TV Review: Community 3.01-- "Biology 101"

I have to confess myself just a little disappointed in this season's premiere, "Biology 101."  Then again, last season's premiere was kind of a similar letdown.  I understand that it probably comes from the writers not wanting to show all their cards this early on, but this episode felt too heavily reliant on some recycled group dynamics issues for its plot.  With a group of seven individual characters, it seems there should be almost infinite combinations for different scenarios, and yet Community seems to recycle the same ones over and over.  I guess I was too excited about some of the rumored upcoming developments, and to see an episode dealing (again) with Jeff and Pierce's respective relationships with the group felt tired.  And while normally I am willing to give this show a break, because one off week usually leads into several good installments in a row, I'm concerned that this kind of lazy writing will lose this show the negligible viewership it is just barely hanging onto.  NBC isn't going to lead off its Thursday lineup with a show that falls this flat this quickly.

I was also kind of annoyed by the opening musical number, to be perfectly honest.  Yes, I get that it was probably intended as a parody, but as a viewer who enjoys this show breaking with the format of typical shows like Glee, it felt a little cheap to see them using this as a device to add flair to the show.  Similarly, the Dean vs. Vice-Dean sounded great on paper, especially with guest star John Goodman, but in practice it was not nearly what I expected.  It was a subplot that was flat initially and then overused for the remainder of the episode, which suffered for it. 

Again, I have high hopes for the next couple of episodes, because this show has been proven to need a little time to regain its momentum after a flop.  I am still excited about the many different journeys we'll see these characters take this season (and I'm hoping they're a little bit fresher than the premiere would indicate), and hope that there will come a day, some time around midseason and after perhaps a really great film-parody episode, when "Biology 101" will be little more than a lackluster memory.

**I will say that despite this being a largely negative review, I did really enjoy the scene with Jeff depicted in the photo above.