REVIEW: COMMUNITY “DIGITAL ESTATE PLANNING”

Pierce fights for his inheritance after being summoned to Hawthorne Enterprises by his deceased father’s right-hand man. The study group tag along to offer their support and soon get involved in the battle.

Spoilers Below

Community is “a fucking mediocre sitcom,” that is “getting worse and worse,” according to Chevy Chase, one of the stars of the NBC series.

Well hold on there, Landshark. Just because the show may not be your cup of tea – or the fact that no one is watching it – is no reason to bash it mid-season. Especially after – lo and behold! – it was renewed for another. Besides, Community is still in its absolute prime, cranking out episode after episode, all of them hilarious and brilliant. This season has produced such memorable episodes like “Remedial Chaos Theory,” featuring the dice-throwing alternate-timeline plot, or Dean Pelton and Jeff singing a karaoke rendition of “Kiss from a Rose” in matching outfits in “Studies in Modern Movement”.

Now we have “Digital Estate Planning,” an episode almost-exclusively featuring the characters as avatars of themselves in an 8-bit world. 8-bit of course being the processor contained in Nintendo, as in the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Not the Wii, not the Game Cube, not N64, not even Super Nintendo – no, I mean the original Nintendo. If you still don’t know what I’m talking about (hint: if you can’t remember Playstation’s release in 1995) then you’re too young. Kindly shoot yourself.

With a gun that looks like this:

And even then, I’m assuming that if you can’t remember Playstation’s release, or at the very least 64’s, then you wouldn’t have played the 16-bit Super Nintendo and/or Sega Genesis, and thus wouldn’t even know of 8-bit daddy Nintendo. That’s two generations of gaming systems, so c’mon, is it too much to expect you to have met at least one your grandparents?

But I digress, and in doing so I say for an episode that was as anticipated – an 8-bit version of the normal show – I was surprised how enthralled I ended up being.

On the surface it’s a simple premise: Pierce (Chevy Chase) must compete – along with the rest of the gang – in a video game, with the prize being Pierce’s recently-deceased father’s inheritance. Hey, I said it was simple, not realistic.

In the end though, it ended up being one of the most well-rounded episodes of the season, featuring the normal ingredients (Troy’s emotional immaturity, Britta’s liberalism, Jeff’s vanity, Annie and Shirley’s pseudo-innocence, and Abed’s borderline-frightening nerdiness) plus a love interest (female, albeit 8-bit) for Abed, and even a heartfelt moment for Pierce, in addition to his usual inappropriateness.

But the way I see it, this episode worked for three reasons:

First, if you are in the aforementioned category and can appreciate the 8-bit reference (I was known in my even more immature days to rock some Super Mario Bros., Battletoads, and Bubble Bobble), you’ll appreciate the non-acid-induced (at least I assume not) flashbacks. The sights and sounds should provide you with a nostalgic joy that might even cause you to turn to your buddy and say, “Nah dude, I just got some smoke in my eyes.”

The second reason this episode worked is the fact that the cast, specifically their voices, are just made for cartoons. There are seven, and each is well-developed, recognizable, and diverse enough to hold their own. And when I say ‘diverse’ I’m not talking about race. Alright, I am, but not totally about race. They just happen to be unique enough to accurately represent themselves, even in 8-bit 2D.

And finally, the writing for Community is. just. funny. Damn what Chevy says, because three seasons and 69 (hehe, 69) episodes in, and it continues to live up to the standard set by the best episodes. I’m looking at you, yearly paintball specials.

So although the writing in itself could propel this episode to two-thumb-up status, I have just one bone to pick. And I’m only doing this because hopefully someone is reading this article and, like an elderly man, sometimes my complaints just need to be heard. I think Community is better off without all the emotion, and without a plot that continues from episode to episode. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some emotionless robot, I even semi-praised the heartfelt qualities of this particular installment earlier. I just think the show is generally better without a larger meaning or all the somewhat-serious moments. I don’t mean every week has to be a bottle episode where only the main cast is used either; just no long, drawn-out serial story here where the characters deal with real issues and have realizations and other life-changing events. Community is not that type of show, and the tendency to go towards episodes of this type is exactly what is killing Family Guy right now. But aside from this bit (and it was just at the end of this episode) this would definitely be a two-thumbs-up episode. A few extra jokes in the newly-created voids are all the episode needs.

Oh, and how about some fucking Señior Chang too? That dude slays me.