Premiere Watch '09: Community

Community:
"Pilot"

I loved, loved, loved Community's pilot episode. It was fantastic and hilarious. It's a sign that a comedy is awesome when I'm trying to write down the funny lines and I end up writing down basically the entire script, and I totally did that for this episode.

I adored Jeff's "Shark Week" motivational speech. That speech was definitely the best persuasive oratory I've seen on TV in a long time that wasn't delivered by Don Draper.

I was already a Joel McHale fan because of The Soup, and he was great in Community (plus the Seacrest joke was a nice shout out to The Soup). I loved Troy, Abed and Duncan as well.

If this show continues to be this funny on a weekly basis, you can definitely count me in! It might even inspire me to consider enrolling in a community college just for kicks. Well, probably not.

Highlights and observations:

• The guy standing up close to the stage listening to the dean looks cute from the back.
• I liked how they used the dean's speech as snappy way to give quick introductions to the characters.
• Dean: "That's what you've heard, however...I wish you luck!!!"
• Abed: "My dad is Palestinian. He's an American citizen. He's not a threat to national security or anything. Most people want to know that after meeting him because he gives off an angry energy. Not angry at America; angry at my mom for leaving him."
• Jeff: "Abed, nice to know you and then meet you in that order."
• Jeff's got an interesting look: Adidas athletic pants, collared dress shirt, sweater and suit jacket.
• They've got a rather nice looking cafeteria.
• Jeff: "Oh, sorry, I was raised on TV and I was conditioned to believe that every black woman over 50 is a cosmic mentor."
• Abed: "Oh, a text message! Let's give this bad boy a read! I've never gotten one of these before..."
• I loved Abed reading "Say you have to pee; I need to talk to you" to everyone on the room multiple times.
• Abed: "'Say you have to pee; I need to talk to you.'"
  Jeff: "Do you have to pee?"
  Abed: "No!"
  Jeff: "Well, then I'm stumped."
• The professor's text message: "Con-4-s-8-tion on football field now!!!"
• Jeff: "I discovered at a very early age that if I talk long enough, I can make anything right or wrong. So either I'm God or truth is relative. In either case, booyah!"
• Duncan: "Interesting, it's just that the average person has a much harder time saying 'booyah' to moral relativism."
• Duncan: "I'm a professor! You can't talk to me like that way!"
  Jeff: "A 6-year-old girl could talk to you that way!"
  Duncan: "Yes, because that would be adorable!"
  
• Troy: "That means you do my homework, right Seacrest?"
  
• Jeff: "I'm going to go to the bathroom and bring my jacket, wallet and keys with me...in case there's a fire."
  
• Pierce calling Annie "Princess Elizabeth"
  
• Aww, it's Trudy Campbell from Mad Men! Maybe she should stand up and do the Charleston like she did on MM with Pete.
  
• Jeff: "Pierce! Let's discuss this creepiness."
  
• Pierce: "Sexual harassment! That makes no sense. Why would I harass somebody who turns me on?"
  
• Troy: "Keg flip! They're very hard to pull off!"
  
• Lol, Abed's quoting Breakfast Club. And finishing it up with "Nobody puts Baby in the corner."
  
• Jeff: "Bluffs this weak are how your people lost the colonies."
  
• Duncan: "Take this car--it's good for the environment."
  Jeff: "Yeah, so is wiping your butt with a leaf, but it's not how a man gets around!"
  
  
• Jeff: "You know what makes humans different from other animals?"

  Troy: "Feet!"

  Pierce: "No, bears have feet."
  
  
• Jeff: "We're the only species that observes Shark Week. Sharks don't even observe Shark Week. ...It's the same reason I can pick up this pencil, name it Steve and do this and a little bit of you dies. We can connect with anything. We can sympathize with a pencil, we can forgive a shark and we can give Ben Affleck an Academy Award for screenwriting. People can find the good in just about anything but themselves."
  
  
• Jeff: "And don't test her on that because that thing about the jukebox was way too specific to be improvised."
  
  
• Jeff: "You are all better than you think you are, you're just designed not to believe it when you hear it from yourself."
  
  
• That speech was actually pretty fantastic.
  
  
• Jeff: "I was a lawyer!"

  Group: "Ohhh. That explains everything."
  
  
• Troy (laughing): "Asperger's."
  
  
• Duncan: "Before you say anything, you might want to think about the gift you've been given."
  
  
• Jeff: "An excuse to punch a hippie?"
  
  
• At least Jeff got his car back.
  
  
• Troy: "Wow, you just wrinkled my brain, man."
  
  
• Troy: "You seem pretty smart; you've got a sports coat."
  
  
• Abed: "What's going on? Can you guys hear me? Am I deaf? Can you hear me talking right now?"
  
  
• Abed: "I'm sorry I called you Michael Douglas, and I see your value now."
  
  
• I adore the cover of "Don't You (Forget About Me)" that they played at the very end.
  
  

Premiere Rating: 9.0/10

(Photo: NBC)