Yesterday was my company’s third annual midtown Manhattan scavenger hunt. I’ve written about this a couple of times before, since this is the third time I’ve participated. It’s all silly and in good fun. You get to leave work early, and the money goes to charity. And this year, I was even on the winning team.
Except I lost my team after the second of what were apparently seven clues, getting separated in the run from Grand Central. After about ten or fifteen minutes of watching other teams — recognizable in our bright yellow banana-themed shirts — pass through but not my own, I walked over to the bar where I knew the scavenger hunt was going to end.
I hung around for another hour or so, basically just standing around outside. Finally, after a number of other people started to arrive, I wandered inside to get a drink. Most of the people there were HR, the folks from three different offices who were running the event, but there was another group that arrived after I did, whose story I didn’t quite catch, but who I think decided somewhere along the way not to continue. These are people from another office, a different company, who I’ll likely never see again…but they did buy me a beer, so that was nice of them. Then I got a free drink when my team arrived — because that’s what the winning team won — full of apologies to me and tales of tired and aching muscles. Apparently, by accidentally bowing out early, I lucked out as well. I got less of a workout, but I also didn’t steered clear of having a heart attack. (I know this may be hard to believe, looking at me, but I am not exactly a long-distance runner.)
I was still a little tired when I got home — two beers on top of twenty minutes running isn’t two beers on top of ninety minutes, but it’s not nothing — so I mostly just watched some television.
I noted this on Twitter, but if you’d told me just a few weeks ago that Hannibal would be one of my favorite shows this year and Community would be my least favorite, I would not have believed you. I should have known I was in trouble when the AV Club’s Todd VanDerWerff, who I feel has been something of an apologist for this not very good fourth season, gave this season finale a D. It was a really dreadful half hour of television, at the end of a pretty lousy season, largely for the reasons that Todd gives. And yet the show has been renewed for a fifth season. I honestly don’t know how to feel about that.
Hannibal, meanwhile, is still on the bubble, though I really hope it comes back. It’s a dark and sometimes very difficult show, definitely not something to watch on a queasy stomach. But it’s also kind of terrific, which is not something I expected from a Hannibal Lecter TV show.
Aw, I’m bummed to hear that about Community. I’m a few weeks behind at this point, but even though it was obviously no longer quite what it used to be, season 4 certainly started off much better than I expected. For the first three seasons, it was hands-down my favorite show.
I am honestly shocked to hear it’s been renewed, though. I was sure that this half-season was the end.
It won’t be back until mid-season, which I suppose is enough time for NBC to change its mind. Alhough, just like VanDerWerff says in his review, there’s a part of me that wants it to come back just so this, a mediocre season with a truly terrible, unfunny ending, isn’t what the show is remembered for.
It’s clear it lost something, a really big something, when creator Dan Harmon was forced out at the end of last season. This half-season, which I agree hasn’t been all bad and has even had some really amusing moments, has felt more like people trying to re-create the show they thought its fans liked.
Rather than build upon the relationships between the characters, they just kept repeating the same notes. Rather than innovate and go in new directions, they relied on in-jokes and hoped that repeating them would do all the work. Hence, too much Inspector Spacetime, too much “darkest timeline,” too much Chang, and too much crazy costumes by the Dean. (I mean, I love Ken Jeong and Jim Rash as much as the next guy, but I think the show was better when they played more minor characters.)
And when the show did try something really different, like that puppet episode, it felt almost like a parody of a Community episode. (It doesn’t help that Angel got there years first, and got there much better.) It was easy to imagine the writers sitting around the table after breaking that script, thinking, “oh yeah, nailed it,” yet the episode represents most of what was wrong about this season. It’s trying too hard; it’s hitting the same notes but not carrying a tune. Season 3 could be seriously insular at times, but even if it sometimes felt like a show just for the fans, this year has felt like a show about a show just for the fans.
Some of what went wrong this year was out of the showrunners’ hands, obviously. NBC pushed Harmon out, and the bad blood between Harmon and Chevy Chase (plus Chase apparently being something of a dick) pushed Pierce’s character out. Some of the jokes to explain Chase’s lack of involvement were amusing, but the show was significantly better when he was actively involved, and those jokes grew staler as the weeks went on.
This season hasn’t been all bad, but as a season it’s been pretty dreadful, and I’m not entirely optimistic about next year. That I’m saying this about Community — six seasons and a movie! — just makes me sad.