Nothing If Not Consistent

Dum de dum de dum. That was such a great episode of Community the other night! Let’s go on the internet to read smart tv critics ranting about why NBC keeps trying to kill such a brilliant fucking show. Oh look, a recap from Grantland! I’m sure this won’t totally fucking suck!

One of the main tropes of the Law & Order franchise is that no time is wasted — even suspected murderers never pause from their busy bits of business (usually stacking papers or carrying crates of produce) to focus on the cops there to interrogate them. So it’s only fitting that I do the same.

Why do I get the feeling you’re about to waste my time?

“Basic Lupine Urology” was a brilliant parody of what Michael Ironside’s couch-crashing commander might call a “target-rich environment.” The look, the chung-chungs, the coroner, the terrible hot dogs — all of it was pitch-perfect and very, very funny.

Thank you, this review is done. But since being “very, very funny” is the kiss of death for reviewers like you, I see you feel the need to continue. I’m bracing myself.

But unlike 30 Rock, the episode — nimbly scripted by Community all-star Megan Ganz — never quite came together for me as anything other than satire.

THERE IT IS. For fuck’s sake. You know, the other day when I was reading A Modest Proposal I thought, this is really not coming together for me as romance. And Annie Hall: kinda sucked as tragedy. Now 2 Broke Girls, that’s really working as Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk. Glad I’ve got our standards established.

The opening was undoubtedly invigorating (I particularly loved Shirley Epatha Merkerson knocking on the aquarium glass, detectives Troy and Abed haggling over zingers, and Britta Instagramming the evidence) but the triple-red-herring-laden conclusion was more messy than memorable.

Yes, that’s what we want, a memorable conclusion. Hugging, learning. A takeaway. And then a fucking diabetic coma from all the treacle.

Also, you seem to be under the impression Andy that this is actually a Law and Order episode where we need some kind of Sam-Waterston-as-Atticus-Finch profound revelation at the end. I’m sorry, Scout, but it’s a fucking satire. 

Ultimately, Community just can’t help itself, and its freaky, self-aware heart bursts through at inopportune times —

Freaky, self-aware, we wouldn’t want that in a comedy show, would we, Andy? Now self-aware, that might be ironic, and freaky, well that might just be off-putting. But the real offense here is inopportune. Everything in its proper place, Benjy. Because INOPPORTUNE!! messing with timing and the expected flow of INOPPORTUNE!!! expectations isn’t a fucking fundamental INOPPORTUNE!!!! part of comedy, apparently.  You know, comedy, as opposed to, say, a police procedural.  

having Professor Omar intone about the importance of codes, dragging Jeff in front of the class for one more creaky speech. Weirdest of all was the conclusion.

Oh dear God and network television execs, please spare us the weird conclusion. Anything but that! We need resolution! We need a pretty bow and maybe a cute little card tied to it and maybe even a delicately placed flower right in the center of the knot at the end of the episode! Weirdness makes me feel all tingly inside, like that time I tried on my mommy’s lacy underclothes and I was such a naughty boy and--ahem. Well. We can’t have weird.  Every show must be entirely the same, as focus grouped by the Andy Greenwald Department of Opportune Timing in the school of not-funny comedies.    

On the screener disc sent by NBC, Michael K. Williams’s last line was redacted to avoid spoilers. The big, terrible, devastating secret? That Starburns had died when his portable meth lab exploded. Only Community would go to such lengths to build an emotional shock around a background joke.

Yes, only Community would write such a perfect beat-for-beat parody of Law and Order that they would include the final twist that makes all the characters question whether they got the real bad guy, and then make something as base as a joke out of it. Just think. A joke on a sitcom. How crass. Next thing you know they’ll be wearing white after Labor Day. Why do I get the feeling, Andy, that you’re just pissed that even though you get screeners sent months before the rest of us supposedly weird-hating and conclusion-loving tv viewers, they cut five seconds off the end of it? I know, I feel for you, that feels weird to be all alone in the house without some earnest arms to hold you when the show ends. It’s OK. We’ll get through this together. Just never fucking write about television again.

Community Standards

After banging my head against my desk for too long about the ways in which the reviewers at the AV Club and across the internet talk about TV shows, I just had to respond, FJM style.


“Basic Lupine Urology” (Dick Wolf, get it?) fulfills much the same function in this season as “Paradigms Of Human Memory” fulfilled in season two: It reminds us this is a show that can be really fucking funny when it wants to be. This is not to suggest that the last few episodes have lacked for laughs or that the back half of season two was utterly bereft of them. But both were more interested in intricate character work than they were in making us laugh every five seconds.
 
