Thursday, September 12, 2013

COMMUNITY COMPLETE SEASON FOUR: THIS COMEDY DOES NOT PASS

I haven't been a viewer of the series COMMUNITY on NBC at all. For one reason or another I just never got around to watching the show. This is not to say I had an ulterior motive for not watching it. I mean I like star Joel McHale on THE SOUP on E! But I just never got around to watching it. So when the chance to watch this DVD came I figured it was time to start. I'm glad I didn't see the first three seasons now.

For those who haven't been watching, like me, the series is about a group of oddball characters at a local community college who band together in a study group. The purpose is to study and get grades good enough to graduate. Instead we find it as more of an excuse to create a dysfunctional family that binds the individuals together.

With this being the fourth season it also means that it's senior year for the students in this group, none of which seem to be college student age. This creates all sorts of mixed emotions among them from joy about getting out to fear about facing the real world without the help and support of the group. While both would seem to offer plenty of grain to mill out some laughs, none seem to happen. I mean sure there are things that are meant to be funny but they never quite work.

That's sad too because with this likeable group of actors I truly wanted to fall in love with this show. But watching episode after episode I realized halfway through that I had laughed perhaps once and smiled once as well. I couldn't find myself enjoying any of the characters and the jokes were so over the top as to be unfunny. Even the sophomoric jokes weren't funny.

Perhaps my favorite episode, if you could call it that, was one where two of the group (room mates and best friends) go to a sci-fi convention which is obviously a take on Dr. Who. The whole geek atmosphere was well played as was bits and pieces of the story. But as I've said, it was hard to find a character to sympathize with, relate to or feel sorry for even. Nice premise, failure to follow through.

Perhaps it's a generational thing. In talking with my father he told me there isn't a single comedy on TV these days that he enjoys watching. I've found one or two, but nothing like there were years ago. Even some of the bad ones from the past were better than this one. Better yet DUCK DYNASTY (which I watched for the first time this week) is funnier in one episode than anything I witnessed here in the entire season four.

If this sort of humor is one you enjoy more power to you. If you've watched an episode and laughed then perhaps you'll enjoy this entire season. But if you're a little bit pickier about what you watch, pass this one by and look for reruns of some comedy show that was actually funny. There's little doubt that FRASIER or MASH is playing right now on some station.

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