Review: Community ‘Advanced Documentary Filmmaking’ – Hook, Line, And Winger

Before watching ‘Advanced Documentary Filmmaking’, I was worried. Bringing back the ‘documentary’ format to tell a story about Changnesia didn’t sound like a task this new version of Community would handle with much grace. Surprisingly, it does – but it does so without really being a comedy. Worst of all, it completely undermines the best part of the episode with the ending tag, undoing any of the character progress made in the 20 minutes preceding it.

The ‘funny’ issue is the one that sticks out the most: there isn’t a lot of attempts to make any jokes we haven’t heard a million times on Community already. Britta’s terrible with a camera, Troy doesn’t understand much, and Chang is the most random human being on the planet. These are all wells the show’s gone to many times in the past, and usually, with a lot more creativity (Britta in the Law and Order episode last season, for example, or in season one with her ‘discount’ cell phone). With every scene relying on old callback jokes, it saps a lot of the energy out of the episode, and there just isn’t much life to many of the scenes.

There are a few small exceptions – everybody wanting to shoot Jeff again while he ignores them and storms out was funny, and the best scenes of the episode come when Jeff tries to put Chang/Kevin’s lies on trial and loses. In an earlier scene, Shirley points out to him that when he got to Greendale, he was a sleazy lawyer who was given a second chance, a fresh start to his adult life. All Kevin was asking for was the same thing (and Deanologist Dean Pelton wanted to get some extra cash for the school). Unfortunately, the scenes before it are mostly devoid of humor (some parts going as far as to copy entire scenes from previous episodes; both the buddy cop tropes and oddball on-the-spot interrogations have been done a number of times before, and there just isn’t a lot of humor to be had with Troy disagreeing with everything, and calling his partner ‘Partner’.

But that’s not the worst of it – the tag erases the best moments of the episode in one fell swoop: turns out Jeff was right, and Evil Chang still lives, in what I’d presume would be under the control of good old Dean Spreck from City College, whose bound to make an appearance at some point this season (shit, they brought back the character of Chang’s ex-wife, why not?). Before that, the episode was about Jeff learning a lesson about second chances, and finally moving past all of the Evil Chang out to get the group and Greendale material that’s been worn out after the last season and a half. Instead, the show takes a massive step backwards, not only bringing back the dreaded, mentally twisted and insane Chang, but retroactively justifies Jeff’s behavior, deeming the entire point of the episode moot.

Overall, ‘Advanced Documentary Filmmaking’ is just another wholly average episode of television: and it might be the first time I’ve ever watched a Community episode and not laughed out loud at something once. Everyone just looks bored, whether it’s Troy half-heartedly acting confused at points, or Pierce doing whatever non group-related wacky thing he’s up to this week (I’ll admit there are legitimate reasons for this, but it’s still noticeable). An episode that had some promise, until that promise was rendered pointless by the ending, leaving it a collection of rehashed jokes told in a rehashed format.

Grade: C

Other thoughts/observations:

– Jeff: “He’s not smart enough to play dumb all the time.”

– also Jeff: “I was more Chang than Chang at his Changiest.”

– bit of a disturbing reference by Abed to Grizzly Man when he elects to film his reaction to the footage, rather than show it.