined".

The rest is fuzzy but they stayed trapped there, comedy ensues and at the end when they're all frustrated Pierce says he can help because he knows the island and he and his dad used to sail out there all the time when he was a kid. Everyone gets mad and says why would you make us stay here and Pierce throws out some sentimental crap about how he just wanted everyone to hang out and he felt like he could be seen as cool if no one else was around. They walk to the other side of the island and it is a populated, not deserted island.


Anyway, really weird dream. But when I woke up and remembered it I finally understood how formulaic the show is/has become.

[Edited on April 1, 2013 at 10:53 AM. Reason : typos]

4/1/2013 10:51:16 AM

Wow that was bad

4/4/2013 9:22:58 PM

It was okay. Brie Larson!

4/5/2013 3:35:03 AM

This season has definitely been off, but the first few episodes at least had a laugh or two. These last two were really bad, the only time I even cracked a smile tonight was the the dean ignorig the cafeteria being on fire. It didn't even seem like they were trying to include an attempt at humor tonight

4/11/2013 8:53:35 PM

That first musical sequence was the single worst thing in the history of the series.

4/12/2013 1:18:59 AM

i couldn't even make it through that episode, switched to re-runs of always sunny instead

i miss good community

4/12/2013 7:59:13 AM

jesus, it wasn't that bad

4/12/2013 8:11:22 AM

^yeah, it pretty much was. At one point I lost satellite signal from storms, and thought to myself I would be perfectly happy if I missed the rest of the episode

4/12/2013 8:52:31 AM

what episode was worse than last night's?

4/12/2013 2:09:43 PM

I honestly haven't watched it yet, but the Jack Black episode is hands down the worst episode of Community.

4/12/2013 2:42:46 PM

History 101 most definitely. And i'd go out on a limb and say Conventions of Space and Time. not that they were terrible episodes, but they were digressions for many of the characters and just felt hollow. This episode at least dealt with traits and issues about the characters that have developed over the course of 4 seasons (Annie's struggle to be perfect, Britta's blanket activism without result, troy and abed as the surrogate for the viewer, the Pierce/Ertha Kitt payoff, etc). I'm not saying it was perfect, but it wasn't the worst of the season by a long shot.

I'm curious if this episode had been done last season if your opinions would have been different?

4/12/2013 2:46:45 PM

what was different last season, just because it didn't get delayed?

[Edited on April 12, 2013 at 2:56 PM. Reason : .]

4/12/2013 2:49:38 PM

Dan Harmon

4/12/2013 2:49:51 PM

oh, i had completely forgot about that

so i guess my opinion wouldn't be any different. i did forget about the convention episode though, i agree it was worse.

4/12/2013 2:57:29 PM

I also didn't think it was that bad. Not when compared to this season and not when compared to the entire series. However, I will confess that I am a sucker for musical numbers in shows that are not built around that type of thing.

One thing that I noticed is that Chevy Chase wasn't in the group photo at the end. Do you think that episode was the one they used to write him off? His puppet was there but not him.

4/12/2013 3:11:22 PM

this was the last episode produced this season. After Chevy Chase had already quit. One of the stipulations to letting him walk was that he return and provide his voice over for the puppet episode. To be honest I didn't even notice his absence until discussions this morning about it.

4/12/2013 3:14:49 PM

^^ That's all well and good, but the songs were dreadful, not catchy, and NOT FUNNY. While decently performed, they could be ascribed to and performed by any cast on television. I realize shoehorning musical numbers into a non-musical show is difficult, but if you can't do it well, DON'T DO IT.

The convention episode was dumb, but at least it fit. This was an incredibly generic episode of television comedy, and on top of that it wasn't funny.

WORST. EPISODE. EVER.

4/12/2013 8:10:55 PM

It was better than the Claymation episode.

And, again, the Jack Black episode.

I also thought the Christmas episode where they have to put on the show was pretty below par, but Alison Brie wearing a Santa's helper outfit pulls that one at least a little out of the gutter.

4/13/2013 10:02:28 PM

Not sure why anyone is surprised by this show's epic failure of a season. If not for Alison Brie I'd probably rather just watch The Office over Community...and that says a LOT.

4/15/2013 8:00:08 AM

eh, the office has been consistently better this season so no real surprise there. again, i credit that to Greg Daniels' return.

4/15/2013 8:08:20 AM

Passable, no burn, nothing that stands out, forgettable.

It's a shame that these describe the best episodes of S4.

4/19/2013 12:13:20 PM

they've all been normal community episodes except they get sappy in the last 4 minutes

4/19/2013 2:23:15 PM

i think i'm firmly in the Ken Jeong hate camp now. dude came on too strong too fast.

