Apologies for a late review, I’ve been taking a scuba class… but I’m back now and ready to tell you what to think about TV! This episode was the Christmas special and seeing as we had a relatively normal episode last week, it’s time for something on the ridiculous side, boy does Community ever deliver. Claymation. Technically it wasn’t claymation. According to Abed they are silicon based sculpts, with foam rubber bodies articulated with ball joints.
Each character is rendered as Claymation to help Abed in his journey to the North Pole to discover the meaning of Christmas. This episode had great production value and was fairly funny. I particularly liked seeing Senior Chang as a snow man, and a well aimed jab at Lost. Despite this story being depicted in animation it could have been show as the standard live action format. We see how vivid and powerful Abed’s imagination.
What’s been sticking out in the last few episodes of Community is a meloncoly tone. Mixology Certification last week showed the group’s depression while drunk. The episode with the lost pen had the characters at each others throats, then depressed at the idea that they couldn’t trust each other. The general theme that is taking the forefront is that this group of people aren’t just friends. They aren’t even just family. They complete each other. The holidays can be a depressing time of year for many people. If you don’t have someone special to share it with. Abed’s is lonely over the holidays and of course the group is there to help each other. It’s cheesey, but then again it is a “meaning of Christmas episode.” I enjoy this because it shows our characters as real people not just cartoon cutouts. The only thing Community needs to worry about with this type of storytelling is the melancholy could get in the way of the humor.
On a scale of 1 to Epic, (Epic= 10) I’d give it a 7.5