rewatch discussion post 001: pilot

[marycuntrarian]

There are 8 of us so far, EIGHT! :D To celebrate I thought I'd start a weekly series rewatch. Every Monday (sorry this is a bit late!) I'll make a post for us to discuss an episode, going in order. And I suppose if we get to the end we'll just start over!

You can also jump into any of the past posts at any time to talk about the show, feel free to rewatch in whatever order you like once more posts are up!



Community Rewatch Discussion Post
1.01 "Pilot", written by Dan Harmon, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo.

Notes:
- Dan Harmon actually went to community college to connect with his then girlfriend. They were supposed to take a Spanish class together to get closer, but he ended up becoming close with the study group he joined. "...I was in this group with these knuckleheads and I started really liking them," he explained, "even though they had nothing to do with the film industry and I had nothing to gain from them and nothing to offer them." He wrote the role of Jeff based mainly on himself.

- Metacritic gives the show a score of 69 out of 100, based on 23 reviews. (Nice!)

Study Questions

1. How did you feel about the pilot on rewatch? Do you feel it was a good pilot in that it established the world and characters well?
2. What were some of your favorite lines/bits from this episode?
3. Is there a character you love now that you didn't appreciate in earlier episodes?
4. Do you think it's a "classic tv pilot"?
5. Do you think Jeff secretly wanted to have a found family so bad he lied about wanting to be with Britta?
6. Any other thoughts?

Extra Credit

• Reply with any fanworks you made for this episode!

Comments

[rionaleonhart]

I'm not in a position to rewatch the pilot right now, so I'll just talk about it a little from memory rather than answering the study questions in detail, but it's a really strong pilot, I think! Swiftly establishes the show's concept and character motivations, and it's very funny right off the bat. It often takes me a while to get into a new show, but I liked Community pretty much immediately.

A couple of memorable parts of the pilot, off the top of my head:

- It absolutely cracked me up when Jeff texted 'Say you have to pee, I need to talk to you' to Abed, and Abed just read it out at the table. On my first watch, that was when I realised Community was definitely working for me as a comedy.

- I'm not generally a big Pierce fan - having a character around whose thing is 'making offensive jokes' does often just feel like, well, an excuse to make offensive jokes - but 'If it's so serious, why don't they call it meningitis?' did make me laugh.

I don't personally think Jeff was angling for a found family from the start; I think his found family took him completely by surprise, and I'm delighted that it did!

[marycuntrarian]

Pierce is such a weird one for me because I spend most of the series hating him and then every now and then he'd be earnest for five seconds and make me like him a little. lol But generally I was happy to see him go and hate Chevy Chase.

[yourlibrarian]

Yeah, I won't be able to rewatch either as I don't have Peacock right now and am barreling through watchlists on some other streamers. But that's interesting to know about how Harmon came up with the show concept.

Regarding the issue of Jeff and Britta, I don't think so. I think that the pilot setup was much more of a standard and predictable format than the show became as the season went on. So the idea that Britta led him to the study group makes sense in both a Doylist and Watsonian sense.

[marycuntrarian]

I honestly was just trying to think of an interesting question to ask lmao But yeah, I agree with you! His bad habits led him to something good.

[yourlibrarian]

Oh but it's such a good question! I find that men often tend to default to "it was because of a girl" or "to meet women" as an excuse for why they do things. On the one hand I daresay it's true a lot of the time, but I also think they find it a socially acceptable way to explain what could be considered unmasculine impulses or interests.

So the idea that "following the blonde" was chosen to explain Jeff's interest in the study group seems like a good way to sell the premise to the network. At the same time as the show goes on it's clear that Jeff really was interested in Britta in more than just a passing way.