Let's start with the good. Neither McHale nor Chase disappointed in their Community debuts. Their timing was spot on, and I get the feeling scenes between these two will be hilarious in future episodes.
The pleasant surprise of this show was the work done by John Oliver. I think he is probably the best Daily Show correspondent since Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert, but I had serious doubts about his ability to transfer those talents to a more traditional sitcom setting. My doubts were clearly unfounded. Oliver absolutely stole the first episode, and was far and away the funniest actor during the first 30 minutes of this series.
The biggest gripe I had with the episode was the lack of interaction between much of the characters. This is a problem that many series face in their first episode, but it was particularly glaring in Community. The study group scenes didn't feel like a group of people interacting, but more like 7 individual actors speaking to pretty much nobody.
Also, the character who spoke to quickly simply wasn't funny. Not only was it a bad shtick, but it's been used far too many times before. Hopefully they tweak that character a bit, and at least tone him down slightly.
All in all this series certainly has potential. I sincerely hope they make a few minor tweaks as the show goes forward, it could be one of NBC's surprise hits this fall.
2 out of 5
