parks & recreation vs. community

30 rock

atm prob parks + rec but community's only on its first season so i could see it taking over, definitely been getting better + better

community better than 30 rock on the LOL meter

what is with these titles?

excuse me?

community community community

they overdid the Sam and Diane shit at first but it looks like they got over that cliche fast

You could have rolled "Modern Family" and "Cougar Town" in there too for completeness. I'm not crazy about any of the 4, but "Parks & Rec" has grown on me a bit more than the others.

Eps 1-6 Community>>>>Eps 1-6 Parks
Subsequent eps of Parks>>>>>Subsequent eps of Community

no more cloying fake docu stuff plzz - community rulez parksnrec drools

I agree that the "mockumentary" framing device is getting old, but it seems like the only difference between "Community" and one of the "mockumentaries" like "Modern Family" or "Parks & Rec" is that they don't occasionally speak to the camera.

no wai community is totally formal 30 rock style jokes upon jokes

yeah it's pretty packed with throwaways and riffs compared to mockumentaries

im leaning 'community' but it's a tight race imo.

p&r needs to lose some dead weight (hey rashida jones, it is possible to be hot *and* funny, cf alison brie) but is becoming less of an office rip all the time.

i'm kind of in love with aubrey plaza

aubrey plaza is hot and funny

i would like to rent a room in audrey's plaza

I would like to join McHale's navy

let me see that Jeong

britta was in richard kelly's TEH BOX btw. pleasant surprise.

ha oh yeah

aubrey plaza may have been the best part of funny people

Britta's got a pleasant surprise in Choke, too

i'd like to be her pleasant surprise

I'd give Chevy a chase

id filter brittas water

i'd like to pole her amy

Season 1 of Community is better than Season 1 of Parks, but Season 2 of Parks is one of the best things eva.

P&R is reliably better than Community as a whole, but Community's xmas episode was probably the best thing either show turned out this year.

FOREST WHITAKER EYE!

polyphonic otm

http://img102.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=14433_ABrie_AlisonBrie_CW_CommunityS1E9_123_134lo.jpg

Community.

I've seen one ep of Parks and it was the ep where the dude with the mustache gets back together with his wife for a spell. I thought it was alright, but it was kind of been-there-done-that. Did I catch a bad episode?

And Alison Brie went to college not too far from where I lived (CalArts). If she is as hot in real life as she is inside my tv and the college experience there as funny as community's totally would've gone to school there :-/

The P&R ep where Ron gets back together with Tammy was one of my favorites of the season, so maybe it's just not your thing.

Or maybe I need to know more about the characters. I imagine the Office wouldn't be funny if you popped in one certain classic, mid-season episodes.

Probably - I think a lot of the fun of that episode is how unexpected it is for Ron, who had been building up great audience affection through his saltiness all year. (And still is!) Very similar to the way The Office is, as you say. Neither of these shows polled are strong enough to be completely sucked in by a single episode, though - the nature of the beast of these modern sitcoms.

I'll watch a bunch in order then.

yeah, modern sitcoms are like this though -- people who wondered why Arrested Development was canceled need to only imagine how seeing the show out of sequence was for others.

I'm one of those people who only saw random episodes of AD, and even though I trust the opinions of those who say it was great, it's all still hypothetical for me. Someday I'll sit down and see the whole series front to back.

Haha AD is definitely the worst offender in that regard. I mean it seems like the entire third season was built on ridiculous callbacks from the previous two years. Still an awesome show, of course.

Saw parts of P&R during the mini-marathon, and did I simply not like its humor, or does it have a far smaller jokes-per-minute rate than Community?

P&R is a lot more subtle than Community, really. As mentioned above, a lot of the funniest parts of P&R are only funny if you've spent several weeks absorbing various characters' behaviors and inclinations.

So it's more of a dramedy?

Well, not like Northern Exposure or anything. It essentially operates on the same principle as The Office does (early on, it did that to its own detriment). There's some slapstick, some quick wit, and there's some sweetness too.

I've watched a bunch of P&R episodes in the past week, including and besides the mini-marathon, and it's definitely growing on me. but that type of show still irritates the living fuck out of me, the slow pacing and every other scene being punctuated with rashida jones or aubrey plaza staring at the camera or rolling their eyes in response to one of the characters that's actually given funny stuff to do or say.

