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Friday, February 4, 2011

Expectations and The Coolest Dungeons & Dragons Game Ever Played

I've decided that I couldn't let that 30 Rock crack stand as my only post for today. So let's talk about this week's episode of my second favorite show (only to White Collar), and favorite comedy without reservation, Community.

This week's episode is being hailed by critics much more reputable than I as the best episode since, and perhaps including, the paintball episode of season 1. Having recently joined Twitter and following several television critics and as many members of the Community cast and writing staff that I could find, I had been receiving a lot of images and early reviews for this episode. The result was that this week's Dungeons & Dragons episode was my most anticipated episode of Community since the Apollo 13 homage.

Unfortunately, that episode had taught me a lesson: great expectations can be the downfall of a good episode. When the Apollo 13 episode aired, I was sorely disappointed. Don't get me wrong, the episode was funny, and the theme was well integrated, but I still didn't feel that I had gotten what I expected from the episode. Looking back though, I couldn't think of a single thing that had been "wrong" with the episode, that I would have changed or done away with to make it better. That's saying something, because I'm opinionated and vocal about changes that could/should have been made to "bad" episodes. This left me forced to conclude that the only real problem with the episode was that I had expected too much from it, and it just couldn't possibly live up to all the hype. So as I felt my expectations starting to rise this week, I told myself that the D&D episode wasn't likely to be very good, that it probably would involve cheap cut scenes to the characters in costume that totally would defeat the point of a good D&D game (alright, I admit it, I used to play), and whatever else I could think of to tell myself that would lower my expectations. And it worked.

Then, at around 5:30 pm Pacific Time last night I was surfing the internet and chatting with friends on Facebook when the Twitter posts started flying. It seemed like the D&D episode was living up to its hype on the East Coast. I got excited again, despite my best efforts, and decided to let myself stay that way based on current reactions. Basically I figured that an episode that was anything less than spectacular would be getting at least a few negative reviews mixed in with the good ones.

Unfortunately, I screwed up. You all could probably tell where this story was going from the beginning when you started reading, so I'll save you the additional explanation of my viewing experience. Suffice to say that I went to bed last night disappointed. Again, that is not to say that I hadn't enjoyed the episode well enough. I did. I found it truly spectacular that the writers had managed to lock the study group in their little room once more and tell a fantastical story without additional costumes. Some of the moments, like when Pierce stood over Abed-as-Draconis, forcing him to cry out Pierce's mastery to the study group, were inspired and quite comical. Yet, overall, I felt that the episode just hadn't met the bar I had set. Of course, I realized once again that this was just the result of an insanely high bar that I had set in advance.

But. I did something with last night's episode that I hadn't done with the Apollo 13 episode. I watched it again, this time with my brother (another avid fan who had been forced to miss last night's episode due to some sort of academic conflict that I didn't care enough about to remember), and had a blast. Listening to his genuine reactions to the episode as we watched, I was able to see the show again through his fresh eyes. The comedy seemed fresher and the over the top dramatics seemed even more contrived (in the good way that only Community has mastered). It was wonderful, and I finally understand what the reviews last night were saying.

This week's D&D episode of Community may not have topped the action epic of the Paintball episode, but it comes close, and it makes me want to rewatch the Apollo episode to give Dan Harmon and the writers the second chance that they have earned time and time again.

Oh yeah. Almost forgot.

Excelsior!

1 comment:

  1. If you didn't think that episode was hilarious you just haven't played enough DnD

    ReplyDelete

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