7. Stay Crazy
NBCOne of the things we love about the show - and one of the reasons it wasn't long for the world of network TV - was the unfettered lunacy it frequently and smartly indulged in. Across the course of its five seasons Community has given us the trilogy of paintball episodes, spoofing action movies, Westerns and Star Wars; a superb takedown of social media mores (and Zardoz); an entire episode set inside a videogame; an entire episode set around a game of Dungeons & Dragons that doubled as a pretty serious story about depression and suicide; and, of course, the award-winning genius of "Remedial Chaos Theory", where the roll of a dice creates a series of increasingly dark alternate timelines. The "wackiness" of Community has never just been for the sake of wackiness, though, and we hope the writers remember that along with doing all this crazy stuff in season six, they also remember to keep it grounded in real emotions and issues. Along with the Dungeons & Dragons episode, where the group come together to play the role playing game beloved of their bullied, suicidal classmate Fat Neil, there was the aforementioned GI Joe parody. Which was hilarious, and a pitch-perfect satirical take on the animated series and toy commercials, but worked because it wasn't totally untethered from the reality of the show. It was all happening in Jeff's head, a paean to his lost youth, as he lay in a coma after accidentally overdosing on anti-aging pills. Where you'll find the real crown in Community's nuttiness crown is in "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas", easily the highlight of the incredibly strong second season. On the surface another long-form pop culture reference, pulling on the stop-motion Christmas classics of Rankin/Bass, the pure craziness of a whole episode of a live-action TV comedy becoming claymation was really topped by it being an exploration of the Abed character's complicated relationship with holidays, as yet another time he is reminded of the estranged mother he hasn't seen in years. So, season six: keep up the crazy, but remember what makes it work.