Thom Bitches About "Community": The Conventions of Space and Time

Left to right: Donald Glover and Danny Pudi

Like most people, I was skeptical about what Community without Dan Harmon would look like. His inane fantasy of a community college was so meta and well structured that anyone who would come in would probably not do the show justice. However, it has happened, and Community is back with former Happy Endings show runners. Is it capable of finding its footing with new controllers, or is this the end? In Thom Bitches About Community, we will attempt to figure that out with sporadic thoughts on season four. Hey, maybe it's not all bad. Maybe it's better? Check back every week for further commentaries, and please feel free to add your own thoughts.

I think that it has happened. It officially feels like Community is going for the LCD and trying to appeal to the geek crowd. What once seemed like a battle between the Big Bang Theory's nerd-face comedy and Community's more diverse palette of jokes and references has now been meshed together into one bizarre show that very well may be one of a few things. It may be the moment when Community and the Big Bang Theory just landed on the same level. 

Don't believe me? In a recent episode of the CBS show, the long established nerds trekked to a Comic Con convention with plans to dress up as Star Trek characters. While the show has always had jokes appealing to a wide audience, this episode felt exceptionally painful with the references, as they established the stereotypes that women and geeks don't match, that women don't understand comics, and that dressing up for photo shoots in the desert is funny. That was "the Bakersfield Expedition," and it wasn't a particularly inspired episode, as it only explored nerdy on a surface level.

In a way, "Conventions of Space and Time" is the exact same episode. Think about it. The women don't understand the phenomenon that is Inspector Spacetime (and neither does Pierce (Chevy Chase) or Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown), who are also outside nerd culture demographics). Jeff (Joel McHale) is constantly slinging insults for people being nerds while Troy (Donald Glover) and Abed (Danny Pudi) are so obsessed with the show that Britta's (Gillian Jacobs) insisting that she is like Minerva leads to a very long, boring joke about how poorly written female characters are. 

In an average episode of Community, this would not be an issue. True, Troy and Abed are total nerds and they love this show. That is why this episode should have either not existed or been done better. Even the decision to split everyone up to do random things just really dragged on and a lot of the subplots were inessential examples of why these characters need to be there week to week.

Of course, this is all put into motion because Britta and Troy are sleeping together. This makes Troy overly sensitive and Abed even more of a shut in than the episodes before this would imply. It also isn't quite as interesting, as Britta's purpose for the episode is to be the ignorant woman who only understands Inspector Spacetime as a concept, whereas Troy tries to look cool in a forced way by disagreeing with her. Abed is still the nerdiest, but it is hard to really respect him after Greendale Babies became a thing and that he is somehow more of a reclusive nutcase.

I'll just ignore Annie (Alison Brie) story because, that was pretty stupid. Okay, they are at a hotel and she is ordering room service. People treat her nice because she is nice. Somehow this leads to her and Jeff talking about how they should be together. It feels as forced as Jeff ripping off his shirt in the final sequence in this episode. 

Left to right: Chris Tallman and Alison Brie

On a side note, I wonder how this move will actually go, as I do not understand what this episode is trying to appeal towards. The wide audience who I consider the LCD and carryover from the Big Bang Theory would not at all understand that Inspector Spacetime is a parody of Doctor Who. I also don't believe that the audience from the Dan Harmon era will like it too much, as it feels like mere pandering and really poor writing. 

It also is sad to see that the characters are caricatures. This is notably an issue after last week's somewhat promising episode. Who knows, maybe next week will be back to normal. However, I felt like this was an attempt to turn everyone into cartoons of their established selves and heighten the drama through wide eyes and loud words. It just didn't really make sense as an episode that needed to exist. Nothing really happened worth remembering.

Of course, my second theory, and one that I am not willing to bet my hedges entirely on, is that NBC is tampering with it. The reason that I don't entirely buy this is that Parks and Recreation remains a solid show that has only improved over time. Even this season isn't that problematic. Still, with recent success stories like the broad humor and lazy writing of the New Normal and Go On, it is possible that the network is taking this time to have the new show runners tweak the show to appeal to THAT demographic. I don't entirely believe it, but it would make more sense.

However, I am not yet ready to give up on Community. Maybe this was just a bad episode that mocked the very nerd culture that gave this show a lasting foundation, but for once, I can find direct parallels where the usually inferior the Big Bang Theory is actually on par, if slightly more successful than Community. I never expected that to happen, but this episode is for those fake nerds who see cosplay and think that's nerdy (see also: Comic Con - Episode IV: A Fan's Hope) . At very least, I don't think Dan Harmon would've done that. In fact, I don't think these new people get Inspector Spacetime, and by expanding the mythology, they are only shooting themselves in the foot.