4/19/2013 2:36:49 PM

At this point, it's not his fault. They've written him into a corner with the "Chang is faking" bit, so even when he does something funny as Kevin, it's tainted.

4/19/2013 5:49:16 PM

Brie needs to free dem titties

4/25/2013 10:37:20 PM

^ This.

That episode wasn't bad.

4/25/2013 11:03:17 PM

^,^^

4/25/2013 11:05:44 PM

I thought that episode was as good as any of the first couple of seasons. Had me LOL'ing. Loved the outtakes bit at the end.

4/27/2013 10:48:57 AM

Written by Jim Rash, the dean himself

4/27/2013 11:19:28 AM

Oscar-winning dean, even.

4/27/2013 11:25:16 AM

Troy and abed switching was dumb, dean as Jeff was pretty good

4/28/2013 10:03:34 AM

[fart noise]

5/10/2013 12:28:24 PM

^ exactly.

5/10/2013 12:47:56 PM

also, it's funny to think that community may be renewed for another season.

parks was renewed, go on was just cancelled.. don't think they've said for sure on community yet.

5/10/2013 3:46:58 PM

Quote :

"NBC is very close to ordering a fifth season of Community, Hollywood insiders tell Vulture. NBC isn’t commenting, and there’s still discussion going on about the exact number of episodes (though it should be at least thirteen). But after the show’s solid Nielsen performance last night — it tied American Idol among adults under 35 — NBC brass decided it made sense to return to Greendale for at least one more semester. "

http://www.uproxx.com/tv/2013/05/nbc-will-renew-community-has-canceled-go-on/

5/10/2013 4:25:44 PM

Officially picked up for another 13 episode season!

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2013/05/10/community-renewed/182100/

5/10/2013 9:03:27 PM

Yep. Just saw Joel Mchale's tweet and was coming in here. I'm glad for them, but still disappointed in this season overall.

Last night's was awful.

5/10/2013 9:04:55 PM

At this point, I'd prefer a show where Alison Brie sits on the beach and reads to this version of Community.

I can't believe this is getting renewed after that terrible season and there's still no news about Bunheads, a vastly superior show.

[Edited on May 10, 2013 at 9:10 PM. Reason : 3]

5/10/2013 9:07:14 PM

more evil alison brie please

5/10/2013 10:47:41 PM

Looks like their could be redemption for the next (and likely final) season. With Chevy gone and the dust settled after a year, we may get Dan back to wrap it up!

http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/community-is-coming-back-will-dan-harmon-return-too/

5/11/2013 7:37:07 AM

i liked this episode. remedial chaos theory is by far my favorite episode, so anytime they reference the timelines, i dig it.

5/11/2013 1:19:38 PM

And that's exactly what they were counting on.

"If we reference the brilliant stuff people liked, we can make an absolutely dreadful episode and some people will still like it!"

5/11/2013 1:34:35 PM

Dude, you mentioned that you enjoyed Bunheads.

Zero credibility.

5/11/2013 2:02:24 PM

Bunheads is a great show, but whether you think so or not, it doesn't change the fact that this season of Community was mostly bad.

Attempting to pander to the show's core audience just enough to keep them watching, while still aiming to pull casual viewers, is a recipe for disaster on both fronts. Community S4 was a disaster.

The last episode was worse than the puppet episode, and the puppet episode is one of the worst half hours of television I've seen in a long time.

5/11/2013 2:19:45 PM

I'll give you that I found this season of Community to be average, but I'll disagree that this was a bad finale. It was average.

I felt the finale would have been better if they had an hour to do this..it went too quickly. Instead, everything went too fast and I felt a little cheated. The Jeff "sum it up" moment at the end was quite bad too. I am a sucker for the "darkest timeline", so for the portion of the show that was present, I did enjoy and have fun with it.

5/11/2013 2:26:07 PM

I'm not scolding anyone for enjoying references to the timeline stuff. I'm just saying to be aware that they're distracting you from the how shitty the episode is by showing you a shadow of something you loved. It's happened with other things across the season.

To be fair, the entire Chang/Dean Spreck storyline obviously had to be chucked because of the shortened season, but there wasn't enough B-story here and there to edit all of that stuff out (and the Changnesia shit was necessary in some plots). That kills a good portion of minutes across the entire season.

[Edited on May 11, 2013 at 2:31 PM. Reason : 4]

5/11/2013 2:30:26 PM

Quote :

"the puppet episode is one of the worst half hours of television I've seen in a long time."

Totally agree.

5/11/2013 2:56:59 PM

vinylbandit is supremely on point

5/11/2013 4:48:14 PM

Quote :

"I'm just saying to be aware that they're distracting you from the how shitty the episode is by showing you a shadow of something you loved. It's happened with other things across the season."

fucking spot on!

5/11/2013 4:50:55 PM