bookMarq this.

Community : Season 2, Episode 1- Anthropology 101

Some bullet point thoughts on a stellar season 2 opener, as I watch it a second time. It might not hang with the absolute best of the series, but considering what it had to accomplish (re-introduce the characters to potential new viewers, not bore the established viewers, address the love triangle-y plot strings from last year’s finale and be damn funny) I’d say it was a success.

• the episode had me from the first frames - a great way to quickly and broadly introduce the characters, via a Wes Anderson-like continuous shot covering multiple bedrooms (or was it an homage to A Different World?)
• I like Abed’s set-up for his predictably large DVD collection
• Troy in Spidey PJ’s of course
• Twilight posters in Annie’s room? Oh Annie…
• I’m disappointed that we didn’t see the Fresh Start Dance. I’m sure there will be future Dean-mandated dances.
• too much Twitter humour that will be dated as I type this (though I very much approved how also served as an episode-long dig at the wackness that is the Shat My Dad Says tv show)
• Troy’s massive swerve when Toy Story 3 is brought up
• “Hey, Toy Stor… err Britta… how’s it going!?”
• the strong return of Britta’s arm wave. It’s improved slightly. Did she take lessons?
• “…talking my Changuage”
• Troy’s piggyback conquest doing a very half-hearted Britta-wave
• “Do you know where the cleanest bathroom is?”
• “it’s my penis”
• the contrasting yells of Shirley and Annie over Britta and Jeff’s fauxvlove affair
• “OooohhhhhaaaaAAAAAawesome!”
• I approve of cover versions/parodies of The Cranberries songs
• I like Leonard’s hat
• I’m pretty sure Troy stole my dogs-are-boys/cats-are-girls theory
• I hope Starburns adds something new to his ensemble every year
• Chang’s in-class blurts had me rolling… “GAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY!”; “gay fact”
• Betty White wasn’t too distracting thankfully. Good use of stunt-casting
• the episode looked great. Cinematic at times even.
• apparently Chang’s dual-personality episode ending was a LOTR riff. I wouldn’t know but it still played well to me.
• 4 stars seems about right for the “Africa” cover in the episode tag.

I should also note that both 30 Rock and The Office had pretty solid episodes last night as well, which is very promising. Great to see the season start strong for the few network comedies I enjoy. Outsourced will remain unwatched by me.

Now, the countdown begins until Eastbound & Down in 50 hours or so.

My Chouch’d Life - Thursdays Fall 2010

Thursdays
Community [08:00, NBC – starting Sep 23^rd]
30 Rock [08:30, NBC – starting Sep 23^rd]
The Office [09:00, NBC – starting Sep 23^rd]
The League [09:00, FX – starting Sep 16^th]

Comedy night, obviously. Not as busy a night as last year, with Survivor moving to Wednesdays and the GREAT Parks & Recreation only due to come back as a mid-season replacement, despite being the most consistently funny network comedy of last year. Consider me to be outright rooting against the P&R replacement, Outsourced – not only because it’s bumping out some great programming, but the previews look absolutely horrid and filled with lazy stereotype-based humour.

Community kept getting better and better during its first season and I’m confident it will continue to excel during its sophomore year (get it?). Expect plenty of posts during the season ahead (I hope), especially if Alison Brie is looking like this. As much as I enjoy the NBC Thursday night o’ laffz (especially when Parks & Rec is involved), both The Office and 30 Rock are past their primes, so I’ll just hope for a slight bounce back from last year’s seasons. The Office can hopefully send Steve Carell off in style and 30 Rock can ideally recover from a very inconsistent prior year – the talent is there, it’s just a matter of somehow keeping it fresh I guess (easy for me to say).

I’ve only watched the first couple episodes of The League’s first short season but have enjoyed them enough (thanks to a very solid comedic cast) that I’ll try to keep up on this second season as well (via online means, since it’s nowhere to be found here in Canada, like most of FX’s excellent programming). I use (brackets) too much…

I might as well mention my Friday night TV plans in this post. There are none. Until Friday Night Lights comes back to NBC, a long way from now, it’ll be movies, video games and PVR-catch-up flashing on the 42” Sony Wega here. And NBA games soon enough. And maybe a night out here and there? Same for Saturday nights, though I’ll continue record and watch and enjoy 2.5 sketches from each week’s episode of Saturday Night Live.