After ending last season with epic two part cross-school paintball war, Community returns to NBC’s Thursday comedy night at 8:00 pm. With the first season incorporating monkey knockout gas and Ken Jeong (Hangover) roaming around campus with a hock of ham, the third season started off strongly.
The shows main focuses on a study groups in Greendale Community College, who have been together for three years now. Jeff Winger the ringleader (Joel McHale, The Soup), Abed Nadir the T.V. obsessed nerd (Danny Pudi, Greek), and Pierce Hawthorne the old man (Chevy Chase, SNL).
Though the group came together since then to study Spanish, the show has hardly focused on their study habits. Instead, most episodes focus around elaborate morasses the group finds themselves in. These range from bootlegging chicken wings, essentially forming a mafia family, to being trapped in a space flight simulator.
However, this year the dean promises to be a “lean mean deaning machine” and end all tomfoolery. This plan quickly falls to pieces when he discovers there a monkey in the vents and tries to flush it out with knockout gas. Meanwhile, Jeff Winger struggles to accept he has been kicked out of the group.
Every week the characters find themselves in more and more comically strange situations. Not to mention the hilarious analogous and references used throughout the show add to its weirdness and humor.
The true strength lies in the shows ability to mix this comical feel with an attachment to the characters. Every character is unique and yet can relate to a part of everyone. Even Pierce, often portrayed as the shows bad guy, can tap into people’s feeling of belonging. Of course favoritism cannot be avoided, but every character finds away into the viewer’s heart. The audience hopes every character will prevail in whatever situation they stumble into. More often than not an episode will end with a heartfelt quote, almost a life lesson. The show leaves the watcher perplexing this message for some minutes after the credits role.
As long as Community can keep the ingenious plots and jokes flowing while further blending it with attachment to characters, NBC might very well have a long running show on its hands. There is a clear reason that Community starts of the Thursday night comedy night. Definitely worth watching, Community deserves a solid 5/5.