When Every Show Is Special

I think Community's become my favorite show.  By favorite, I mean the one I most look forward to each week.  I'm not entirely sure why. (Well, it helps the Lost and Party Down are no longer on and Breaking Bad is on hiatus.) I go over the cast and don't see any classic characters.  Most great sitcoms have at least one--a Lou Grant, a George Costanza, a Homer Simpson.  But character by character, not a single one stands out. (Maybe they think Abed, but I wouldn't say that.)

Perhaps that's part of the charm.  The show is a true ensemble.  At first it seemed it would be a Cheers-type cast, with Winger and Britta being the central couple--the Sam and Diane--and everyone else revolving around them.  But now it seems all seven characters get their shot.  If they want to play it that way, fine.  It fits the pun in the title.

My main fear is they're going in too much for stunt shows. Their Christmas episode was done in stop-motion animation.  They've had other episodes that were direct parodies of movies.  Some of these worked fine in the first season, such as the Goodfellas episode, and the paintball episode.  But when the occasional stunt becomes the norm, it gets tiresome. (This happened to The Drew Carey Show, where each week they'd feature another outrageous gimmick.) The show works already.  No need to make each episode "special," even if they're easier to promote.



PS  Now that Community is in reruns, I've been able to catch up with some Big Bang Theory. In a recent tag, they had Sheldon run as the Flash while they played "Flight Of The Bumblebee." Come on.  Everyone knows that fits the Green Hornet better.  They're usually sticklers for this sort of detail.