![\"Community](\"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/Community-Photos-NBC.com-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
S<\/span>omething weird happened near the end of last year’s TV season. NBC’s old guard of great sitcoms, The Office<\/em> and 30 Rock<\/em>, got utterly outclassed by upstart newcomers Community<\/em> and Parks & Recreation<\/em>, both of which were consistently smarter, funnier, and more inventive by the end of their seasons than either of their older siblings. Unfortunately, the ratings disagree with me on that, at least when it comes to Parks & Rec<\/em>, which got pushed back to spring 2011. However, Community<\/em> came back last week with a season opener that only confirms its spot as the show most worthy of inheriting Arrested Development<\/em>‘s crown as the critical darling of the sitcom world.<\/p>\n This episode saw the Spanish 101 study group reunite (though not to study Spanish, since Señor Chang got stripped of everything and is now a student just like the rest of the group) and work through the events of last year’s finale – namely, Britta telling Jeff she loved him and him throwing her over, compounded by Jeff kissing Annie (which no one knows about and Jeff is now calling a mistake).<\/p>\n The jokes fly so fast and furious here that I could barely catch them all in time to laugh, and they’re so smart that I wanted to rewind every few minutes just to experience them again. Donald Glover as Spider-Man for half a second. Old White Man Says. Betty White as a rather intense Anthropology teacher. The most awkward kiss ever. Abed’s unrelenting and awesome meta commentary. So many more moments that I’d have to watch it again to see. And I probably will. Because it’s that brilliant. This show knows exactly where the funny is, and it goes for it every time, and trusts you to hang on to your hat and keep up with it.<\/p>\n If they can keep up this level of writing, I can almost guarantee you that Community<\/em> will be my #1 show by the end of this year. And if it gets shut out at the Emmys again, so help me, I will…be very angry about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Something weird happened near the end of last year’s TV season. NBC’s old guard of great sitcoms, The Office and 30 Rock, got utterly outclassed by upstart newcomers Community and Parks & Recreation, both of which were consistently smarter, funnier, and more inventive by the end of their seasons than either of their older siblings. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[1675,1994],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/community-2x01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3954,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/community-2x02-accounting-for-attorneys\/","url_meta":{"origin":3928,"position":0},"title":"Community 2×02: Accounting for Attorneys","author":"Jandy","date":"October 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"*spoilers* Usually I scribble some notes while watching TV so I remember what I wanted to mention from each episode (largely because, as is probably becoming apparent, I do not write things up immediately after watching them). I did not do that in this case because I was laughing too\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Television"","block_context":{"text":"Television","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/television\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/community-2x02-featured.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4076,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/community-2x03-2x04\/","url_meta":{"origin":3928,"position":1},"title":"Community 2×03-2×04","author":"Jandy","date":"October 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Community 2x03: The Psychology of Letting Go Here's why Community works week after week: it grounds its witty dialogue and deliciously absurd situations in characters that it has taken the time to establish and develop even in its short run so far. When Jeff freaks out about his cholesterol and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Television"","block_context":{"text":"Television","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/television\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/community2x04.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3900,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/fall-tv-is-upon-us-once-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":3928,"position":2},"title":"Fall TV Is Upon Us Once Again","author":"Jandy","date":"September 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This year I've decided to watch less TV. I decide this every year, and somehow end up with roughly 17-20 shows I try to watch anyway. Sure enough when I added up all the ones I want to check out this year, I ended up with seventeen. But I'm pretty\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Television"","block_context":{"text":"Television","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/television\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/fall2010.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17232,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/cinema-101-introductory-remarks\/","url_meta":{"origin":3928,"position":3},"title":"Cinema 101: Introductory Remarks","author":"Jandy","date":"February 21, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Starting a new post series is always a shaky venture for me; if it weren't mathematically impossible, I'd say I probably abandon more series than I start. Yet here I go again. I've been wanting to do something like an introduction to cinema for non-film experts for a while now.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cinema 101"","block_context":{"text":"Cinema 101","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/cinema-101\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/cinema-101.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":18057,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/cinema-101-flickers-of-light\/","url_meta":{"origin":3928,"position":4},"title":"Cinema 101: Flickers of Light","author":"Jandy","date":"March 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In the beginning, there was light. The prehistory of cinema starts as far back as the 1600s, when magic lantern shows toured Europe, delighting audiences with elaborately drawn images and shadows projected on walls by a lantern, usually with spoken narration to go along and tell the story. But cinema\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cinema 101"","block_context":{"text":"Cinema 101","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/cinema-101\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/cinema-101-flickers.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/02\/first-post\/","url_meta":{"origin":3928,"position":5},"title":"First Post","author":"Jandy","date":"February 20, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"So this is where all the cool kids are hanging out. I've had an internet presence for several years, largely on Livejournal. But that's always been more of an internet-community-fandom-based journal; most of my friends over there I met over the internet through our mutual love for the TV shows\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Personal"","block_context":{"text":"Personal","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}