By Matt Ern
Columnist
The Following – The Fall
Grade: F
Keeping with this shows tradition of increasing implausibility, Joes group of followers also includes plants in the FBI. Im confounded and impressed by the shows commitment to getting worse. Forget the ludicrous number of people working for Joe, as if that wasnt bad enough were now supposed to believe he has numerous moles in multiple law enforcement agencies?
Something resembling another reveal this week is that Charlie was Claires follower, appointed by Joe to monitor her life while he was in prison. This of course begs the questions: did other people have their own followers tailing them? Is anyone keeping track of the myriad of serial killers working for Joe?
I didnt realize until I sat down to write this that there are a crazy amount of characters on this show, and most of them are doing notable things even though theyre incredibly underdeveloped and one-dimensional. I have no idea what the names are of about 75% of the characters because they keep getting introduced and brutally murdered almost instantly.
It seems every time the plot needs to move forward a new character is just introduced to advance things. But the sheer number of plot-device characters means none of them have any depth, theres no point in getting attached to them because theyll either be dead soon or rendered irrelevant. Having lots of characters isnt a fault in and of itself, but when theyre all instantly forgettable, well thats when you might consider parsing things down. If you were on the internet at all last week you were probably inundated with news of the impending 30 Rock finale. Luckily this review isnt showing up in print until a week after the episode aired, so just when you thought you didnt have to hear any more about the show, I can subject you to a few more hundred words about it.
Community – Conventions…
Grade: B-
Im really torn by this episode. On one hand, I enjoyed it a fair amount, but Im also very sensitive to the fact that this new season of Community is hyper aware that its Community. The writers are doing things that they know fans of the show should love, like set an episode at an Inspector Spacetime Convention, but only because they seem to think thats what everyone expects from the show. Its almost like someone told the writers a loose synopsis of Community as a show with a lot of madcap adventures and meta commentary that lampoons pop-culture and they tried to recreate that without actually watching the show.
I cant deny that I enjoyed the convention to some extent, but Im also aware that it was given to me for kind of bogus reasons. Id rather be surprised by a show, which is something the old Community was able to do every week. Maybe thats a really convoluted reason for disliking the episode, but the whole conceit felt really cheap and forced to me.
Its a slippery slope to start wondering, Would Dan Harmon have written an episode like that? because in the end it really doesnt matter, the show is what the show is. But I also dont think we ever would have gotten an Inspector Spacetime Convention episode with him at the helm. And maybe I wouldnt care so much about the strange premise if everything else worked great, but the characters continue to revert to the one-note, season 1 versions of themselves. Its frustrating to see two years of great character development disappear overnight.
The conflict between Troy and Abed didnt feel nearly as real as what they went through last season. The pillow-fort episodes and Evil Abed storyline really did a much better job of putting their friendship through the wringer than Abed falling for a super-fan from England. There were no stakes to the conflict because obviously Abed wasnt going to move away. And Annies fantasy marriage to Jeff also felt very out of place considering how much her character has grown. None of it really jived with where the show left off last.