Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

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Synopsis:

Jeff (Joel McHale) organizes a lovely holiday gathering at his apartment but Annie (Alison Brie) secretly invites Professor Cornwallis (recurring guest star Malcolm McDowell), to get in his good graces. When it becomes apparent that Professor Cornwallis intends to give them a bad grade on their joint History paper, the atmosphere quickly deteriorates and the group takes decisive action. Chevy Chase, Gillian Jacobs, Yvette Nicole Brown, Danny Pudi, Donald Glover, Ken Jeong and Jim Rash also star.

Episode 10 of 13

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

So weird watching a Christmas special this time of year.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

what is this, i don't even. it was like a bad dramedy. makes me sad. :(

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

sucked again.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

Awful. Awful. Awful. Not a single laugh.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

I have refrained from the bashing, but I can no longer resist.

*bash* *bash* *bash* *bash* *bash*

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

I kind of liked it. :shrug:

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

I felt like it had some moments too. "I'm pretty sure it's anus."

But did the prof tie himself up, or did Chang? The impression I got was it was the professor, but if that was the case, what exactly was Chang's plan to get them expelled?

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

I think Chang did actually tie him up but didn't know how to tie knots and even though the professor knew he could get out he decided to stay and have fun with the group.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

I liked it.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

I'm absolutely shocked that Community had Malcolm McDowell tied to a chair and didn't take the opportunity to have someone prop his eyes open and show him movies.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

Yeah, this one wasn't that bad.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

i enjoyed the lines about valedictorian and britta. had potential at moments then went nowhere. just feels like they throw ideas against a wall, but don't know how to develop it into a cohesive show.

for me a pale imitation of Community is still better than no Community at all.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

I liked it. The first half I thought was great, started to fall apart towards the end though. I feel that they don't have anything for Abed to do anymore except to be metta. There used to be more to him.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

You don't have to apologize Bandoman! I thought the first few minutes were slow, but it picked up once the professor started playing them against themselves.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

Is this the same apartment Jeff had in past seasons? It seemed different.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

He moved after the fire.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

I kind of liked it, although the dark timeline bit at the end was stupid.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

Ratings went up another tenth of a point, back to last seasons 1.3 range.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

At this point, if it finishes at the 1.3 range I don't see how NBC doesn't renew it.

For everyone who is hating the show, please continue to watch until the end of the season for those of us who are enjoying it enough to get a fifth season.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

:lol: people here who are ripping the show are acting like Dan Harmon wrote all 22 episodes last season.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

There are some epsiodes that for me truly reached a level of rarified air that very few shows reach in the first three season.

But for the most part the show was a little hit and miss for me during Harmon's run. I mostly enjoy the characters and there are typically enough gags in an episode to make me laugh a few times. That's still the case with most episodes this season. I don't know what people expect.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

Wow, why not put words in people's mouths? Sheesh, I don't think anyone's acting that way at all. As I stated last week, I'm open to change, it opens up doors for the writers to expand or explore new avenues. I'm more than willing to give the writers the benefit of the doubt.

However, in 10 episodes thus far only one episode(Economics of Marine Biology) was remotely as good as anything last year. The other nine episodes have been mediocre to just awful. It's a shame because some of the concepts are up there with the "original" Community, they just lacked real jokes and/or had characters acting out of everything the first 3 seasons built.

I don't know who said it a couple episodes back but it feels like the writers have taken a beloved British sitcom and have done their best to Americanize it.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

Not saying that. But there is a lack of overall polish that I attribute to him being gone. These episodes seem like 1st or 2nd drafts that need another pace to fit in better with the older seasons.

He used to do so much (can't remember where I saw it, but one article said he was the lead editor in many episodes, and that affects the timing/pacing of episodes)

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

I know this season has lacked the laughs and alot of episodes are hit or miss. What people find funny is entirely subjective.

What made this show work for the most part was the chemistry with the cast and how they handled the material given to them.

Dan Harmon oversaw a writers room, scripts, and probably wrote a handful of episodes. He wasn't the sole reason why the show and jokes worked.

I've enjoyed this show because of the cast chemistry. Had a very family vibe after the actors got comfortable with their characters. Not necessarily because the show was exceptionally hilarious.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

I don't think anyone has even mentioned Dan Harmon in this thread. I also don't know what his writing credits have to do with anything. He's been credited on what, 4 or 5 episodes over the course of the series? But no one questions the fact that this show is/was his vision. This isn't a Matt Groening situation where he was the public face of the show but not really involved with the day-to-day. I obviously never worked on the show, but by all accounts Harmon was VERY hands on. After seeing what the show has become without him, it's obvious to me what he brought to the table. It wasn't always perfect, but it was a heck of a lot better (or least noticeably different) than what we've been getting this year.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

Wow. Where did you get that from? .... no don't show me.
Most of us here know how it works. sheesh. I silently defend this show. Usually there are only 5 or 6 really good shows and 5 or 6 really bad and the rest are just mediocre. But to have all the bad episodes up front doesn't bode well for its swan song.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

Also, there isn't much room for error with these shortened seasons.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

Unlike many here I've enjoyed this season's episodes. Last night's, however, I just found boring. There were a few funny moments but overall I just couldn't get into it.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

There are a few different things going on here:

1) The new writers do not get Troy at all
2) There is a lot the new writers don't get about Abed

They're the most challenging characters on the show to get right.

