Community

NewsdayVerne Gay

Community can be fresh, funny, smart and extremely aware of its own cleverness; it also can be terrifically odd--odd good, or odd bad, or sometimes odd-good-bad-strange all at once.

TV GuideMatt Roush

One of the best new comedies of the season, and an instant bright light in NBC’s much-honored lineup.

Entertainment Weekly

McHale gets to flirt and insult to his heart's content, and he's impishly believable in both modes. The supporting cast members manage to make each of their sad little lives amusing, so what could have been a downer of a show is often absurdly funny.

Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall

I've seen the pilot episode at least four times already, in whole or in parts, and I laugh just as hard at the jokes now as I did the first time.

Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray

For a good three days afterward, I was tempted to introduce one of the pilot's best lines into casual conversation--no, I won't spoil it for you, but it involves sharks--yet I wondered if it might not just be a fluke. But I saw the second episode of Community yesterday, and the same thing happened.

Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm

Ken Jeong plays the Spanish professor, Mr. Chang, the kind of quiet joke in the topsy-turvy world that characterizes this sweetly funny show.

Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen

Fast-paced with snappy, smart dialogue and engaging characters that brim with potential, NBC's Community fits in well with its new Thursday night neighbor, "The Office.

PopMattersDaynah Burnett

Given the heft of the show’s themes and the crispness of the writing, it’s got to be a brilliant social commentary disguised as a major network sitcom, right? Or maybe Joel McHale really is that likable and we’re all wallowing in nostalgia for a simpler 2002. Either way, boo-yah.

SalonHeather Havrilesky

The first episode of Community features alarmingly smart writing, and the cast is fantastic, from Chase, who can make us laugh with just a look, to McHale, who's believably slippery but not too adorably caddish or cloying (Zach Braff, anyone?) as the antihero.

TimeJames Poniewozik

It's a promising comedy about a shallow man trying to make his life right, one bad deed at a time.

San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman

As long as the jokes stay barbed, fast and witty--as they are in the pilot--there's more than enough reason to keep following the band of misfits.

Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert

The show is overstuffed with political and pop culture jokes about everything from 9/11 to “The Breakfast Club,’’ but they’re always secondary to the warm ensemble character comedy. The free-floating irony isn’t terminal.

The New York TimesAlessandra Stanley

Community is mercilessly snarky and also surprisingly charming, which is not easy to pull off.

Hollywood Reporter

If creator/writer Dan Harmon earns only a "C" for the framework of his show, he gets higher grades for its brisk pace and clever writing. And some extra credit is in order for casting, as well.

USA TodayRobert Bianco

It's not as funny as "30 Rock" nor as distinctive as "The Office," but it's a clear improvement on the seemingly unsalvageable "Parks & Recreation."

Slant MagazineKris King

While the cast delivers solid, funny performances, they're mostly just playing caricatures of themselves, and the rest of the supporting players range from forgettable to obnoxious, especially Danny Pudi, whose rambling Abed is about as endearing as stepping on a nail.

New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley

In weeks ahead, the show will likely work out a balance between the jerk and the laughs. Then it can also start exploring the other characters, all of whom have the potential to fuel amusing ongoing subplots.

Los Angeles TimesRobert Lloyd

It is technically proficient--that is, the jokes consistently work, even when they don't add up to much--and its problems may not be unsolvable, if anyone even considers them problems in the first place.

Wall Street JournalNancy DeWolf Smith

The humor in Community is so soft that it will likely please only the tenderhearted. The river that runs through it is a comforting one, though.

Washington PostHank

The dialogue, while quick, has all the calculated bite of a smirky cellphone commercial, veering into jokes about Ben Affleck and "The Breakfast Club." The grading scale here is strictly Pass/Fail. Its preseason hype aside, Community needs to buckle down to survive the semester.

VarietyBrian Lowry

Community embraces the traditional sitcom notion of “family” being what you make of it, but it’s a little too self-conscious about the genre’s cliches--or at least, feels that way because its satirical elements aren’t as crisp as they need to be.

New York PostLinda Stasi

The series, which has so much promise (and promised so much), is long on smug self-satisfaction and short on big laughs.

Miami HeraldGlenn Garvin

Community's party animals tend to get their kicks less from bongs, grain-alcohol projectile vomiting and peeping into sorority windows than from irregular Spanish verbs and lengthy recitations of the script of The Breakfast Club, which, for the most part, is even less amusing than it sounds.