A Man. And His Blog.

Yesterday, NBC started its “new” comedy block on Thursday. Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update Thursday gets six more episodes and prepares for the Winter Olympics 2010, while 30 Rock and The Office returned with new episodes. Very new in the program is the comedy Community and this is what I think about the pilot episode.
The pilot wasn’t really interesting, but had a nice story, showed interesting characters and doesn’t force me to laugh every 30 second. And with some great work from the writers this show actually can be a good one. The first episode just didn’t show very much, but I expected that in a 24-minute comedy show pilot. And I didn’t expect much from Community.
I don’t really have it with comedy shows trying to copy one from another. Community is copying the characters and stories from John Hughes, and even though I liked all the similarities with “The Breakfast Club” (the new community itself, the soundtrack) the pilot just didn’t appeal to me. Maybe it is the drama, which is missing. More real characters and a bit of a story would be nice (this was missing in the pilot) and why should every half-hour show on network television be a comedy? Can’t somebody try to have the guts to show us some drama in 30 minutes? Why are only Showtime and HBO able to do that? Why is it that network television only delivers us comical half hour shows?

Community is not the exception of that rule, but at least it is trying to get some sense into the characters. Joel McHale is very nice in his role and I liked his character (despite the similarities with the canceled Earl Hickey). Jeff’s efforts to get Britta (Gillian Jacobs) to a dinner was a bit funny and a bit stereotype; the rest of the characters is stereotype. Here we have all the high school dropouts slash losers, who never did anything good in life and now trying to get some sense into their existence. Could be interesting, but the characters are just too “crazy” to connect with them.
Chevy Chase might be a lucky pull for the cast (and his role suited him), but why does this show need a big name? Annie (Alison Brie) reminded me of Becky Freeley in the short lived ABC comedy Miss/Guided. Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown) though reminded me of Mercedes in Glee – you can see, the characters aren’t really new, and so is basically the series. But it is still interesting enough to keep track with the show, because you can see the writers put some more work behind it than some other comedy show in network television.

All in all: I didn’t quite like it as I probably hoped I would, but I wasn’t bored. Maybe the writers manage to get more story into the series and show us more character developments. And maybe some network manages to pick up a half hour drama show – I will wait for another year (ABC definitely doesn’t do it with their new comedies) and maybe I will experience a miracle.
6 out of 10 points.