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| Thursday on Community: “Conventions of Space and Time” |
This week, CHML’s Scott Thompson asks about one of my favourite comedies of the past few years, Community. The third episode of the new, delayed and shortened fourth season, airs Thursday night at 8 p.m. ET on NBC and City.
I watched a couple of the Season Three episodes on the back of the headrest TV on Air Canada on the way down to Ft. Lauderdale Wednesday. (I’m in Florida to visit the set of the upcoming USA/Bravo drama Graceland. Two Canadians, Vancouver-natives Brandon Jay McLaren and Serinda Swan, are among the leads.) The episodes reminded me what a delicate tightrope series creator Dan Harmon walked with this comedy. Nothing thuds harder than a forced meta gag, but Harmon managed to use them in a way that flowed straight from the characters. The first two new episodes, crafted after Harmon’s departure, went for the silly but lacked his light touch.
Have to agree with Robert Bianco in Thursday’s USA Today that the faux self-deprecatory jokes are getting thin, too. Tonight, apparently, Pierce (Chevy Chase) helps TV executives dumb down a series in a bid to improve ratings. Har-de-har-har-har.
Last week Abed (Danny Pudi) muttered something about remembered when the show was about a community college. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Still, I like these characters and this cast and would rather watch this series try and not quite make it than watch just about anything else on TV succeed.
I also tell a story about being on the set of Chevy Chase’s doomed late night talk show way back in the early ’90s. Chase just always seems to be to be one of those guys you really want to like if he’d only just stop being such a dick.
There’s also talk about being on the set of the new Big Brother Canada, which premieres Feb. 27 on Slice. Me and nine other press weasels were locked up inside the upscale faux frat house last Friday. Say that three times real fast. You can listen in here.