Aubrey Plaza's mere existence in front of a camera is funny.

yeah she definitely does funny reaction shots, i just wish that wasn't such a big chunk of her character's onscreen activity

I have just realized that Aubrey Plaza is a person not a place. (Bet you've never heard that one before, huh???)

saw a few episodes of community. i dunno, it felt very derivative, a little like some kind of late-90s CW version of the office or something (not that i'm a huge fan of the office, either). but it was funny.

but that type of show still irritates the living fuck out of me, the slow pacing and every other scene being punctuated with rashida jones or aubrey plaza staring at the camera or rolling their eyes in response to one of the characters that's actually given funny stuff to do or say.

A friend of mine once wrote a parody skit of this thing called "Reaction Shots: The Show" and it's just nothing but cutting to reaction shots gratuitously.

x-post

Community is getting better. As someone else said upthread: it was a bit too "Sam and Diane"-contrived with Britta and McHale's character.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Have to go with Community, but I'm starting to warm to P&R. Cracked up @ "how mad was he on a scale from one to Chris Brown?"

no one told me you see britta's tittays in choke

what a surprise

Season 1 of Community is better than Season 1 of Parks, but Season 2 of Parks is one of the best things eva.

OTM

like someone said on the p&r thread, the fake doc thing doesn't even make sense. its just this style they decided to jack and now they rely on it too much. reminds of another sitcom device i hate where the main character of the show gets to do running commentary throughout to the viewer (bernie mac show, malcolm in the middle, titus(lol?))

It doesn't make sense at all on Modern Family now, either, but I still like both shows. I suspect it's just their way of sneaking in reality show conventions more than anything at this point, since mainstream audiences today are much more okay with multiple character confessional asides as opposed to laugh tracks.

yeah...I like Modern Family but this week at some point had to stop it to complain that the doc-style interview made for some really mixed up logic.

I really, really don't like Modern Family at all.

the true test would be community vs better off ted

^ def more similar in tone and technique.

we should only poll things that have similar tones and techniques. that is the "true test".

right now community and Better off Ted are the funniest things on TV. Maybe its the novelty but I have laughed more at them than 30 Rock recently. Parks and Recreation is pretty good, but no contest with community.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Saw ad for upcoming Community episode featuring Jack Black. Not sure I like this idea.

ha the guest spots have already started

this is a disappointing turn

ha there are still people weird enough to watch US network sitcoms but get all precious about something as inherent to the genre as guest stars

boohoo the episodes are 23 minutes long and there's a brief theme song after the first scene motherfuckers!

Community was robbed in this poll. Srsly funny show.

I wouldn't call a vote of 23 to 26 a robbing.

yah more of a travesty really

predicting 2011 Community backlash.... now

i'm pleasantly surprised to see community challenge P&R on this poll as much as it did - thought P&R was (however bafflingly) an overwhelming favorite around here

I'm not baffled at all by that - there's plenty of people here who love both 30 Rock and The Office, and even the SNL family. I was as lot more surprised by how quickly Community became popular. I think they're both great shows - P&R needed some time to grow, and it has done so very well.

Community has had a pretty good start, though it's also still feeling out what kind of show it is. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying it now, but it's still a little rough, basically, I don't think it's got a steady rhythm yet - I think by this time next year it should be in full swing (and then by Season 3 people will start turning on it regardless of quality).

Watching my first episode of Community, the Conspiracy one, and it's pretty good! Funny that Chevy Chase in the intro didnt do anything but sit and look bewildered.

Watched my first couple of eps of Parks and Recreation. Not as funny, and yeah the reaction shot humor wears thin. It's like this is a show with 3 or 4 (US Office) Jims. That said, Aubrey is cute enough to make me want to watch further shows.

Community is still pretty good. Not CLASSIC or anything but definitely a fine way to waste a few hours.

these results feel slightly more excuseable in hindsight, considering how much better Community got after this poll took place (although please don't take that as a request to re-poll)

kind of amazing that this poll occurred during season 1, when both shows were starting out -- and when parks and recreation was still largely an office clone as opposed to what it ended up becoming.

Parks & Recreation was such a huge waste of time and talent imo. hey let's create a character for Amy Poehler that plays to NONE of her comedic strengths...for 7 years...it'll be fun...

hey let's create a character for Amy Poehler that plays to NONE of her comedic strengths...

you're thinking of 'baby mama (2008)'

poor Amy Poehler, forced to executive produce & write a character that she was so bad at playing, and no one ever laughed at, ever

P&R over community easy