Community is coming back in another week and a half. Thank God. I say Thank God because I just don’t think I can allow myself to keep rewatching episodes from season 3. Particularly “Virtual Systems Analysis” because that episode makes me so very, very sad. I don’t think that’s the intention at all, because it’s a show devoted to the comedic dissection of its characters (who are real people, of course, but who are characters in a comedy) and not a show that is used to push sadness on its audience. All the same, making the seven study group members and their entourage, truly funny requires making them into real people, and sometimes real people make us sad.
I don’t know anybody else who actually finds this episode to be sad.
For me, I’ve always identified with Annie’s character, albeit as a younger, cutesier version of myself. She’s more romantic and naive than I would ever presume to have been at that age but her particular brand of planning control freak and uptightness reflects my own so well that we could share time and space. Likewise, Abed’s lack of social grace and confusion over others’ emotions reflects back what I have long felt to be a learning process in getting to be better with other people. (I do not claim to be anywhere near so bad as Abed, though. I just share some of those moments that Abed has in this particular episode, e.g. Why do people have to enter into relationships?) So when I watch this episode, and watch Abed fall apart, I get this feeling that reflects my own fear and concern over where I will end up in life. It actually makes me very depressed, which is ridiculous when you’re watching a comedy. Then again, how many times did Scrubs manage to troll me with sad episodes? Someone out there referred to Scrubs as having “whiplash poignancy” [sorry for not recalling where this originated] and it’s just so true. (M*A*S*H did this as well, and the infamous “Jurassic Bark” episode of Futurama proved that nothing is sacred.) I may need to devote myself to writing out the profound effect of Scrubs on my life, now. Still, with this one Community episode, I felt myself in such agony that I watched the show again just to try to get past it and enjoy it. I just can’t seem to find it as funny as I think I’m supposed to.
This does not seem to be what the show’s crew and writers intended for me to feel. It is, however, what I feel.
So I’m actually very much looking forward to the glorious return of Community to get me off this memory. So “Hunger Deans,” huh?
Dumpster Jedi 