Community Gets an A

Whether or not you like NBC’s new sitcom Community hinges largely on one thing, namely how you feel about star Joel McHale. If you’re a fan of his smarmy antics on E!'s The Soup (I definitely drink that Kool-Aid), then you’re predisposed to enjoy this single-camera comedy awash in sarcasm. If, however, McHale’s mixture of arrogance and self-deprecation irks you, then this is probably not the show for you.

McHale plays Jeff Winger, an arrogant (though not quite self-deprecating) lawyer forced to go back to school after his degree is revoked. Jeff chooses to attend Greendale Community College, or as he calls it, a “school-shaped toilet.” It doesn’t take long for Jeff to happen upon Britta (Gillian Jacobs), a fellow student who, because of Jeff’s lies about being well-versed in Spanish, agrees to a study session with him. By the time that session comes around, the room is occupied by others looking to take advantage of Jeff’s alleged knowledge.

And so we have our ragtag bunch of characters, including the wonderfully deadpan Chevy Chase as Pierce, a moist towelette kingpin who is bad with names and thinks a “sausagefest” is a good thing; Troy (Donald Glover), stuck in a high school mentality to the point where he still wears his varsity jacket everywhere he goes; and Abed (Danny Pudi), a manic personality who communicates by using quotes and lessons learned from movies and TV shows.

Community is created by Dan Harmon (The Sarah Silverman Program) and has the duo of Joe and Anthony Russo (Arrested Development) among its exec producers, so it’s no surprise that the show is aggressively funny and that most of the jokes come at someone else’s expense. Like Arrested, it’s the kind of comedy that requires constant attention lest you miss the jokes; there’s no easy setup-setup-punchline approach here. The show is clearly influenced by the classic films of the late John Hughes, to whom the pilot was dedicated, and McHale is Judd Nelson, Matthew Broderick, and Steve Martin all rolled up in one big ball of sass.

Who knows if this is the kind of show that will be able to sustain itself for seasons on end. (Community college is usually a two-year program, but this group could definitely stretch things beyond that.) What I do know is that after last fall, which produced only one truly funny new sitcom (the unfortunately cancelled Worst Week, whose exec producers are also on staff here), Community is a welcome addition to the TV community.