The great thing about the new free-to-air channels on Australian TV is that networks now have more airspace to broadcast shows that may otherwise have never had a chance in the Australian market. Community is one such show that previously might have been neglected by Australian networks, or worse still; pick up and played in the grave-yard time slots, which would have been a real shame, because this is one of the most promising new comedies to come out of the US.

Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) is a sleazy yet charming lawyer who has had his license suspended by the state bar after it became clear that his undergraduate degree from Columbia (The Country, not the University) had been fabricated. To regain his license to practice law, he is forced to attend Greendale Community College to earn a genuine degree. After a failed attempt to coax every answer to every test, Jeff realizes that his time at Greendale will not be as smooth as he’d hoped.

Things get even more complicated for Jeff when he meets Britta (Gillian Jacobs), the girl who he determines he wants to sleep with. Of course, she sees through his charm and deceit but Jeff is still adamant to get her. This inevitably results in his persistent flirting, rejection and the ensuing life lessons.

The supporting cast is brought together by a study group consisting of Abed (Danny Pudi), a socially awkward fountain of pop culture references; Pierce Hawthorn (Chevy Chase), a successful yet clueless businessman who has made his fortune off moist-towelettes and is coming out of his seventh marriage; Troy Barnes and Annie Edison, the high school quarter-back and the girl who has had an unrequited crush on him since, as well as Shirley Bennett, the recent divorcee who is attending college for the first time.

Community is essentially the television equivalent of the token cool kid in the proverbial high school drama class; he really wants to act but is so afraid that he’s going to look uncool that he spends the entire class goofing off and making fun of everything he does, just to ensure that his peers are aware that he isn’t taking the class too seriously.

Billed as a satire of Community College, Community spends so much time satirizing itself - and flagging every TV cliché it uses with a joke - that it plays more like a parody of modern television than Community College. This may sound like a bad thing, but it’s not. The defining thing about the insecure kid in drama class was that he was funny, and so is Community.

Unfortunately, Community does have a habit of pointing out its own artificiality, which can prove to be tedious. And maybe, as the show progresses, the jokes might have the potential to wear thin, but I believe that there is enough comic fodder in the characters that, once it manages to get past its insecurities and stops being so self aware, the show has enough potential and delivers enough laughs to have me watching for the rest of the season and maybe more to come.

Community airs on GO!

James Clark