Community: at the Moment, the best sitcom I’ve ever seen in the last 10 years

TV these last years has become more popular, due the fact that shows can recreate the cinematography of the movies. Shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead feel more like films than traditional TV dramas every time we see them.

Why? Maybe is the way they’re filmed, the pacing or the overall graphic content that years ago was expected only in a theatrical release,  but we all can agree that when we talk about adaptations, TV is the answer.

But wait… what about the sitcoms? I mean we all know the Sitcom formula… the funny scenarios, the relatable situations and characters and the hit or miss jokes that rely on a laugh track that just shows the lack of confidence that the writers had about their own material.

Don’t get me wrong, I love sitcoms like Seinfeld because the writing is good and the jokes are solid even without the laugh track. But the more is used, the more is abused… and man, there are a lot of them.

But in the most recent years, a new generation of Sitcoms has raised and suddenly, the laugh track started to be associated with lack of talent. Shows like Scrubs and Malcolm in the Middle became cult hits because their speed, their energy and of course good jokes and funny characters.

But If I had to choose my favorite of all these non-laugh track sitcoms that has became successful in the last 5 years, my answer would be: Community

Folks, these are some of the funniest people on the planet... I guarantee you that every one of them is going to make you laugh out loud at least once.

For those who don’t know this show, let me explain: Community is an NBC sitcom that premiered on September 17 of 2009 on NBC and rely on Meta humor and pop culture references as its main resource.

It’s about a sleazy lawyer called Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) which lied about his bachelor degree and need to go back to study to retrieve it. Winger enrolls in a community college called Greendale, managed by an eccentric Dean called Craig Pelton (Jim Rash). Jeff becomes attracted to a political activist woman named Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs), and decides to create a Study Group just to spend time with her.

But Britta, aware of his intentions, decides to invite other classmates to the Group:

Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi): an Arabic-polish student with encyclopedic knowledge about TV and movies and has some problems to interact with people (it’s speculated that has asperger syndrome)

Shirley Bennett (Yvette Nicole Brown): a Christian single mother with entrepreneurship that wants to start a brownie business and it’s sort of like a mother to the other members

Annie Edison (Alison Brie): an obsessive-compulsive Jewish girl who always wants to be the top of their class and has some feelings for Jeff. She’s the youngest of the group

Troy Barnes (Donald Glover): Abed’s best friend and a former high school quarterback that went to the same school as Annie. He and Abed run a fictional show called “Troy and Abed in the morning”

Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase): The oldest member of the group. A millionaire that due his bigotry and arrogance he’s the one who causes more conflicts inside the group

And there's also a non official member called Benjamin Chang (Ken Jeong) who was a teacher in the first season and it's extremely megalomaniac and insane. He's a lot of fun too.

Where do I begin with this show? Not only satirizes TV clichés, movies and aspects of human condition. But also manages to get a pretty solid writing with top notch jokes, excellent storytelling, perfect pacing and an overall epic feeling. Some of these episodes have some of the most over-the-top plots that I’ve ever seen in a live-action Sitcom.

For example, one episode it’s about Jeff playing an epic pool game against his teacher all because he doesn’t want to use the uniform that was required, other episode where the crew get trapped in a spaceship simulator and got parked and the only way to escape is simulating a rocket launch. And other episode involves a war with paintball that I won’t dare to ruin for you explaining it. Let’s just say that there’s loud laughs guaranteed.

They make everything, and I mean everything: animation, puppets, surreal jokes, parodies… and all of them hits bull’s-eye.

All I can do right now is recommended to all of you folks. Because I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that this show is hit after hit after hit. I would even dare to call it the Monty Python of this generation. It is THAT good.

And my friends, that is all I had to say. For now… Stay tuned for a deeper analysis of this wonderful show in the near future. Troy And Abed say goodbye.

Fandoms: 21th Century religion or just overreaction? god knows...

You know, when I started this blog and named it "Atheism and Religion are the same", I never expected to talk about religion. But then I remembered my early days on the internet when I was young and naive, when I used to have faith in humanity.

Until I realized that some people out there are kinda... complicated. Because every time I search for TV shows, movies or anything that resembles graphic entertainment most of the time found something like this:

It's okay... NOW you can let this picture slowly sink in your mind and haunt you in your nightmares

And that's not me seacrching for creepy stuff, pictures like this are highly used in forums, blogs and bla bla bla. My point is: Why people love to embarassing themselves in this way? because this kind of behavior is not very normal according to society standards. But for some reason people still praise this weirdness with the excuse that is funny.

And don't get me wrong, I love bizarre comedy when is done right. But sometimes it is taken too seriously. Resulting in fights about franchises where fans debate about things that doesn't have any relevance about the subject matter.

And that's why I make this question, because internet, for being a place where supposedly nothing is sacred, it certainly has the hability of awaken the most obsessive-compulsive behaviour of our own kind.

Religion exists because we always try to figure out what is the meaning of our existence. Some people think that God will reward those people for being good, tolerate and help the others. But when we let people that has very little connection with the modern world, control our spiritual beliefs through rules and standards with whom disagree, then we lose the way and divided our creeds. All of this leading us to debates that never gets anywhere and are just as pointless as the internet flamewars.

But: It is right to put internet fandoms and religion in the same same category? Yes and No...

While the behavior of both can be similar, you can argue that conflict and disagrrement is part of our human nature, and hence people always going to find excuses to fight, and when that happens they usually prefer to blame the subject of discussion instead of taking the responsability of their acts, but that depends on the person, I know that not all the folks in the world are evil.

And the religion is there not only to give answers, but also to teach us how to be responsible, that's why there are rules like go to church every sunday morning or try to resist our desires to do bad things. It's all about commitment with ourselves, our beliefs and the people we love.

Fandoms works in a different way. The difference is we can choose the things that we want to follow without any big compromise or rules that define the way we praise them. A christian can be fan of video games because it's enertainment, and it's not intended to changes their personal beliefs. But when that person dedicates his entire life to play games, talk about games, dress like video game characters and dedicate full hours to argue with other fans, that's pushing it into religious extremes, and therefore that person is no better that a priest that punish himself for no good reason.

So, what's my final veredict? I said that is important to recognize our flaws, so we can improve ourselves a little bit, and also let the people decide what they want. I know that sounds too obvious, but when the day that we actually follow this advice and start to take responsability of our actions comes, you may realize that for most of mankind it wasn't

And that's all I needed to say. Live long and prosper.