Despite another mandatory theme set by NBC Green Week, I looked forward to the stellar Thursday Night Comedies to be great last night. It’s November Sweeps after all, and I figured they were due to have the stars align and for all 4 shows to be great. Batting in the lead off spot as always was a great episode of Community, getting me excited for the rest of the evening.
A couple different things were going on “Environmental Science,” but the A-story saw Jeff befriending Senor Chang in an effort to get him to ease up on the brutal essays he’d assign the class for no reason. Jeff correctly guesses that Senor Chang’s wife has left him and all he really needs is a friend to get him happy again. In theory it should be easy, but nights of heavy drinking were only enough to get Jeff out of the work, not the rest of the class. Angry, the Study Group broke up with Jeff (Annie’s train leaving the station was amazing), leaving him to figure out a solution all on his own. In the end, Jeff’s nagging conscious got the best of him, and he got Senor Chang and his wife back together, thus causing Senor Chang to stop assigning silly work.
As for the rest of the gang, Abed and Troy lose a mouse, Fievel, they’re training to respond to singing when Troy’s irrational and hilariously over the top fear of mice accidentally sets him free. Troy finally comes to his senses and joins in with Abed in a fantastically hilarious song duet to get Fievel to come out. And somewhere else in Greendale, Pierce was offering advice, this time helping Shirley get better at public speaking. Her speech on the business potential of brownies improves once she hands the audience a sandwich and starts saying orgasmic, proving again that Pierce somehow knows what he’s doing.
So the plot of the episode wasn’t exactly groundbreaking, but the delivery was great. Ken Jeong has played Senor Chang really far over the top, which some have disliked, but I find hilarious. All of the characters on this show are goofy, and Senor Chang is precisely who you’d expect him to be in the world of the show. Does it not seem perfect that the Mr. Feeny of a show about a community college is an Asian Spanish teacher? It’s a comedic gold mine that so far has been mined extremely well, thanks in part to Jeong. Giving him a deeper interaction with the Study Group will only broaden the possibilities as this show continues.
It was also good to see Shirley, Troy, and Abed in action a little more this week. The three were in the background last week, and having them come out more and add more depth was great. Abed is still weird, but he’s no longer as outright bizarre as he was earlier on, which has made him a lot more fun to watch. Troy getting taken down a peg by the rat incident was hysterical. And finally, Shirley got something to do after a few weeks of being around for a few snappy comments. I’d like to see more of her character as the show goes on. She’s older than most of the Study Group, but not weird like Pierce, and a motherly side of her could go a long way.
What Community did last night I believe is really what has made it such a solid show so quickly: it relied on the audience connecting with the characters more than the jokes. Yes, it was full of hilarious one-liners and was very funny, but Community very quickly established who its characters were and got us interested in them. The characters are relateable, and so much more humor can be derived from that. When Shirley says that allowing Pierce to help her shows how desperate she is, we laugh both her and us know that Pierce is probably going to put her through some hell before ultimately she succeeds, much as Britta did last week with the hypnotherapy. Thirteen episodes in, Community feels like show we’ve been watching a lot longer. Had it not gotten picked up for a full season, last night’s episode would have been a finale. Thankfully though, we’ll be back at Greendale in two weeks fore more hilarity.
Michael’s Score: 84
Tangled Up In Wires Grade: A-
Michael
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