You might not feel a distinct need for more information about Community, TV’s critically acclaimed (if you don’t count Emmy nominations) but barely watched Thursday night comedy. Too bad. It’s a great show and I’m going to keep blogging about it until everyone watches/loves it.
I’m already really excited about the next season, considering the second season featured one of the most creative string of episodes of a comedy that I can recall, but now that Senor Chang (played by Ken Jeong) will have a larger role, I can barely wait:
Harmon tells us that after drifting around a bit last season without a clear mission, “This season I hope to tell a more structured story about Chang.” Specifically, Jeong’s character will be a security guard when classes resume September 22. “We have a story line that will detail his rise to power,” he says. “I wanted to tell a story of acquiring power and what it does to you. It’s a little Macbeth or Scarface. Or maybe something from The Wire.” Will Chang be a corrupt fake cop? “He’s corrupt in the sense that the campus is less secure than if he wasn’t a security guard. But he’s mostly insane,” Harmon explains.
I don’t know how a thirty minute comedy is going to develop a character arc for a minor character about how power corrupts, but I’m definitely interested to see how it turns out.
This article appears in Aug 4-10, 2011.
It is pretty embarrassing for the Emmy Awards that Community has made it through these two years without a single nomination. It is one of the most inventive, funny shows on TV, and it can’t make it past shows that are years and years past their primes.