Community is the Nerdy Sitcom We Deserve by Nathan Cranor

When my coworker, our editor-n-chieftain, Troy was generous enough to let me contribute to this Shotgun revival, I knew I wanted to do something, I just didn't know what. I'm new to the world of ShotgunReviews, but having read and enjoyed the new material so far, I think I'm safe in saying many fellow Shotgun readers are – like me – interested in terrific television shows with nerdy themes.

This week NBC announced that “Community” is returning to television on March 15, right where it was before its much-bemoaned-on-the-internet hiatus at 8 p.m. Thursdays. This means it will be going up against its old timeslot nemesis “The Big Bang Theory.” That show, which is expressly about nerds and nerd culture, regularly crushed Community in the ratings. I know it's not just self-identified nerds who are watching TBBT, but I'd like to provide a few examples of how it's actually Community that's the superior nerd show at 8 p.m. on Thursday.

1. Dungeons & Dragons
In Season 2, Community devoted a whole half-hour of prime-time network real estate to the main characters engaging in a game of “Dungeons & Dragons.” What's amazing is they don't literalize it beyond strategic sound cues; it really is an episode of television entirely based around a group of people at a table describing their actions and rolling dice. What's really amazing is the episode is still brilliantly entertaining.

2. Zombies

There's little more beloved among nerds right now than zombies. Three days before “The Walking Dead” premiered, Community was there with its own take on the genre – Season 2's “Epidemiology.” The episode doesn't just namedrop zombie/horror movies, it gets into the deep cuts, like the “That scare was just [insert animal here]” trope.

3. Batman's in it.
Well, Abed (Danny Pudi) pretending to be Batman is in it – specifically in Season 1's “Introduction to Statistics” and Season 3's “Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism.” Somehow, despite all the widely varying portrayals of his character over the years, Batman acting/looking out-of-character remains fertile ground for hilarity (see also How To, Batman).

4. Alternate universes.
Move over, Fringe. Season 3's “Remedial Chaos Theory” centers on seven different timelines. That includes one which returns in a great ending tag as a classic “dark” timeline.

5. Inspector Spacetime.
What's Inspector Spacetime? The question is not what, constable, but when! Oh, I'm sorry, yes, the question is what this time. That's my mistake.

Inspector Spacetime began as a brief “Doctor Who” parody and later in the season stood in for the Star Wars Holiday Special. On tiny scraps of information contained in those couple bits, obsessive fans have created a vast, elaborate canon. If that doesn't say “nerd” I don't know what does.

Community. It's the nerdy comedy we deserve, but not the one we can see right now. Not until March 15. At which point we all need to watch it, especially those of us with mystical Nielsen boxes (if such people exist...where's the birth certificates, Nielsen families??). If this great show can't survive, we really are living in the darkest timeline. I'll get my goatee.

Nathan's writing appears regularly at www.rateeveryanimal.com and irregularly at nscranor.wordpress.com.  He appears fairly frequently at the lunch table with Troy, Kimmi Page and Courtney V.

Observations of a Grown-Up Megadork by Joanna Lees

Confession time: I was that kid who showed up in eighth grade like she had just moved to the area, but in fact was just homeschooled up until that point and didn’t get out much and wasn’t really allowed to watch TV at home. For all I had contact with my age group, I might as well have grown up in Greenland. I was exactly as socially awkward as you would guess from that description, so this continued through high school and well into my college years, when I finally got an internet connection. The end result is that I tend to come at popular culture from the outside, particularly when nostalgia is involved. I’ve done a lot of catch-up work, mostly on Wikipedia, YouTube and TV Tropes, but there’s still a gap of experience that will always be there. Luckily, that same gap has provided me the opportunity to make some interesting observations. For example ...

 It’s easier to jump into a franchise that has evolved over time. Case in point: Transformers. Now, I’m a huge fan of Transformers: Prime. It’s an awesome show, and I look forward to new episodes with unadulterated glee. However, the fact that it’s a Transformers show means little to me. I was barely aware of the franchise until the first live action movie, which I interpreted as “AWESOME PLANES and TANKS and GIANT SPACE ROBOTS, and also some kids for some reason, but mostly PLANES and ROBOTS”. And then the sequel sucked eggs on toast, so my interest meter fell back close to zero. I wouldn’t have paid any attention to Prime at all, except that I happened to catch the episode “Predatory” one night and was instantly hooked. Granted, the movies provided a little introduction to the main characters (really just Optimus and Megtron), but without that, Prime would still have pulled me in. I know from the interwebs that the show references a lot of franchise mythology, but again: That adds little to my enjoyment of the show. These characters aren’t awesome because I remember them fondly from my childhood; they’re awesome as characters in their own, surprisingly deep, story. The downside is that I can’t watch the G1 series without dissolving into a giggling mess at how silly it is. Which leads me to my next point ...