“Community” is finally returning to NBC’s Thursday line-up on Feb. 7 because of how it’s managed to craft the most enjoyable sitcom universe this side of “The Simpsons.” The other show,“Homeland,” breaks the Showtime mold in its pilot episode and jump-starts its season as must-see-TV. Both use their settings to explore our relationship with culture and television.
“Community” follows the members of a community college study group who navigate the perilous waters of their ridiculous college day in and day out. Created by comedic evil genius Dan Harmon, the characters are such a fascinating mix of humanity and absurdity that the show is entirely unpredictable.
Season one of “Homeland” rocketed through the television landscape to win every major award around. The relationship between the US Marine prisoner of war (Damian Lewis) rescued from a hole in Afghanistan and the bipolar CIA agent (Claire Danes) who believes him to be a terrorist is complicated not only because of its many twists and turns but also because it always stays true to the realities of their respective situations. Season two ended with more tension than ever and set the slate for a new creative high point in season three.
What unites these disparate yet critically acclaimed series is that they embrace the emotional consequences of their misguided protagonists and how that is reflected through the act of watching television. On “Homeland,” we examine Damian Lewis’s every move through our television screens to deduce whether he is in fact a terrorist. What’s so interesting is that Claire Danes is right there with us, planting bugs in Lewis’s house to watch him as well. Even outside of the investigation, “Homeland” is defined by how its fractured characters’ distrust in their professional lives bleeds into their personal lives, until the two become an overwhelming mix of conflicting rational and emotional influences. They spend their days watching terrorists, co-workers and their own families and then try to understand what they just saw.
Likewise, the characters on “Community” are allowed to observe and comment on one another for similar reasons but with different results. Someone is always watching someone else at Greendale, and any joke will be followed by someone else trying to top it. It’s all fun and games, but it reflects greater emotional damage on the part of the students at Greendale Community College. They are each trapped in their own personal bubbles, using pop-culture and irony as bridges to reach one another. From their bubbles, the world is their television, and like us they want to be emotionally connected as the biggest fans are to their favorite characters.
Claire Danes relates to us as an audience because we are all wary of each other’s intentions given limited information provided to us. The Greendale Seven use humor as a means of connecting with one another in the same way; their humor allows us to create our own alliances with fictional characters. While “Community” does all this in an extraordinarily meta fashion, “Homeland” proves that a more traditional format can reflect profoundly on its own medium as well.
