My Favourite Stories - Part 9: Community

Normally I’m not the biggest fan of self-contained episodic series. I find the quality over time can fluctuate pretty considerably, and that many shows tend to lack an overall cohesiveness. But that is not the case even slightly with Dan Harmon’s Community.

I’ll admit forthrightly that my enjoyment of Community comes from ignoring the interior drama that went on during the production and the steep decline in quality after season three which followed. Nevertheless, I think it speaks to just how good the first three seasons were that they were able to make up for it.

What stands out to me in this show is the real beauty behind Dan Harmon’s writing. His structure for each episode follows a model similar to Campbell’s ‘Hero’s Journey’, in order to create a self-contained plot that wraps up neatly with each episode and allows itself to repeat with ease.

Combine this with snappy, off-the-cuff dialogue good enough to rival a Sorkin film and the extraordinary performance from the cast, and you get amazing moments like this. 

As I mentioned in a previous post, Community was good enough to convince me to write The Undeclared, my own comedy series based on pretty much the exact same premise of seven eclectic postsecondary students coming together and finding kinship despite their differences. And sure, I’m borrowing pretty flagrantly from Dan Harmon here, but would you judge a painter for saying their work was modelled after Van Gogh? Would you judge a musician for writing a song the way Beethoven did? I would, because it sounds kinda pretentious, but my point stands.

But the real way I know that this show belongs in my top twelve is because I almost never consume the same story twice. If I’ve seen it before, there is a very small likelihood that I’ll see it again. In spite of this fact, I’ve rewatched Community three times. It begs to be digested over and over.