Monday, August 15, 2011

Thursday TV Tournament: Match-up 19 Results

Today's match-up is between twenty-ninth seed Community Season Two, Episode Twenty-Four, "For a Few Paintballs More," which aired May 12, 2011, and twentieth seed, Community Season Two, Episode Nine, "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design" which aired November 18, 2010. The results are in:


The second part of the two-part season finale, "For a Few Paintballs More," ties up what began as little more than a shout-out to the most successful episode of the previous season, "the paintball episode," in a really funny and interesting way. Unfortunately, against an episode such as "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design," which is fairly strong and tells a complete story within one half-hour of television, this finale episode didn't really stand a chance. I'll admit that it was terribly close, but in the end the suspense music, the high concept, and the acting of Kevin Corrigan proved stronger than the last episode of the season. Cavemen Go follower Adam Friedli had a similar vote for which episode ought to win, but for completely different reasons (NOTE: if you weigh in and support your thoughts, I might just have the pleasure of quoting you in future posts):

"Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design" gets my vote in this round.

Both were pretty fun, but it felt like a landslide in my choice's direction. The end of "For a Few Paintballs More" definitely set up for an interesting dynamic for next season, but the blanket fort completely won me over. It reminded me of how cool an idea that still is. A blanket fort for men indeed. Just think about it and you KNOW it would be an amazing time to have a blanket fort of that scale. The entire ending sequence was equally as fantastic too.

"Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design" was simply Community at its best and was far better than Community at not quite its best.


Whether you were a fan of the conspiracy theory story line or the interior design story line, it appears that all votes were in favor of "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design." I want to give a special thanks to Adam Friedli for weighing in with such a concise response.

Tune in next time for twenty-first seed, Community Season Two, Episode Fourteen, "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons," which aired February 3, 2011, and twenty-eighth seed, Community Season Two, Episode Twenty-One, "Paradigms of Human Memory," which aired April 21, 2011. This might be the most difficult match-up yet.

2 comments:

  1. While I appreciate what they did with "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons," "Paradigms of Human Memory" wins this round for me.

    Now, I know Community has only been around for two seasons. But even still, "Paradigms of Human Memory" felt like classic Community. It had tons of quick and witty jokes, and a lot of the subtle humor that made me fall in love with the show in the first place.

    A large part of this was mentioning situations as if they were common knowledge to the viewer, when in reality this was the first mention of any of them. They also addressed and explained portions of earlier shows, such as Annie's issue with stolen pens. There was just a lot going on and it all worked really well for me.

    This show also reminded me of an episode of South Park where the kids were stranded in a school bus stuck near an edge of a cliff named "City on the Edge of Forever" (207). The kids start reminiscing about events from previous shows, but they end up changing the details so they always end up eating ice cream. Now that's what I call a sticky situation.

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  2. Thanks again for commenting. I couldn't agree more!

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