I wrote about Community in the middle of their 2nd season last March, and there I wrote that I found it the most Arrested Development-like sitcom I had seen since the original, and the fact that its then minor problems were making it fall short was depressing. Well, one hiatus-filled season later, Community has far bigger problems in my eyes, even discounting the loss of creator Dan Harmon.
Community has finished its transformation into this weird, experimental fantasy show that is built off of the machinations of Dan Harmon's mind. Sometimes, this leads to great results (the first part of their 3-episode Finale where the group were transformed into characters in an 8-bit Video Game) but often leads to ridiculous episodes meant for a niche of a niche, catering to fan-boys who consider Community to be the perfect utilization of everything the TV medium has to offer, and would rather contract malaria than criticize the show (I'm looking at you, Pillows vs. Blankets). Community, in my mind, has the most obnoxiously large and aggressive online fanbase of any TV show, and the show has basically become a product meant to be sold only to these people. Harmon basically gave up any attempt to win over casual viewers and to make his show marketable to people that weren't willing to let comedy and plot slide for thematic brilliance. This is part of why he's being canned (the other being that he is by all accounts an arrogant, demanding, infuriating jerk), and why Community is falling further into the hole it created for itself.
I loved the first two seasons of Community. It featured 7 characters I was invested in, plus great writing. It also featured a constant sense of bent reality, that all of these crazy things could well be happening in a joyous little grove that was Greendale Community College. Season 3 mostly lost this completely, as the center of the Community universe changed from their drab study room to Abed & Troy's apartment. Where a cast of 7 characters that effected you was peared down to just three or four that got a majority of the storylines, and a character that was almost disregarded entirely other than to screw with him (Pierce). Community kept shedding any semblance of relatability, and more importantly, reality, until it was essentially a four man troupe that decided to take on the stylistic narrative of the day.
What was once a well that was dipped into once or twice a year (theme episodes) overran Season 3 to where they were more present, especially in the post-hiatus episodes, than the 'other' episodes. Some worked (8-Bit Video Game, Heist Movie spoof) and some fell flat (Law & Order, Ken Burns Documentary spoof). That well was first dipped into with Community's brilliant Goodfella's parody in S1, and followed with quite a few in S2 (the Apollo 13 spoof, Zombie Movies spoof, Clay-mation, Documentary spoof, Spaghetti Western spoof), but they were all still grounded in enough reality that they were believable (the closest to crossing that threshold was the Zombie Spoof, which at least was explained away with the school being infected with a strange virus). Season 3 kept the idea of giving Harmon's take on different mediums and themes, but lost the college aspect of the show, and even the character aspect of the show.
Unlike Arrested Development, where the writing and acting was so brilliant that it didn't matter that the viewer wasn't really invested in the plot and story-arcs regarding any character, Community's characters are in large part the heart of the show. At least that was the case in S1 (which is the closest to a true-Arrested Development type show I have ever seen), and even in S2 this carried forth. That was all lost in much of S3. I'll say it right now, other than Jeff and Britta, I don't really feel attached to any characters, or feel that any character has grown in a believable way.
Troy has turned from a jock that learned to embrace his more artistic, "nerdy" side, to a complete fool overly-dependent on his quasi-homosexual relationship with Abed. Troy hasn't had a good solo storyline apart from his silly dalliance with the Air-Conditioner Repair school. Troy really has became a character that is very often seen in many other shows - the wife whose only storylines revolve around her husband. Annie is a character who hasn't really changed at all (that said, the Dreamatorium episode in S3 did have the best Annie storyline maybe since S2's Celebrity Pharmacology). I have no idea what the appeal to Annie is other than her ample breasts, and the weird life-form that Annie (and more Alison Brie) as a sexual figure never ceases to amaze me.
