Kat with a K

TV Review: Community 1.1: "Pilot"

I'm not much of a sitcom fan: until this year, the only one I watched regularly was How I Met Your Mother, and I've never been able to get into The Office. But I decided to try Community because a) I'll try almost anything at first, in case it ends up being good, because I hate starting a show in the middle and b) I have a weird sort of affinity for community colleges. My dad has been a community college administrator for pretty much my whole life, and I worked at his college one summer, and then worked at a different community college for a while several years ago. So anyway, I like them.

This pilot was certainly watchable, which is a bigger deal than it sounds - so much TV comedy these days revolves around a sort of "uncomfortable" humor that I just don't like watching. But this was actually funny. I know everyone's excited about Joel McHale and Chevy Chase, but I barely know who either of them are; instead, I was excited to see John Oliver (from The Daily Show) and Patricia Belcher (from Bones). The writing was very self-aware - lots of meta pop culture jokes - but not in an annoying way. A Breakfast Club theme ran throughout, and the episode was dedicated to John Hughes, which was a nice touch.

My favorite line of the episode: "I discovered at a very early age that if I talked long enough I can make anything right or wrong, so either I'm God or truth is relative - and in either case, boo-ya!"

Still not sure about this one, but I'll give it a few weeks and see where it goes.

Grade: B-