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Community: The Most Recent Great Show that I Wasn't Watching



Community is a sitcom that's about halfway through it's second season. My good friend would mention it occasionally, but never really said "hey, you need to watch this" So, I'm going to lay it out for all of you: "Hey, you need to watch this"
Community starts off with Jeff Winger, who was a very successful lawyer, going back to school, because he lost his license due to his "Degree from Columbia" being from the country of Columbia, and not the university. Jeff is a vain, superficial hipster, who is also a world class manipulator. At any point he is typically capable of bending a group of people to his will, through sheer charisma and creative logic.
Jeff is taking a Spanish class where he notices Britta, who is probably the least interesting character, there's nothing wrong with her, but she's just kind of the typical sitcom female lead, she's pretty, smart, and believes in honesty and doing the right thing, even if she doesn't always live up to her ideals. The main thing is that the show starts off with Jeff trying to get into her pants, and pretending to run a Spanish study group, just for two. Brita ends up inviting a handful of other classmates to the group, and then things get interesting.
You have Pierce, played by Chevy Chase (Where'd he come from?) Who plays a retired executive, seven times divorced, who's attending college just for companionship. He's frequently confused by the pop culture references, shockingly racist, and always trying to be popular and failing.
Shirley is a divorced single Mother attending college in an attempt to start a new career. She's also a gossiper. Okay, she's kind of boring on paper, just like Britta.
Annie is one of the youngest members of the group, she apparently had a pill addiction in high school and had to go through rehab. For being a former drug addict, she's extremely naive, being extremely uncomfortable with most forms of physical romance, and having an unrequitted crush on the football star from her old high school.
Troy is the aforementioned high school football star, he injured his shoulder doing a keg stand the day before a talent scout would have seen him play. Troy's typically pretty slow on the uptake, but seems to be willing to pretty much throw himself into whatever schemes are going on with such abandon that he's become one of my favorite characters.
Lastly, we have Abed. Abed seems to have some sort of social dysfunction, possibly Asperger's, he views everyone as characters/actors from shows/movies. He constantly talks in a monotone and he usually has a very different take on what's happening than the other characters, although sometimes it's more accurate. The great part about Abed is that he instantly bonds with Troy, and the two of them become this great comedy duo. Quite possible my favorite part of the show is during the end credits when the two of them do bizarre sketches, that often draw on themes from the rest of the episode.
So far there hasn't been an episode of this show that I haven't laughed out loud at at least one gag, which is a lot more than I can say for most sitcoms out there (I'm looking at you Outsourced)


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