‘Community’ season 6 premiere review: Chutes and ‘Ladders’

It was very possible at this point that “Community” could have went sharply downhill. After all, remember that we’ve lost Chevy Chase, Donald Glover, and Yvette Nicole Brown over the past two years, and we’ve seen creator Dan Harmon leave, and then return. There were many ways in which people could have given up, but they didn’t. They like this show too much for that to happen.

We expected mediocre things from the season 6 premiere. “Community” has always been known for starting slow, and sometimes it takes a while to adjust to change. Life is different on Yahoo Screen: There’s a bigger budget, the show actually is able to film outdoors again, and it even looks better visually. Add to this the departure of Brown and also the arrival of Paget Brewster as Frankie Dart, a woman brought in to fix Greendale and make it into a somewhat-respectable place.

At first, we were not sure about Frankie at all, given that she seemed to be far too straight-laced for the show. Luckily, Harmon and the writers soon found a way to find the humor in that, as Frankie is at times so robotic that she does not know how to properly comprehend human emotion. The meta jokes surrounding her job interview after things failed with her and Greendale (at first) were priceless.

There were countless in-jokes in here, and most of them worked, whether it be Chang’s realization that the minorities are leaving (and that Frankie is white), that Abed’s girlfriend disappeared into thin air, and that montages are only fun when you are watching someone do fun things. The biggest reason we laughed was simply because it was a pretty smart episode. It showed the original Save Greendale Committee trying to rebel against the rules, but after Annie was hurt in a Ladders class gone awry, they decided to comfort somewhat, while still being themselves in the process.

Also (big spoilers if you haven’t seen the episode yet), the cameo at the end was pretty priceless. Harmon skewered not only NBC, but convinced Yvette Nicole Brown to come back for tag, as well. This proves once again that she certainly has love for her former show, and while we’re going to miss Shirley, we cannot imagine a better way to say goodbye to the character for now.

Overall, this was the best “Community” premiere to us since season 2, when Betty White nearly joked Jeff Winger to death. It may be easy and cynical to hate on a show six seasons in and claim that it’s lost its luster, but we really don’t feel like it has. It’s different, but a good kind of different. Grade: B+.

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