Community: I Like This Show A Lot, But I'm Still Not Sure It's Great

I have time to really blog tonight! Woo hoo! The evening started off with Community, which I'm normally excited to watch because I love Joel McHale and The Soup so much. Tonight's episode felt a little off though. I'm not saying it wasn't funny, it just wasn't consistently funny, which I would expect from a show that's got a few episodes under its belt. Let's break it down:

The Good:

• Senor Chang. He's got just enough "My life blows" in his personality to be crazy without going overboard. Ken Jeong is a fantastic actor.
  
• Jeff and Britta. I'm a sucker for romantic tension and I think I will like them as a couple when they get there. Until then, I will like Britta continually sniping at Jeff until he does something nice for her.
  
• Annie, aka Alison Brie, aka Trudy Campbell. I'm not sure I love Annie as a character. She can be a bit shrill. I do like seeing Alison Brie flex her comedic chops, because it's clear she's got great range to do drama and comedy. She needs to get her butt back over to Mad Men, though, because Pete's eyes are a-wandering and someone needs to watch him.
  

The Bad:

• Abed's storyline. Just didn't do it for me tonight. I kept waiting for him to walk off screen so I wouldn't have to see him. I found him irritating and not at all engaging like he was when he was making his student film.
  
• Chevy Chase. No disrespect to Chevy, but I find his character, Pierce, infinitely, infinitely annoying. Infinitely. Like I just want him to shut up when he opens his mouth. I'll give him some props based on the school song set to Tupac's "Changes" at the end of the episode, but honestly I wouldn't mind seeing Pierce get expelled.
  
• The British Guy. I don't know the character's name because we haven't seen him in a while, but his presence feels unnecessary. And unfunny. Save for his scenes with Senor Chang.
  

The Undecided:

• The rapid fire pop culture references. Ok, I know, I know, I should love them, but honestly they're hard to keep up with and this isn't 30 Rock. Case in point: in the opening scene tonight Senor Chang called Annie "Mary Ann," Pierce, "Grandpa," Shirley, "Jackee," Abed, "Kumar," and himself, "Mr. Miyagi." That's references to Gilligan's Island, The Munsters, the mom from Sister, Sister, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and The Karate Kid all in a span of five seconds. That is a shit-ton, yes a shit-ton, of pop culture references. I like them, but I also like not having my brain working on all cylinders watching for and working out pop culture references all episode.
  

Ok so those are my thoughts. Now for some quotes, which were pretty damn funny:

"Well I may be a genius, but I'm not a lesbian."--Pierce. Yup, just yup.

"We are mature. Too mature to sit in a class with a cheating, lying poopface."--Senor Chang

"She stormed out of the room in her high-heeled boots like it was tampon time."--Senor Chang. Woah. He went there.

"You're very confident, I'll say that." "You shouldn't be."--British Guy and Senor Chang to the man taking a shower.

Am I alone here in thinking that tonight was a little off? Please tell me if I'm wrong.