Which might be because the series had just gotten started and no one knew who any of these characters were.

And that’s okay. Intricate character work is what got those of us who are invested in this show invested in it in the first place,

Speak for yourself. I got “invested” in the show because it’s really fucking funny, and inventive, and batshit crazy.  Comedy: kind of the easiest genre to evaluate.  It’s almost physiological.  You laugh, or not.  That’s kind of it.

and I suspect that’s the barricade the show will be willing to die on when the time comes. 

Nice metaphor, Todd.  You’ve been watching Les Mis recently?

But it’s nice to remember every once in a while that this is also a great comedy, with a sterling ensemble that’s great at delivering dumb jokes. 

Yeah, I like to remember that every once in a while.  For the past few months I thought that every Thursday night at 8 I was reading War and Peace, but thanks for reminding me that it’s actually a great comedy with dumb jokes.

Yeah, the last moment of the episode is serious (well, not counting the tag), but everything before it is fun genre pastiche.  At the same time, I’m not sure the genre pastiche ever moves past being genre pastiche, the way the show’s best theme episodes do. I had the same concerns about “Paradigms,” but that episode was so laugh-a-second audacious that I ultimately didn’t care. (I still wouldn’t rank it as highly as many of you.)
 
Wow, you really have bad taste, don’t you? That was an incredible episode.  But I guess being a “fun genre pastiche” isn’t enough for you, despite the fact that, from its first episode onward, that’s fundamentally WHAT THE WHOLE SHOW IS.  And like no other sitcom on television, in precisely that way.  If you want bad character development, there’s a whole lineup of shows on CBS waiting for you.

“Urology” comes close to that laugh-a-second pace, but it’s the first theme episode where I really do wonder if it’s going to play as well if you’re not at least somewhat familiar with the TV show Law & Order. 

Is there really any one, in the whole world, who is “not at least somewhat familiar” with Law and Order?  In Tanzania they’re still making jokes about Lennie Briscoe.  I also like how you feel the need to call it “the TV show Law and Order.”  Thanks for that clarification.  I thought you were referring to the abstract concepts.  Because I possess no familiarity at all with the idea of law—I’m kind of into Ron Paul. (not really.)

So many of the gags are specific calls to things on that show, and some of them are so subtle that I don’t wonder if those who’ve never seen the program (and, honestly, is that anyone?) aren’t going to be a little lost.

So you acknowledge that everyone’s seen Law and Order.  But I’m glad that you're concerned about this nonexistent viewer’s ability to follow along.  Also, subtlety!  That’s a problem.

Our heroes  

This isn’t a Grail Quest.  They’re not my heroes.  They’re just characters.

have realized that their biology project—a yam they’ve grown themselves—has gotten tossed on the floor of the biology lab and smushed, perhaps by someone stomping on it….Look: If you’re familiar with the Law & Order franchise,

which we’ve (and you’ve) established we and approximately 99.9% of the population of the world are.

this is all an expertly done goof. The episode nails absolutely everything about the show, from the way that the first person the cops question (Todd) is the guy who seems to have done it—until a last second reversal in the courtroom—to the filming style.

But that’s all so easy!  I mean, a beat for beat, note for note parody of another show—this is old hat!  I get that every week on Two and a Half  Men. 

I had to rewind the scene where Pierce is conducting some sort of gambling ring in the cafeteria because I was laughing so much at how accurately the show had aped the earlier program’s style.

And you’re going to criticize this.  Apparently laughter is not the appropriate response to a comedy.  What, Todd, is said response?  Gentle bemusement?  Quiet sobs?  Moments of Zen-inspired self-actualization?  I’m just asking.

This is the perfect episode for anyone who’s ever spent a rainy Saturday watching episode after episode of the original article on TNT.

Which, for the third time, is everyone.

It even perfectly nails the way that the show delivers its climactic moments just before commercial breaks, like little surges of adrenaline to get you through the messages that follow.

For someone who claims not to like Law and Order, you sure as hell seem to know a lot about it.  Did Jerry Orbach have an affair with your mother?  It’s okay, Todd.  You can embrace your love for Sam Waterston.  We’ll be there for you. 

Sometimes, a genre parody can work if it so thoroughly commits that it essentially could work as a straight-faced example of the original. I think that’s part of why “Lupine Urology” mostly overcomes the fact that it doesn’t have much to it beyond, “Hey, what if we made a Law & Order parody?”

Because that’s what we want—something beyond subtly brilliant genre parody.  Again, that’s really easy.  My buddies and I just said that to each other yesterday—hey, what if we made a Law and Order Parody.  Guess what?  It wasn’t that good.  We didn’t get past just playing the theme over and over again on ITunes. 

