Yes, this is me Dave Voigt updating my long neglected blog. I am trying to get over the mental block that every blog post needs to be an epic and insightful and just get out of my own head and rant. Writing on Examiner.com doesn’t always allow for that, and as I sit here watching episodes of my favorite television show on Netflix for the umpteenth time it dawns on me. Just because I’m watching it, doesn’t necessarily mean you are. It’s time to enroll at Greendale for the antics of the gang at Community.
Community centers on Jeff Winger (Joel McHale), a disbarred lawyer going to school for the first time after his bachelor's degree is revealed as fabricated. The series focuses on the experiences of Jeff and the study group he accidentally forms while pursuing Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs), a student trying to get her life back on track. The other members of Jeff's study group include Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase), a millionaire on a late in life voyage of self discovery; Annie Edison (Alison Brie), a young straight-laced student and former prescription drug addict; Troy Barnes (Donald Glover), a former high school star quarterback; Shirley Bennett (Yvette Nicole Brown), a single mother and vocal Christian going to school to jumpstart her brownie business; and Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi), a pop-culture obsessed film student.
Best known previously for a writing credit on “Monster House”; the premise of Community was based on Harmon's real-life experiences. In an attempt to save his relationship with his then-girlfriend, he enrolled in Glendale Community College northeast of Los Angeles, where they would take Spanish together. Harmon got involved in a study group and, somewhat against his own instincts, became closely connected to the group of people with whom he had very little in common. "...I was in this group with these knuckleheads and I started really liking them," he explains, "even though they had nothing to do with the film industry and I had nothing to gain from them and nothing to offer them."With this as the background, Harmon wrote the show with a main character largely based on himself. He had, like Jeff, been self-centered and independent to the extreme before he realized the value of connecting with other people.
Hard to believe that such a genuine and emotionally accessible TV show could have you rolling in the aisles. Chevy Chase in the role of Pierce is perhaps the post pathetic and yet most hilarious character on television. Leaning heavily on meta-humor and pop culture reference this show has eclipsed 30 Rock as the wittiest perhaps the most well written show on Network Television.
In a world where television, movies and any sort of entertainment can be consumed on demand, I simply ask you to take a half hour every Thursday at 8PM to watch Community, because as we watch waiting for the third season to premiere this fall; the greatest crime we could perpetrate against modern television would be to let this show get cancelled, and if we don’t watch it at its allotted timeslot that’s exactly what will happen.
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