Community

If this had ended after three seasons, I'd have given it 10 and labelled it my favorite TV comedy of all time. As is, despite one jarring off season and the last two years leaking cast members, I deeply, passionately love those first three. From other timelines to paintball to Christmas musicals to bottle episodes to meta dinners to zombies to pillow forts to 8-bit videogames to MeowMeowBeenz to D&D and Troy & Abed, this is a creative, ambitious masterpiece of the sitcom format. Cool cool cool.

For me this is easily one of the best sitcoms of all time. Much like in "The Office" all of the characters work extremely well together, even Chevy Chase (who created a giant shit show behind the scenes) The background characters are also some of the most endearing and memorable of any show, (Leonard, Star-Burns, Fat Neil, Garrett) reminiscent of Scrubs. Dan Harmon's writing is top notch here as the jokes fly by you a mile a minute. Even the "gas leak" season was great. Paintball anyone?

There's a lot to like about 'Community' despite its fairly wild fluctuations in quality. When it hits its highs they they are very high indeed. It suffers in later seasons with the loss of Chevy and Glover and a stretch for ideas.

Season 2 of Community is probably the best single season of any sitcom I've ever seen. I've never seen another show that has so consistently provided laughs and intelligent story-writing than when Community was at its best. But even at it's worst, with the creator being kicked out off his own team due to creative differences and a hemmorhaging of cast members, it was still smart, witty and a very solid comedy, even if never did quite recapture the glory of its past.

A personal favorite of mine. It has some amazing genre tribute-centric episodes, and I find Danny Pudi hilarious as Abed.

(S1) I don't get it. None of the characters are likable (except Abed) or funny. The way Shirley talks is a terrible and irritating choice. Why is the amount of pop culture references made, the measure of quality with modern sitcoms? Does it make people feel smart to remember movies they've seen? Does it make people feel connected that a show they grew up with is being mentioned/parodied? I just watch sitcoms to laugh, and I never did. It passes the time, like staring at a fluorescent light.

Community is the epitome of a network sitcom, not because it is flawless (it very much isn't), but because it treats its audience with respect, inviting them to join in on an exploration of geekdom. The characters may be stereotypes but they represent parts of Harmon's psyche and are not immune to growth. The jokes are clever, the emotional moments hit home and it's as self-aware as it is innovative.

This is by far my favorite tv show. Community has some of the best comedic and relative writing I've seen ever. I still pick up on new things to this day. I can go through this series pretty much every year and still laugh my ass off. I applaud Dan Harmon for this alone because even though the series kind of fell off after season 3, I love every character and them alone carried the show through its rough times. This show deserved more success than it got.

There are some weak seasons in this run that drag the score down, but the high points should be defended to the death as some of the most genuinely smart and funny and sweet moments on television. Danny Pudi should have won piles of awards for his performance.

The hilarious one episode where Abed morphes into different shades of the enigma that is the actor Nicolas Cage is well worth the entire often very funny, often rather sloppy, uneven, mindboggling, puzzling 6 seasons.