Monsters of Television

“Sad quick Christmas song.”

I will say this up front so there will be no confusion: I was not looking forward to this episode of Community.

I have nothing against Rankin/Bass. I have nothing against puppets. I have nothing against stop-motion animation. In fact, I love all three of these things a great deal (well, I don’t love Rankin/Bass, but I do love puppets and stop-motion). But when I heard Community was doing a homage to Rankin/Bass Christmas specials, I immediately became a little queasy. I avoided as much in the way of reading and seeing anything about it as I could.

It was the equivalent, in my mind, of Glee doing episodes centered around one singer/performer: it was too much excessive pop culture humor that unanchors the show from its reality (well, Glee isn’t nearly as narratively consistent as Community, so this comparison is a mite unfair). As a result, I came to dread the day when this episode would air.

Am I still dreading it? Is this the episode of Community that will be the asterisk in my “Best series ever!” list (instead of “Basic Rocket Science”)? Or did it win me over with whimsy and commitment to its premise…?

The answer: Doesn’t qualify for a full asterisk (you’re safe for now, “Basic Rocket Science”!). I wasn’t nuts about the episode, but there was stuff I did enjoy.

Certainly I love how the show commits to the premise, even going so far as to correct Duncan when he thinks Abed is seeing everyone in claymation as opposed to the doll-like puppets with spheroid body parts. And I appreciate that the show twists some of those conventions at the start of the episode, like the acknowledgment of the Christmas songs, but then the episode just kind of wraps itself a bit too tightly in the Rankin-Bass Christmas garland and choked.

To keep the Glee comparisons going, when Glee does a cover of a song, they just do a cover of the song, without making it their own or, in the case of their Rocky Horror episode, they suck all the subversion of the song to make it even more marketable on iTunes. It’s a dull and lifeless approach to what should be an energetic one (even sad musicals have verve, after all).

When Community riffs on a genre, they embrace the genre in the same way that Glee does, but Community also stabs the genre with a knife a couple of times, poking fun at the conventions or twisting them around. This is what separates the two shows from one another and why, ultimately, Community is a smarter show than Glee.

But in “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” there’s not much in the way of really dissecting the Christmas special. As a result, the episode feels a bit off. Nick felt like last week’s episode tone was all sorts of off, but I felt like “Mixology” earned its melancholy. Here, the sentimentality, a trait I actually do love about Community (it keeps the show’s meta-ness grounded), overwhelmed me and the story. Sentimentality, after all, is part of the Christmas special’s MO. But there’s nothing in this episode to fully acknowledge that or wink at it.

So, on those regards, the episode didn’t work for me. Aesthetically, however, the episode is a complete success. As I said, I’m a sucker for puppets and stop-motion animation, and from that perspective, I was grooving on the episode. The puppet work is solid and fluid, with great character designs (aside from Shirley’s which felt a little a lazy after the inventiveness of everyone else) that manage to be just outside the uncanny valley while still skeeving me out a bit. What more could you want from puppets?

I admit that my lack of enjoyment in the episode may stem from the fact that I’m not crazy about Christmas and that the Rankin/Bass productions weren’t annual viewings in my home (How the Grinch Stole Christmas and, ironically given my lack of religious beliefs, Charlie Brown Christmas were and continue to be traditions). So perhaps I’m not able to fully appreciate the Christmas spirit in the episode. Which, when push comes to shove, is more probably more my loss than the show’s.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• “You lied to lure me into a group therapy session?”
• “We’ve clearly entered a whole new medium.”
• “Because I’m progressive and kick ass?” (Which made me think of this.)
• “It’s a metaphor for a lack of pay off.”
• “Thanks, Lost.”
• “Everyone be extra sincere. The humbugs can sense sarcasm.”
• Loved Troy’s candy cane nunchucks.
• Appreciated the final touch of seeing the actors in the stop-motion TV screen.
• One last thing: Daniel Walters over at the Pacific Northwest Inlander made a list of the seven genre Community should parody next. He actually included my suggestion, which is easily the weakest of the seven. I would totally be game for his premise of “Nonverbal Communication” though. Sounds amazing.