Modern Community

My favorite new sitcom, Community, often relies on pop culture references. In fact, they have a character, Abed, who makes them explicitly, relating the characters to stuff he's seen. Lately, they've even had plots built around these references. Recently, Abed tried to experience everything he'd seen in college movies, which included smashing Chevy Chase's guitar (and I'm sure the producers knew the Tim Matheson role in Animal House was meant for Chase). A few weeks ago, the characters took over production of the cafeteria chicket nuggets in an episode based on Goodfellas (sounds strange but worked quite well).

The most recent episode, the highly publicized "Modern Warfare," was especially off-series, in that the entire half hour was given up to a game of paintball, and shot as an acton film set in a post-apocalyptic world. I generally don't like these kind of stunts. If a show is normally good, then do normal episodes. But this really paid off. They didn't miss a cliche, and managed to get in tons of great characters lines.

Community is not the hit Big Bang is, or even Modern Family (or Glee--which they gleefully mocked in the show), but I hope "Modern Warfare" raised its profile. The Office won't be around forever, and maybe Community could be their new tentpole.