After last weeks puppet episode that many (me not included) saw as something of a return to form for this once brilliant show, this weeks instalment gave us our yearly Christmas episode. In April. So yes. Its Christmas, and Jeff seems to have agreed to play host to the group this year, how New Jeff of him. Annie is the first to arrive, and bearing gifts, despite the apparent No gifts rule. Theres just enough time to see her Playing House with Jeff, before the group and Kevin (Chang) arrives, also bearing gifts. Annie tells the group that shes heard History Professor Malcolm McDowell (Or Cornwallis as the characters know him) has graded their paper with an F even though the grades arent officially out yet, but that the Professor is on his way. Jeff decides that they should all suck up to him in order to gain a higher grade. What follows is a few minutes of Jeff being cringe worthy, and Im not sure it was all intentional, before Malcolm McDowell is tied to a chair by Kevin, Jeff insists he cant be set free until he agrees to put the groups grade up. Abed makes a Die Hard reference and the Professor attempts to show the group the cracks in their foundations, and bring them down in a similar way to all great empires. Its this last part that Id like to talk about first. This episode was very much a bottle episode, something that in the past Community has always done well, due to the complex characterisations of the group. Here however, while by no means awful, it simply lacked something. The characters this season seem to have been boiled down to their bare minimum, and so all of the bickering that was once so entertaining. What we get is the Professor trying to play on some trait of each character, and each character ignoring him and everythings just okay. Yet, despite all of this, I really do respect the effort put into each show. And for a few moments the show really came to life. The overtop suggestion by Kevin, that he kills the Professor, followed by Annies smashing of an object (a plant pot?), and the story she came up with to stop Cornwallis calling the police were all brilliant. I enjoyed a couple of the references to the shows past in this episode such as Brittas None taken, and Troys I thought it was Anus. There have been criticisms that these have been overdone this year, but I really thought these two fit well, Troys line in particular because seconds before he said it I thought the same thing myself.
The episode for me however, did end on a bad note. After everything was made a-okay and the situation with Malcolm McDowell resolved, we saw Abed inexplicably wonder aloud what happened in the darkest timeline, before cutting to a Jeff and Annie court case in the darkest timeline. Unlike the more subtle nods of Britta and Troy, this just stank of trying too hard to please fans, while totally misunderstanding the whole thing. At the very least, the whole Darkest timeline thing in the third season served a purpose, here it made literally no sense, and just came out of the blue. So despite a few flashes of brilliance, I didnt feel that this episode was up to the shows once excellent standard. We are ten episodes in now though, maybe I shouldnt be comparing the show to what it once was and just enjoy the ride. Oh. And Pierce wasnt in this one.