Yep, Community rediscovered its roots and returned to what it does best: genre parody.
Awesome.
An episode that can make me actually like Pierce deserves a 10. I thought that was impossible.
Absolute stitches. So many times.
The only thing I regret about watching Cheers is not doing it sooner. The reruns on TV when I was a kid were great, but I forgot about it for years until getting around to searching and finding out it was available on Amazon Prime Video.
Few episodes of WKRP show off the true depth of the actors' skills like this. They aren't just comics and straight men. Every member of the cast (with the possible exception of Jennifer, for some reason) gets an opportunity here to really emote, beyond the usual humorous banter that fills most episodes of this sitcom. It's really well done.
No 23-minute anime has ever felt that short before. I was just dipping a toe in at the start, and then all of a sudden it was the midpoint. What felt like two minutes later, the credits were rolling. This is going somewhere—I can feel it.
I say the only flaw is Robert Picardo's screen time being too short. :ok_hand:
This entire episode's execution is nothing short of perfect.
Might have seen it before, but even if I did, it was still 110% fresh this time.
OK, so the basic premise isn't genius, but would you just look at that execution though?! Shelley Long couldn't have done better.
And Carla's "B" story? *chef's kiss*
This might be the strongest episode of season 2, on the basis of its thesis. The editing and structure weren't as strong as I hoped they would be, but the point is still there—and still relevant even today, nearly 15 years later.
Where's Ritchie for this whole episode? I get that it would have been much harder to write this episode with him included in all the many scenes at the Petries' home, but it's very strange that he didn't appear at all. Maybe Larry Mathews was busy with school? Or maybe there would have been too much confusion with two Larrys (one boy, one dog) on the set. Yeah, that has to be it…!
Spotted a fold-out chair/step-stool combo in the corner of the Petries' kitchen in one shot, and I'm pretty sure it's the exact same model my family has (though not necessarily in the same pastel yellow color) as a result of moving into such an old house (built in the 1940s).
Wow, I haven't laughed so hard at this show since last season. Oh wait…
Niles bumped the phone in Maxwell's office off the hook before leaving with Cece? That's odd. (It's also back in place when seen later from another camera angle.)
That Lion King reference was super topical, considering the film had been out less than three months when this episode aired.
I also like the microphone on Brighton's desk. Wonder what it's for… or maybe it's a radio, like the one my dad got me a while back.
One of the best genre parodies I have ever seen. This mock soap opera has everything!
It's true what they say about Sir Patrick: Whatever you give him, he'll make it better.
Few documentaries make me want to see the cut footage, but in this case I just know there had to be a huge amount of great leftover material that simply wouldn't fit in the allotted time.
The remaining three episodes have a new benchmark to meet, and it's pretty high indeed.
In case anyone else thought that class system cartoon they used briefly was interesting, here's the full version: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pyramid_of_Capitalist_System.png
Oh look, it's Phill Lewis before he was Mr. Moseby. (Yes, I know he was already in a previous Lizzie McGuire episode, 1x15. I just don't remember if I called it out, so here we are.)
How big is the McGuires' back yard? Better question: How many students are in this school?
"If we were gonna get busted by now, we would have." Kate, do you know what you actually just said? Nothing. And it doesn't mean you're safe going forward—you didn't address the future, only the past. Great dialogue!
I can't believe they dropped the series finale on Christmas Day 2012. For many fans who watched this show as it aired, that had to be a real proper bittersweet moment.
Well now what am I supposed to watch? No other show I know of can fill this slot in my rotation.
"For you, though, swallowing's not really a problem, now, is it?" Wow, lewd.
The Last Ship's President Michener (Mark Moses) appeared in a cameo here. That was fun.
This was the best episode of the season so far. Plum great. So much wonderful character work; masterful maintenance of tension throughout.
Maybe it's the omission of Eliot's bullshit that makes the show so much better. Ironic that leaving out the title character would improve it so.
I swear, NOP actually meme-subbed in this one. There was a preview sequence of some kind in the middle where the subs were just numbers counting up, 1 to 9, and then the last one was 9001… Oh, please. (And as if the meme wasn't enough, they didn't translate the on-screen text. Lol.)
But wow, this might be the actual best episode of this show.
Well, this show came out swinging for season five, huh? This is easily one of the top three episodes so far.
Full of predictable tropes, but I thought it was very well executed.
Latin for the Novice, by Joseph Mallozzi, Ph.D.
I am dying of laughter over here! :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
Don't get the joke? Joseph Mallozzi was a writer and producer for this show, who went on to create Dark Matter, another favorite sci-fi series of mine. He's also very active in the Reddit communities for both of those shows.
Oof, that coffee mug continuity error around 12 minutes… Thing almost did a 180 in the space of a cut. :joy_cat:
Were former Star Trek franchise actors so costly that they couldn't afford to have Nana Visitor's character stay at the party a bit longer? Or did they blow that part of the budget on Harve Presnell, even though he was only in one episode of Voyager? :rofl:
Sometimes I wonder if Kotoko really deserves Kin-chan's friendship, considering how little attention he gets. :joy: Kin-chan is so great!
Oh hey, people finally have cell phones. Except Naoki, because of course he doesn't.
Also: If it's important to the story that Kotoko needs to have a light kept on at night, make sure there aren't any other lights that could serve the purpose, eh? Naoki didn't turn off the light behind the door to the bathroom, which just so happens to be mostly made of glass, so from a practical standpoint Kotoko shouldn't need to bother him about turning on a small light in the main room. (Yes, I know it's probably Kotoko deflecting, and the real reason is she doesn't want to be in a pitch black room alone with him. Still.)
Also also: Being in the same bed as a girl but not trying to do anything is the bare minimum standard. Honestly, shoujo tropes… This one's maybe unfair for me to point out given where the rest of that scene's dialogue goes, but still.
I considered docking this episode a point for the awful editing in that last scene. (Technically awful—functionally and creatively it was just fine.) But the story is just so well put together in this one, I couldn't do it.
Craig looked like a ventriloquist at the end, though.
Amusing that the ensemble plays more music in this episode than in the previous one, when they were at nationals.
This "official" pilot illustrates very well why a series rework was necessary. While the unaired "Head of the Family" pilot was good enough, it didn't have a whole lot of flair. I'm guessing that Carl Reiner, as a career television writer, didn't have a whole lot of acting experience to draw on, and it yielded a passable but overall underwhelming performance in "Head of the Family".
Bringing Dick Van Dyke on definitely gave the series a huge boost. Van Dyke is well known for his musical and comedic talents. Much of his reputation stems from this show, and it is well deserved. He had me laughing throughout the entire episode, and it's hard to overstate how effortless he makes everything look. He is a truly great performer.
Does the driver's ed class have more than one student car? Because Ron crashed one and we saw parts of it rolling across the screen… I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be driveable after that.
I wonder where Dr. Freeman went to school. MIT, perhaps? #HL3 #MaybeSomeday
This is near perfect form for the series. Keep the references coming, and don't let up on the dry wit!
That thing about the human body exploding in the vacuum of space? Total myth. Please do better, Disney.
Whatever "Beth Edelstein"'s real last name is, that's definitely not what Lalaine said on camera. Captions for this one were really… off.