3) The new writers seem to be trying too hard to get the right proportion of "zany", which is something IMHO that is not at all necessary -- get the characters on this show right and the rest follows

4) The network screwed them on the timing of the holiday episodes. Watching Halloween and Christmas crap in the spring does not work for me even a little bit.

5) The show is aging. While there was a lot to love about season 3, season 2 was better and more focused. This show wasn't designed as a 7 season show. If Dan Harmon were there, the characters would be right but that wouldn't change some of the challenges this season needed to deal with.

All in all, I think there is no reason creatively to let this show be renewed. I'll be a bit hurt if NBC goes that way. If they do renew it, I'll still watch and hope for a spark of something I saw in this show back when I truly loved it. Now it's pretty much the last show I watch on my DVR each week, which is why I haven't seen this episode yet.

ETA: I think a fitting analogy is that Season 2 of Community was like Newsradio and Season 4 of Community has been like Suddenly Susan. Glance and they may look pretty damned similar. Focus in more, and Newsradio was just clearly superior in every way.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

I finally got a chance to sit down and watch this one. I thought Malcolm McDowell was pretty good and it was great to see him actually used this episode unlike the other one he appeared in. I actually thought this one had potential and I liked where it was going with Cornwallis pitting them all against each other (especially the way he provoked the Britta/Troy/Jeff triangle), but like the majority of this year's episodes it just didn't go anywhere. Whoever said that this felt like a 1st or 2nd draft nailed it. That's how I've felt about this entire season. The ideas are pretty good in some cases but the cohesion and polish aren't there (neither are the laughs, but that's subjective). It's seems to me that's the main ingredient that's missing without Harmon.

In the end, this episode was just a pale imitation of Cooperative Calligraphy aka the bottle episode. That episode is probably in my top 5 and I couldn't stop thinking about it when watching this. Then Troy had to go and actually reference the episode which made it even worse. Note to the writers: don't acknowledge that your episode is a retread if it's not as good as the original. It just makes you look like inferior writers.

Oh, and as someone who has always defended Ken Jeong on this show, I now know what all the haters feel like. Britta can rest easy, because retard Chang is the worst.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

This one was alright. I still haven't been blown away by anything this season.

I did like the two-minute single-shot during the opening.

Didn't the season preview have something to do with "Die Hard in a Restaurant"?

Also, I expected something funnier built around Pierce's absence.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

For those that didn't get the reference, this episode was themed after Hitchcock's Rope. That's why it had the long shots and some unusual shot setups. What's odd is that Rope is known for extensive use of hidden cuts, but I don't recall any in this episode.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

At this point, I say we drop all expectations

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

Eh. I've seen Rope. I always think of it when I see long single shots. But if that's what they were going for, they didn't really go for it. It was in an apartment.

I thought it was more of a nod to any generic play or stage-ey film.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

I really expected people to like this episode more. It was my favorite of the season by far.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

The only ones that have worked, or partially worked, for me, this season were set in the school. Every time they've left that setting this year it just falls apart.

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

I agree. I didn't exactly pick up on the Rope angle either, but I knew there was something off on the cinematography. The tracking shots didn't throw me, because most directors likes to play with those, it was the standard TV shot setups that had odd framing. Shots that would normally be close ups weren't, probably because the director tried to stick with one focal length.

Here's what the AV Club wrote:
The joke Abed made at the end of the cold open about the group waiting quietly for the next plot point was likely a reference to the fact that the episode, like Rope, was shot in "real time".

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

I agree Troy has gotten dumber and Abed has gotten more obscure. Abed has essentially turned into the Batman villain "Film Freak" http://www.comicvine.com/film-freak/4005-27075/

Also, has Britta gotten more bitchy?

Re: Community -- "INTRO TO KNOTS" -- 4/18/13
 

This to me was a really enlightening comment with regards to the qualities Harmon brought to the table. I'm not saying Harmon would have made this a great episode, or even that he would've been able to convince the studio to go all the way with the Rope parody, but the fact that the current staff have this perception of Harmon as an uncompromising force of nature tells me all I need to know. This season has felt half-assed to me from the begining and my feeling was Harmon's drive was/is sorely missed. This comment basically confirms it for me.