The final moment—when Jeff proves that Neil boiled all of the yams so that he could hook up with Vicki in his parents’ cabin this summer—is pitch-perfect, and I love the way Neil screeches that he did it for love. Similarly, the characters buying a hot dog from Garrett in a Greendale street scene that looks suspiciously like a New York City street scene (shot in Los Angeles, natch)

First rule of writing.  Don’t use “natch.” 

is a lovingly done homage to the New York flavor that made the original series so popular. In everything from Britta making a photo Old West-y to the “courtroom” scene starting with an artist’s rendering, this is a loving parody of the original, made by people who’ve obviously ingested way too many of the show’s over-400 episodes, thrown through the series’ pop culture blender and effectively Community-fied.

Great!  This was a great episode!  We’re done.  Oh, wait, you have something more to say.  I’m girding myself up mentally. 

If you’re one of those people, then, that just watches this show for the laughs—or a Law & Order fan—I suspect this episode worked really well for you.

This may be the worst paragraph written about television ever.  But I’ll let you finish.

I’m much more into the character aspect of things, so I liked it, but I wouldn’t say I loved it. I laughed a lot, but I’m not sure what it was trying to say. Annie is really obsessive about getting good grades? Jeff enjoys being asked to play attorney? Troy and Abed really get into playing the roles thrust upon them? I thought perhaps there was more that could have been done with the whole thing being something of Shirley’s first chance to get to play in the show’s big, wild genre playground, but she was mostly confined to the role she was in. It worked for the parody aspect, but if we were looking for a larger character angle, I suspect it was meant to be here.

You are a very sophisticated viewer, Mr. Vanderwerft.  The hoi polloi (or, in the correct Greek translation—the polloi; see, I can be pretentious too) may like things like “laughs” in a comedy, but Herr Doktor Professor Vanderwerff is on to what he claims is the true source of Community’s brilliance: the “character aspect of things.”  You’re also so good at expressing your ideas clearly—“character aspect of things,” “larger character angle.”  In the words of Jeff Winger, you nailed it.  If you’re going to be criticizing the show for lacking this nebulous quality, you better be fucking sure you can define it.  Let’s try to figure out what you’re talking about here. 

We’re going to have to reread that paragraph again.  Oh, boy. 

I’m much more into the character aspect of things, so I liked it, but I wouldn’t say I loved it.

This reminds me of the old Woody Allen routine about him saying to Hemingway that “The Sun Also Rises” was a good book, but not a great one.  You know how that ended?  With Gertrude Stein punching him in the mouth. 

I laughed a lot, but I’m not sure what it was trying to say.


Let’s back up here.  Is this really how you think writers go about writing?  They sit down and think, what moral should I be imparting to my viewers today?  What new frisson should I add to this character?  Oh wait, I remembered you’re a writer who used the word “natch.” 


Need I remind you, it’s a COMEDY.  Laughter—that’s it.  You laughed a lot—great.  But apparently you want this to be a comment on the human condition.  Again, in the words of Woody Allen: “You want to do mankind a real service? Tell funnier jokes.”

Also, criticism 101: television, movies, books, they don’t “say” anything.  They just are.

Annie is really obsessive about getting good grades? Jeff enjoys being asked to play attorney? Troy and Abed really get into playing the roles thrust upon them? I thought perhaps there was more that could have been done with the whole thing being something of Shirley’s first chance to get to play in the show’s big, wild genre playground, but she was mostly confined to the role she was in. It worked for the parody aspect, but if we were looking for a larger character angle, I suspect it was meant to be here.

Are these your friends that you’re trying to understand better?  Are you suffering from some Don Quixote problem, thinking that Annie and Abed and that irrepressible Troy are real people?  I know it’s hard to make friends in the real world, Todd, but I hate to tell you, these aren’t your friends.  Not even your Facebook friends.  They probably wouldn’t like you, but that’s kind of a moot point, because, again, THEY’RE NOT PEOPLE.  They’re just lines of dialogue being enacted by paid professional actors. 

Look, we do need good characters in comedies, but that’s only so that they can be used to create comic situations and as the mouthpiece for funny lines.  “Larger character angle”—that doesn’t exist.  This isn’t therapy—it’s a fucking sitcom.  Do I care if these projections on a screen grow into being happy, well-adjusted people?  Hell, no.  Wait.  Yes, I do care, because if they did they wouldn’t be fucking funny, and the show would suck.

I’m not saying the episode was bad.

You’re just saying you’re kind of an idiot. 

