>>72098855
It got better?

>>72098855
People said they liked the Paintball episode. It snowballed from there.

>>72098983
to be fair that episode was fucking awesome at the time

It got popular.

To appeal to mass markets you need to have memes. You need a thing people can see and go "I GET IT" without thinking about it.

>>72098855
I'm not sure why but the first two seasons hit me too close to home in some regards, even though it was comedy.
That feeling also disappeared with S3 and later

The humour on the first season didn't age well at all HOLY SHIT

NBC ratings were in the shitter, creators probably realized they could get away with being weirder considering they didn't have to appeal to a large audience.

Two things:

>shows naturally become stereotype of themselves
From the second half of season 1, Community begun to mess up about the format and do more interesting concept episodes - this helped distinguish it from other shows and found it an audience. This continued into season 2 where it still had a lot of the baggage of being a traditional sitcom but the writers were more willing to go for concept episodes and producers more happy to let them. By season 3, Community was known for doing that and so there's no going back to simpler more traditional episodes, they have to keep topping themselves and becoming more silly.

>fanservice
The show increasingly pandered to fans and gave them what they wanted which was typically a flanderised version of the show. 'Troy and Abed in the morning' become a catchphrase, characters become couples due to audience shipping. Part of this is natural, part is due to Community being repeatedly cancelled and brought back, so they would cater solely to the audience who would get angry whenever it was cancelled.

>>72099073

I think second half of season 1 is okay, but you're right about the beginning - looks like a dated sitcom

>>72099202
Either Harmon didn't know what he wanted to do yet, or he just wanted to get on network, but the characters and plots of the first half are basically walking cliches. Really standard and thin sitcom, and it turned me off.

Didn't look at it again until halfway through the second season.

Honest answer? The writers changed.

Many of the writers from season 1 and 2 left at the start of season 3.

The original writers could do crazy concept episodes but understood the characters, their relationships and motivations. When many of the staff were changed, the new writers saw the wackiness but didn't quite get the characterisation that was needed alongside it.

When comedy series become more surreal it means they're running out of ideas and situations. It happens to a lot of them. Surrealism is the ultimate pleb filter because it sounds so good on paper or talking about it, but almost never works out in a show or film

>>72098983
>>72099007
It was. Because of the context/contrast. S1 was a nice buildup to the paintball and goodfellas homages, and they kept the climax in S2, but shouldn't have burned it so fast.

>>72099056
It wasn't just the writers that changed. The Russos stopped helping organize it and were only directors. This is what you miss the most without even realizing it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXkkdp-HACE

>>72099463
I wish comedy in particular could get away from the multiple writer setup, I'd even accept the British tendency to only do six or so episodes in a season

>Come up with funny situation
>Some unfunny woman has to add her own take to it
>Some other guy thinks it's great adds something else to it
>It's not longer the situation, nor funny

This is how I imagine being one of those writers is like

>>72099033
which wasn't season one at all with the mild melo-drama going on....?

>>72098855
>SHOW MUST STAGNATE FOR 10 SEASONS THEN CANCEL