Community is one of the smartest and most endearing sitcoms ever created. Despite its ups and downs, its creative lacks, the behind the scenes drama, I still would recommend it to anyone who considers themselves a fan of movies or tv shows, or anyone who's just a bit trope-savvy and enjoys cleverness and absurd humor. The comforting nature of the show comes from its setting: a school, a community college of dubious prestige where "lesser people" find each other and find value in their own messy existence. They have adventures and discoveries in the setting of the school, they fight, they fall in love. It takes the very concept of a teen sitcom and adds an extremely important factor: the playfulness. The playfulness of living a boring day of school, a boring event, like a life-changing movie-like adventure. That's how being in school feels like, and it's weird that the only show that captures it is a show about adults: every mystery turns into a true-crime fiction, every paint-ball game into a western/star wars fantasy war, every discovery into something magical. The show is not just "parodying" these stories, the show is the characters basically reenacting, living their lives as these stories. There's a kind of childish joy in seeing a blanket fort turn into a crazy underground city, or an investigation into a dead yam turn into a law&order episode. Rather, there's a joy in watching the characters basically pretending that this is the case, themselves playing characters, creating a make-believe world out of a trivial day of school, thrilling and fun but also ultimately safe and comforting. You can feel Harmon's joy of the creative process through the characters, and I'm willing to bet a lot of the actors in the cast had a blast. The 4th season (the one everyone hates) is not as bad as people say, it's just a pointless and functional imitation of the previous seasons. Pierce was probably one of the most interesting characters to put in the main cast of a show like this, shame for all that's happened. The later seasons feel a bit tired, but you can't deny that there's a lot of great moments in seasons 5 and 6, as short-lived and unlucky they were. It's amazing on first watch and still holds up on the third.
