Community Season 3 Episode 2

So I liked it. I didn't love it.

This show succeeds when the characters are sharp, the situation is absurd and the action is a bit loony. Mostly succeeded. An Annie-clone steals Annie's idea for a model UN, causing conflict between the nemeses, and a debate between rival UN's. It was absurd, with parallel-everything and color-coded scoreboards whipped up in hours' notice. It was loony, with Annie's insane rapproachment with the enemy UN. And the characters were ... well, basically, they were friends, so their edge was mostly off this week. Mostly successful.

Meanwhile, Britta feels a deep need to play Noble Protester while Chang feels a need to play Dirty Harry. Sharp characters, and loony action. (Lionel Richie's "Hello" as the musical theme for love-between-the-poseurs? Priceless.) It was not so absurd, however. Having dealt with campus cops and poseur-testers, that scene where Chang writes up a meaningless warning, and Britta symbolically eats it (but doesn't swallow) is fine satire.

The whole show this week had a satirical side that last week's episode lacked. A half-hour well spent.

Community is a show that, even on an off week, is still extremely hilarious. I wouldn't call last week "off" exactly, but it felt like it was missing something. The group didn't feel as together as it usually does, and I love the show when they work together. This week, we see a lot of what I love most about the show: the characters all bouncing off of each other and giving us some great lines.

The episode mainly revolves around Annie meeting another Annie who is basically her alter ego. They're both ambitious and smart and want to win at everything they do. So when "our Annie" comes up with the idea to start a "model U.N" for the school, her professor, Professor Cligoris (pronounced however you want and played subtly by Martin Starr) agrees to have a "Model U.N off." Basically, both of the Annies will go up against each other.

The competition between the two reminded me of the Debate episode from Season 1... so far, I have to say that the show has been pretty great and not over-doing the humor. The references to stuff are more subtle and the themed episodes (so far) haven't snuck in. Then again, we're only two episodes into the season, and we have a ways to go.

Some highlights off the top of my head: Abed's subtle Fringe references, with the whole "Earth 1 and Earth 2" things (also, I thought it was clever how they made the teams "red" and "blue," which is the colors of the title screen for Fringe), Troy doing a Georgia accent for Georgia, the country, the whole "I farted" scene, with Jeff yelling, "I wasn't trying to do Spartacus!" A lot of great little jokes scattered throughout the episode (but no Dean! I was disappointed that he didn't get at least a couple of scenes).

As for Britta and Chang, they got some screen time today, and besides some excellent Britta moments, the plot as a whole fell flat. But I have to say: Britta did an excellent job here. Much props to Gillian Jacobs for holding it on her own.

I love Jeff/Annie, but this one wasn't up to snuff. Compare S1E02 Britta with her S2E03 (which by productio order was S2E02)counterpart and then with this one ... she went from hypocrite/much-talk-not-much-action to jealous/arrogant to plain pathetic. Chang's flanderisation was even worse ...

Not bad, but not something to write home about. Lame jokes ... you could add some laugh track and would have a Wings or Dharma & Greg episode.