Community season 3 episode 7 review: Studies In Modern Movement

3.7 Studies In Modern Movement

In a neat little pick up from a couple of episodes ago, this week saw Community’s most uptight resident, otherwise known as Annie, finally move out of the deadbeat apartment, and into the land of make believe with Troy and Abed. Beats the hell out of Spaghetti, right?

Roping in everyone but Jeff – who’s faking illness so he can buy even more shirts – to help with the move leads to what might be the warmest, funniest episode of the season so far. Taking in morality, maturity, stalking and the dangers of pensioners decorating, Studies In Modern Movement is one of those episodes where nothing really happens, while everything is happening. Complex, but with the deftest of touches, the sheer amount of goings on, revelations, obscure references and visual gags packed into the episode is frankly astonishing. If moving house was ever this much fun, we’d do it all the time – blanket forts included.

Introducing us to a whole new side of Troy and Abed, one that has only been hinted at before, the news that the boys have a replica of the holodeck in their apartment, where they play out their presumably more private fantasies (they play out all the non-private ones in full view of the entire student body) was hilarious, particularly given that they expected Annie to sleep in the front room, thus leaving the fantasy room intact.

Thankfully, they came to their senses, and now Annie gets to sleep in private, but the fact that the holodeck remains untouched is very telling. Perhaps what’s more disturbing than the private playroom, though, are Troy and Abed’s reasons for wanting Annie to move in – all of them domestic. Perhaps in the little T&A bubble, the 21st century hasn’t quite reached them?

The move itself also led to some fantastic non-move related comedy, with some of the lesser seen Community pairings. Shirley and Britta’s morality conversation, encompassing a run in with exactly the sort of person Britta will be treating/making a whole hell of a lot worse had some beautiful one-upmanship. This pairing also was also responsible for one of those lines that gets funnier the more you think about it – Shirley’s admission that Friends taught her that living with people you know leads to drug use is a beauty. Which episode was that exactly? The one with all the drugs? The one where Joey admits he’s a pothead? If only…

Best of all, though, was Jeff’s impromptu date with the creepy Dean, who took creepy to a whole new level this week. Not that Jeff didn’t totally deserve everything he got, but no one should ever be blackmailed into karaoke. That surely is cruel and unusual punishment. Having said that, Joel McHale’s rendition of Kiss From A Rose was frighteningly convincing, and fantastically funny. Always good value for money, McHale excelled himself this week, and it was a joy to behold.

In an episode full of great touches, perhaps the highlight for all the film nerds in the audience were the fabulous nods to classic movies. The Lloyd Bridges Airplane tribute was genius, and isn’t used anywhere near enough, and we should totally bring back the Wayne’s World “Shyeah!” as a way of expressing one’s total disbelief. It’s things like that that keep the nerd in all of us coming back to Community; it’s our very own prime time TV show, made by nerds for nerds, and the rest of the world has no idea…

Admittedly, it’s a door opened by the pop culture encyclopaedia that is Seth MacFarlane, but Dan Russo and the Community team do it in a far more real world way, or to put it in simpler terms, no talking dog necessary. Although, if you do know anyone in the real world with a fake holodeck for private games, run like hell…

Read our review of episode six, Advanced Gay, here.