Community - "Conventions of Space and Time" - Review

There are two major aspects to shows and movies that make them what they are: form and content. Form is structure; it’s the types of shots and lighting and editing that frame everything we see. Then there’s content; content boils down to plots and characters. It’s who we’re watching, and what they’re doing.

Form wise Community is much, much less snappier. Its pacing is slower, and the cuts are a bit more lackadaisical. 

Content wise the show is ostensibly the same … and yet it’s not.

The whole idea of an Inspector Spacetime Convention doesn’t actually sound all that interesting in the first place. This was a one-off joke that became overused and grating. It worked as background piece of set dressing but beyond that we didn’t need any more elaboration on how it fit into the show’s universe. 

So the initial idea for the content of this episode doesn’t hold water. Fine. There’s been plenty of Community ideas I can say the same thing for, and they still worked better than I’d expect… This, however, is not one of them. 

The problems begin to crop up with the fact that the writers don’t seem to have any clue what to do with the characters beyond Abed and Troy. None of them, besides Britta who is now Troy’s paramour, would ever have any reasonable interest in the convention. The reasons the show then proceeds to contrive to get the rest of the cast in the picture utilize them poorly or implausibly, or both (not to mention there’s no Dean and no Chang – Although I could do without Chang so that’s fine by me).   

The most obvious here is Alison Brie’s Annie. Not only do I not believe Annie would fake being married to Jeff and then have the rest of the hotel staff play along with it, but, more importantly, it begs the question what is the point of this? It’s a storyline that detracts from the nuance we’ve seen built up in this character. She’s no longer that doe-eyed naïve girl we knew way back in season one and this is a step back for her character. Brie does the best with the material but it’s simply not very funny and doesn’t add up with what we know about the character. She’s off by herself for far too long for no foreseeable reason. 

Britta’s also largely poorly utilized. The fact is that the show hasn’t elaborated enough on the Troy-Britta relationship to justify it or even to define what it is. But Britta exists as nothing more than a roadblock in this episode whose sole purpose is to keep Troy from Abed while Abed deals with the cuckoo #1 Inspector Spacetime Fan.   

Shirley and Pierce’s storyline isn’t half-bad actually (and nicely humorously meta), and it’s practically the only real reason that makes sense for their appearance whatsoever. But they’re disconnected from the rest of the plot for too long, and it all feels massively, massively contrived.  

This wasn’t very funny, and altogether very formless. It was even a little heartless, like a succubus masquerading as Community and ripping out what remained of its heart entirely. 

Grade: C+