Pierce and Shirley have been almost completely marginalized. They had the tandem story of opening the sandwhich shop, but did anyone really care about the plight of it? Pierce's evil story-arc in S2 may have raised some questions about why the group would be friends with him, but at least it was damn entertaining and gave Chevy Chase something to do other than act like a 70-year old with dementia, which is essentially what Pierce has been in S3 (apart from the 8-Bit Video Game episode). Jeff is still important because he is the cog that holds the whole thing together, but other than different variations of the same speech, has he really changed. I'll give the show credit for the fact that they have made Britta a great character. Gillian Jacobs, to me, is the breakout star of Community. Britta has changed from purely a sex-symbol for Jeff and a feminist to an admittedly dumber character, but much more humane. She cares for things, she wants to be a psychologist, but mostly, she just wants to be accepted as being a smart human that is not a screw-up.
That brings us to Abed, who has had the most character moments. Abed is a strange character, who started out as a man addicted with TV, but could see the world better than anyone around him. Some of this is still there, but he's now become just a socially-incapable idiot genius. On three different occasions post-hiatus, an episode centered around examining Abed (The Impressions episode, the pillow vs. blanket fight, the Dreamatorium) and all of them essentially reached the same conclusion - that Abed needs to accept help and stop catering to his fantasy world where everything runs like it does on TV. That's fine, but do it once. Don't have Abed learn about himself only to undo that learning and show him with the exact same problems only to have him re-learn about himself two episodes later. Analyzing Abed has been done since the show's 3rd episode (where he creates a faux-movie about his relationship with his dad using Jeff & Britta) and done again in S2 (with the My Dinner With Andre spoof), but in S3 it became a defining arc that didn't have growth in long-form. Everything in one episode about Abed's mental state was just rehashed with different themes again and again. Also, how is the viewer supposed to believe that Abed would have a mental freak-out if Cougartown was put on hiatus (what happened in the S3 premier) if he's a TV know-it-all and therefore should now that hiatus and cancellations are a part of life. Why would Abed have a freak-out about daylight savings time if he understands the world? Abed is being both shown as a mental case in some episodes, and the person who sees the world the clearest in others. There's an issue with Abed.
All of this really goes back to Harmon who went from running a truly inventive show about 7 unlikely friends in Community College that traipsed along narrative themes, into a show built for the sole purpose of being consumed by a select class of people. There's nothing wrong with that, I guess, but then no one should be surprised when the show gets bad ratings and is on the fence. Anyway, another issue with Community is those people, those uber-fans that can see no wrong, and go on Twitter, and AV Club and messageboards across the internet every Thursday night and unabashedly praise to show to no end. When anyone tries to criticize it, they are met with attacks of "you know nothing about comedy", or "go back to watching 2.5 Men" or my personal favorite, "There's no other show that would try [insert weird theme here], this is the greatest thing on TV." While that last one may be true, that doesn't mean that Community's failures should be erased because they had the guts to try. Hell, Glee is a damn daring show. It's basically attempted to put on a musical each week on broadcast network TV, yet Community fans would stick their nose to it, and even lauded their Glee-spoof (which I found oddly distasteful towards Glee, a show that maybe is not as good as Community but is far, far more successful - it seemed based in a lot of jealousy). Community is a good show, it is often a great show, but it is not beyond reproach.
Overall, is Community ruined? Yeah, but mainly because Harmon is not coming back for a 4th season of a show that is far down its own ass at this point. There is nothing wrong with the show spiraling into itself to the point of surreal Dream fantasy episodes and Annie's Boobs. It still has its moments, but without Harmon that side of the show will likely be gone. I don't think the show can reverse course back to the at least more acceptably slanted Season 2 at this point even with Harmon, and I think the new guys are going to try to make a sharp 180 back to Season 1. It will probably end with Community toppling over itself. That's fine in the end. Shows come and go all the time. Better shows have met even crueler fates (Arrested Development), but Community at least got three seasons where Dan Harmon could do what the hell he wanted, isolate the people that would stick to the show no matter what, and pear down to show to those basic people's needs. It worked, but the next time Abed painfully screams in his dreamatorium, even less people will be there to watch it. I will, but I'll be dreaming of Abed back in a study group.