I liked it an awful lot, and I think pretty much every joke landed. (I could have done without Annie’s premature celebration in the courtroom, but, then, I’m just sympathetic to that Todd fellow.)

Again, Todd is not a fellow, since he’s not a person.  Also, pretty sure you’re not supposed to be sympathetic for him.  But I know, you feel for Todd, always being made fun of by the cool kids. 

Comedically, it’s one of the two or three strongest episodes of the season.

Do I even need to respond to this?  Okay.  Athletically, Michael Jordan is one of the best basketball players of all time.  But let’s put that aside when we evaluate his performance.  The question is, what do we learn about his “character angle,” about what burns in the inmost recesses of his soul while he’s at the three point line?  Because let’s face it, Michael Jordan, kind of an asshole.  Does that have anything to do with him being the greatest basketball player of all time?  Actually, yes.  Sometimes you have to be mean to win, and sometimes you have to be mean or shallow to be funny.  I’m sorry it upsets your sensitivities, Todd. 

But this is always a series that does its best when it reaches for more than just the easy jokes.

Again, how easy is that?  Todd, I’m waiting for your sitcom.  It’s going to feature a lot of therapy sessions and hugs.  Will it be funny?  No.  But it’ll make us feel so so good. 

I’ll admit that sometimes, the jokes are so strong that it can carry you past an episode that’s otherwise empty of great character stuff.

“Great character stuff.”  Always precise, Mr. Vanderwerff. 

But when I talked to Dan Harmon last summer,

Oh, you talked to the Great One.  Oh, my.   

he said the writers are always looking for the “Jeff and Britta fucking” of every theme episode, referring back to the major character breakthrough of season one’s “Modern Warfare.”

“Modern Warfare.”  You know what that episode was?  A really fucking brilliant, pitch-perfect “fun genre pastiche” of action movies.  Yeah, two characters fucked.  As they do in an action movie.  Is sex a major character breakthrough?  Maybe for you, since you may not have had sex.  I don’t know about you, but the last time I had sex there was very little major character breakthrough.  It kind of just involved getting naked. 

If anything, the fact that the will-they-won’t-they Britta and Jeff thing is just passed off and then dropped after that episode is a very specific fuck you to you, Mr. Vanderwerff.  You’re exactly the type of person who ruined Friends (not that there was much to ruin there to begin with) and you’re trying to kill this show too.  You want it to be a soap opera.  Not that there’s anything wrong with soap operas.  But they’re not, you know, “comedic.” 

I’m not sure the show found that dynamic here. In other theme episodes—even if the moment is incredibly clumsy (as with Annie wanting to transfer schools back in the space simulator episode)—it’s immediately obvious what the episode means on a character basis.

Yeah, that moment was clumsy.  Guess why?  Because it wasn’t funny.  Because heartfelt emotion just doesn’t belong in a comedy.  That was probably shoe-horned in there by the network, who wants everyone to be relatable on a “character basis.”  Congratulations, Vanderwerff.  You’re a network suit. 

That’s not really the case here, as the episode mostly tells us stuff we already know about these people.

Is this why you were watching?  Did you want to know more about these “people”?  Also, isn’t there kind of a limit?  I sort of have an idea of who these characters are after almost three seasons.  Can’t you just let them do a brilliant parody?

That’s one of the burdens of the sitcom, though.

A burden that you, and only you, are trying to impose. 

I mentioned this a few weeks ago in comments, but I don’t know how many of you actually saw it.

(They were ignoring you).

It’s tremendously hard for a sitcom to continue to grow and evolve and change like a drama does. Sitcoms are built to run on different engines, and they have a tendency to continue to repeat a lot of the same beats and themes as they did in seasons previous.

I didn’t realize that dramas and comedies run on different engines.  I kind of prefer a turbo-charged six cylinder for my comedies, but some of friends like the more fuel-efficient four cylinder.  It’s a personal choice. 

I watch a lot of Cheers, of course,

Of course.

but I’ve been amazed at how swiftly the show’s often daring sense of pathos was replaced by a very entertaining, but sort of slick professionalism after its second season.

Daring sense of pathos.  What I’m looking for in a comedy.  Next up on the NBC Thursday night comedy block, the classic 1937 Leo McCarey melodrama about aging, Make Way for Tomorrow!

And the more I think about it, the more I realize that’s true of virtually every sitcom I’ve ever loved.  Season three on is the time when the show settles into its profitable syndication years. It’s not bad—no one would ever claim that—but the shock of the new has worn off.

Maybe you felt that these sitcoms abandoned you because the “people” on them never took you home and tucked you in at night, or called you on your birthday.  Or because you never take the garbage out. 

