Community is one of the many shows out there that I’ve been meaning to watch for a while now, and so now I’m finally getting around to it. I remember being super interested in the show when it was first airing, but now a few years have passed since it ended. It’s one of my girlfriend’s favorite shows, so it’s been nice to experience it with her now.

One of the main reasons I was so interested in the show is because of the talent involved. The series was created by Dan Harmon, who has since gone on to create his more popular show, Rick and Morty. The Russo brothers were also heavily involved in making the show early on (having directed many of the episodes), who have since gone on to direct some of the biggest MCU movies, such as Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Endgame. Also, the main cast includes some big names that you may have heard of: Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Yvette Nicole Brown, Alison Brie, Donald Glover, Chevy Chase, Ken Jeong, and Jim Rash. These are some really funny people, and they really shine in this show.

So what exactly is Community? The premise is actually pretty simple. While we do follow all of the main actors listed in the cast above, the most central character is Joel McHale’s character Jeff Winger, who is a lawyer in his 30s. Jeff was just found to not have the necessary qualifications to be a lawyer, and so he is disbarred and must attend a community college in order to get his degree. While he plans on doing the bare minimum to skate by while doing nothing to get involved in Greendale Community College, he soon finds himself in a study group with six other students. The group quickly forms a bond, and so Community follows their college adventures.

The first season is 25 episodes long, and it’s a whole lot of fun the entire way through. This was the kind of show that I found to be very easy to get into, as I was pretty into it after the first few episodes. I felt like I connected with the cast, and the premises in each episode were a lot of fun to watch. This is the kind of show where I feel like they really make the most out of the show’s concept, and so it’s fun to see all of the crazy things that can happen at a community college. The writing and storylines are usually pretty clever, and so I never felt like there were any real stinker episodes. The show also has a few “special” episodes, where it doesn’t usually follow the traditional sitcom format of progressing through storylines for each group of characters, but instead having one crazy concept that the show explores. The two biggest standout examples of this in season 1 are “Contemporary American Poultry” and “Modern Warfare.” The former explores the group running an operation where they control the chicken in the school’s cafeteria, while the latter has a giant paintball war going on throughout the campus, which is easily the best episode of the season. These special episodes are always really entertaining, but so are the more traditional ones.

I also want to talk about each of the main characters briefly, so I’ll run through them. As I said earlier, Joel McHale’s character is Jeff, who’s a too-cool-for-school ex-lawyer who is full of himself while trying to grapple with his fate. Much like how all of the characters look up to Jeff, it’s hard not to just love this guy as you watch him on screen. He’s cocky, but he’s so compelling and fun. Gillian Jacobs plays Britta, who puts on a mature, intelligent front to hide her own insecurities. She genuinely wants to help others, but her activist efforts usually just highlight her own shortcomings. I do like Britta, but she’s not one of my favorite characters. Danny Pudi plays Abed, a movie/TV nerd with Asperger’s. Abed is one of the best characters on the show, and he often provides great opportunities for the show to be self-aware since he’s always commenting on how an episode’s events play out in sitcom fashion. Yvette Nicole Brown plays Shirley, a divorced Christian mother. Shirley honestly took the longest to grow on me, and while she’s still not one of my favorite characters, Brown’s acting eventually sells the character really well. Alison Brie plays Annie, an overachiever who was unpopular in high school and had a drug addiction. She’s the sweet, young, innocent one of the group, and while her character took a little while to fall into place, she eventually became my favorite character on the show. Alison Brie is adorable in the role, and makes her such a joy to watch. There were so many times in this show when I just had a reaction of “aww, Annie!” Donald Glover plays Troy, a dumb jock from high school who’s trying to find his place now that he’s not the big man on campus. I like Troy a lot, mainly due to Donald Glover’s performance, but he’s not as compelling as some of the other characters. Rounding out the main cast of students is Chevy Chase’s character Pierce, an old racist man who’s trying to find a new purpose in life. Part of the point of Pierce’s character is that the group is trying to accept him despite how terrible of a person he is, but unfortunately at the end of the day I still just think he’s terrible. This is partially because Chevy Chase is such an awful person to begin with, but in general I just don’t think Pierce is funny at all. He’s not a fun character to watch, and kind of drags the show down at times. The other two main characters that aren’t students are Ken Jeong’s character Senor Chang, and Jim Rash’s character Dean Pelton. Senor Chang is the group’s Spanish teacher. He’s one of those completely outrageous characters, which sometimes goes either way in terms of how funny he is. There were times I loved Senor Chang, and other times I rolled my eyes. Dean Pelton is the dean of Greendale, and he isn’t super present in this particular season. He’s just a really weird guy, and he’s always trying to prove Greendale’s cred as a “real college.” He’s fun when he appears, but doesn’t overstay his welcome.

Overall, Community does wind up having some growing pains, particularly in finding the most fun situations to put its characters into, but once it gets going it’s really great. While some episodes are slightly better than others, I really enjoyed the whole season. I’ve started watching the first few episodes of season 2, and I’ve noticed an uptick in overall quality, so with that being said I don’t quite think that season 1 is the show’s best, but it’s still great. It’s really easy to get into, has immense talent behind it, has a stellar cast of fun characters, explores its simple concept to the fullest, and has some really clever writing. If you’ve never seen this show, I recommend giving it a shot.

4/5