Oh, goodness...against my better judgment, I feel compelled to review this episode of the show, "Community."
After we got home last night from seeing TRON Legacy (which was AMAZING, by the way), My Love put this in as our evening entertainment. The episode is called "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas." And did I mention that the whole thing is in clay-mation?
Before I continue, there are a few things that you should know:
1) I do not usually enjoy the show "Community."
2) The show has all the elements of other shows that I like, but the way it fits together just doesn't work for me, and I don't find it entertaining enough to warrant watching most of the time.
3) My hubby really likes it. So, sometimes, when he comes across a particularly good episode, we will watch it together. The only episode I really enjoyed (though I have seen a couple decent ones) was "Modern Warfare."
4) This is essentially a play-by-play plot synopsis review, and therefore will contain spoilers. I just typed it up as I watched the show, and responded to what I was seeing.
With all that in mind, I did make an effort to set aside my bias for this review.
The episode opens up with the Dean speaking over the intercom, saying, "It's that very special time of year, Greendale; a time for me to remind you that your school acknowledges no specialness to this time of year. You do, of course, have a constitutional right to lend this season the significance of your choosing in any of our designated holiday zones."
"And this is the most important Christmas in the history of the universe; at least, I think it is because we're all in stop-motion-animation."
Ahh, here we go - the first song and dance number, ending with Abed being tazered.
And here, the one who started it all, is Abed:
We get to join the cast of the show as they journey into a group therapy session to determine why Abed is visualizing everything in clay-mation. From Abed's perspective, everyone has transformed into Christmas versions of themselves:
Annie is now ballarannie
Britta became Brittabot
Senor Chan was the snowman. The whole introductory scene with him was more than a little disturbing. He is my least favorite character on the show.
Professor Ian Duncan served as the tour-guide on this mystical journey. He's a "Christmas wizard."
Jeff was Jeff-in-the-box
Pierce is Teddy Pierce
Shirley is Baby-doll Shirley
Troy was Troy Soldier
I enjoyed the little conversation about how each person was turned into their Christmas identities. Some snarky comment was made about Britta being a robot because she was "heartless and godless," and then Annie was told she was a ballerina because she was "fragile and tightly wound." Quite clever.
Baby-doll Shirley got ejected from the search for the true meaning of Christmas because she almost gave the game away that they were in therapy. She was frozen into an ice cube, and then spirited away by a Christmas pterodactyl (who was summoned by remote).
Hum-bugs!!! Hahahahaha! They're attracted to sarcasm :) Of course, the hum-bugs ate Jeff.
Next, they lost the Christmas Wizard who inadvertently made his group therapy work on himself, freaked out, and exited from the magical journey.
Britta was expelled from finding the meaning of Christmas because she lied to Abed to get him into counseling.
Pierce left because he had to go to the bathroom, and they were out of Christmas cookies.
Ah, the Christmas Wizard has returned. Hmm, his return was short-lived, as Ballerannie and Troy Soldier sabotaged him in order to let Abed continue on to find the meaning of Christmas.
Pierce returned.
Hahahaha! I love the way they're playing along with this creation of the Christmas adventure. They're just making it up as they go, completely altering their reality as they see fit. They're teleporting, creating remote-controlled-Christmas-pterodactyls, and whatever else strikes their fancy.
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! The meaning of Christmas is the first season of LOST? ("It's symbolic for a lack of payoff") Sheer brilliance.
Uh-oh. The Christmas Wizard has revealed the real reason Abed is coping by putting people in stop-animation (which is that his mother is not coming to visit him, as is his Christmas custom), and Abed has been frozen into a block of ice.
But now, the whole cast has returned to support Abed, and are about to shoot up the Christmas Wizard for making poor Abed freeze. Awww, they're going to sing about the true meaning of Christmas :) As they sing, the ice around Abed slowly begins to melt away.
And, as is fitting, Ballerannie activates the Christmas Pterodactyl to come carry away the Christmas Wizard...and then self-destructs.
Wow. What a show. In general, I quite enjoyed this show. It was very politically correct in the way that it was not politically correct. It's kind of hard to rate a show vs. a Christmas movie, but I think I'd give this one 4 sugar plums out of 5. I really did think it was clever, the animation was great, the concept of combining various Christmas specials, song and dance, and Willy Wonka was genius.
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