Also, Seinfeld?  Kind of hitting its stride in season three. 

It’s all but impossible for a sitcom to revitalize itself like Lost did at the end of its third season because the engine the sitcom runs on is comfort, not surprise. Plenty of shows have had their best seasons in these years (which tend to run between seasons three and five), but those seasons tend to come once we’ve all adjusted to the fact that the show is no longer able to surprise us.

Lost.  Not a comedy.  Also, is that really your comparison point?  A show that kept adding plot and character elements until it totally and irredeemably collapsed?

What I’m trying to say is that these reports are necessarily reports from the field (as my colleague Noel Murray smartly puts it). I would not be surprised if all of you love this episode more than I do, and I would not be surprised if in five years I’ll be thrilled to see it pop up on Comedy Central because I just need some good laughs. But right now, in the moment, after watching this episode a second time, I think it’s very, very good, but it falls just short of greatness.

So, in other words, you’re just denying that you have anything valid to say.  Sure, I feel this today, but tomorrow I might think something else.  Stand up for yourself, Todd.  You’ll still be an idiot, but you’ll be a more consistent one. 

Also, again, greatness?  Is this what we’re looking for?  Not “good laughs”? 

This is a show still capable of the latter—“Remedial Chaos Theory” and last week’s stunner, which I like more every time I see it (I’m up to five now)—

Which, by the way, was a terrible episode rendered unfunny by exactly the “character angle” that you so love.  And Todd, five times in a week?  Are you still in your pajamas?  How many pints of ice cream have you gone through?  I’m concerned. 

but it’s also a show that’s settled quite a bit into what it’s going to be for the immediate future. I still love the show, as I think should be obvious. I just don’t love it like I once did, and that will take some adjusting.

Do you have commitment issues, Todd? Things start out so good, and then somehow they start to cool.   Maybe that’s because people realize that you’re an idiot, but it also might be you, Todd.  It’s okay—you can be happy with another person . . . whoops, I mean, show.  Just make sure it’s really, really earnest. 

All TV shows have relationships with their fans that operate almost like long-term romantic relationships.

Is this a personal confession? 

 There’s the initial ardor, the period when you realize that it seems like there’s nothing this person can’t do to make you happy, then the long period where you slowly realize you know all of this person’s tricks. I’d say a lot of us (including myself) are currently in that third period right now. But there’s always hope: What usually follows the “I know everything this person can do” period is the point where you realize how lucky you’ve been to have them all along and how silly it was to expect them to continue to surprise you as much as the first day you met. “Lupine Urology” isn’t my favorite episode of the series, but it reminds me just how much I like having this show around and how sad I’d be if it left.

I’m really sorry to hear about your break-up.  She must have been a nice girl (or boy, not to be heteronormative).  I’m just hoping that this was a real person, and not “Annie Edison” that you were in love with. 

By the way, I really like how the Vanderwerff sitcom-as-three stages of a relationship theory includes a third period where you can just be happy and don’t have to learn new things about the person.  Of course, that theory is bullshit, but just to humor you can’t we just say that the show has established its characters and can now just be hilarious and inventive on a semi-weekly basis?  These are the good times, Todd—embrace them.

I’m sorry about your girlfriend.

Necessary qualification #1: I do not know what happens in the last five seconds of the episode, as my screener cuts off the spoiler (it was sent out over a month ago, so I see why). Does this moment change the entire tenor of the episode? I’ll re-grade if so, but I feel pretty safe in this grade without those last five seconds.

A lot is depending on your grade.

Jim Rash has an excellent singing voice, and I would like him to record an album of lullabies to lull me gently to sleep.

I have a feeling that this might be a good description of your ideal sitcom.

I liked all of the jokes about how Troy and Abed aren’t actually police officers. I don’t know why, but every time this show goes to the, “Well, this isn’t actually what’s happening” well, I laugh.

Because that’s funny.  You know why?  Because it reflects a level of self-awareness that what we’re watching is a TV show, that these aren’t real people. 

Oh, Todd, you’ve taken two hours of my time.  And I hate to belabor this point, but, again, you did use “natch” in this review.  What are the universally acknowledged two funniest sitcoms of the last twenty years? Seinfeld and Arrested Development, I think we can both agree.  Let me just point to that title: “ARRESTED Development.”  The characters don’t change or grow. We don’t learn anything new about them.  There is no “character angle,” as you so brilliantly put it.  The motto for Seinfeld: “no hugging, no learning.”  They’re just funny.  You can have your group therapy sessions and tearful revelations.  I’ll be laughing on my couch with the polloi.