But were they? Were they really?
Thongsy
1902
I gave up halfway on this episode. This season really is hit or miss with a lot more miss and hits just being bloop singles.
Agreed. It is still better than most of the crap on TV, but I feel that without Dan Harmon at the helm, it is just a shadow of its former self. My expectations might have been too high, but the humor and wit just don’t seem quite as sharp as seasons past.
I agree, it was a shame that the song lyrics were rather weak.
Funny would have been enough.
This was the last episode they filmed, but obviously not the last episode of the season. When news of Chase leaving came out, I think I remember them saying he was gone for the last two. So maybe one more Pierceless episode somewhere in here, but he’s still around in the episodes they filmed earlier.
That was pretty bad.
I think it’s clear that they tried to do too much, and everything suffered as a results. There were 2 big concepts (puppets, musical), and several smaller ones (secrets, balloon, drug trip) in the show, and there probably should have been only one of each. They didn’t even write a joke for the stinger at the end, they just did out-takes, which is horrible. Also, some of the secrets (Troy’s especially) didn’t even work especially well as character moments, like the writers didn’t really understand what makes each character tick.
I can’t help but think that Harmon would have told them to edit and make one element really work instead of getting all over the place like this. One of the interviews with the new writers described how he pitched episodes that were just parody, to show the writers room he “got it”, but that Harmon kept pulling him back because the concepts needed something more than just being wacky. This episode failed to be something more.
The lyrics were pretty bad, but the terrible (not even trying) singing didn’t help. Shirley and Annie were pretty good, but everybody else was terrible.
There were a few jokes I liked (I’m a sucker for a good omni - everybody talking at once), but nothing laugh out loud.
I still liked it more than the Changier half of season 3.
Editer
1910
Pretty sure the outtakes at the end were because it was the last episode (filmed) of the season, and likely of the series.
Amen. The Chang takeover was the Community equivalent of Arrested Development’s “Little Britain” storyline.
Double Amen, and good comparison.
Honestly, I don’t know if I would realize Harmon left the show if I didn’t read the internet. This season has some good episodes and some less good episodes, but that’s always been the case. Maybe my memory is just terrible, and if I watched the first three seasons again a shift something—quality, tone, characterization—would be more obvious, but for now it’s still a pretty great show that’s pretty ambitious for a sitcom, with occasionally totally amazing results, and occasionally puppets singing.
Jason Alexander’s lost quite a bit of weight (from his appearances on Curb Your Enthusiasm)! I didn’t even recognize him till the third take.
Gendal
1913
Not to mention the whole hair piece.
Well, that too, of course.
Wow, I totally missed that was him.
I couldn’t tell if it was actually him, or a bad lookalike.
Unless they dubbed in his voice, that was him–he’s done musicals before.
I recognized him immediately, but to be fair until this thread didn’t know he’d gained a lot of wait nor ever seen Curb Your Enthusiasm, so to me he looked fairly unchanged (except the hair) from his Seinfeld days.
JonRowe
1919
I really liked the episode. It felt like everyone had a lot of fun doing it, and it showed. Also, puppets make me laugh, and just seeing Chang’s puppet made me laugh out loud.
Just sat through the puppet episode. Thumbs down.
Sure, the Troy and Abed bingo was amusing, and there were some great throwaway lines like “You can’t even see the landing strip from here, or any of the other nudie bars”, and the Jeff/Dean stuff was the usual awkward funny, but overall the entire concept fell flat and felt poorly executed. The 8-bit episode worked because it both played with the characters as we know them AND had tons of subtle references for folks who knew what 8-bit videogames were like. Had the puppet episode done the same thing, stay true to the characters while at the same time tossing in tons of references to Sesame Street and Electric Company style shows, it would have worked better. Unfortunately the only references seemed to be the singing (which was not well written) and the backdrops. Switching back to the real world every few minutes was jarring as well. If you’re going to go with a medium, stick with it through most of the episode. Overall I agree with CLWheeljack, that this could have been a much better episode if Harmon had been around to lend it focus and direction.
