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My feelings about Community so far, fourteen episodes in, are...kind of like the feelings I had about Glee? Except a much more favorable ratio of hate to love. But it's basically the same experience where each episode constantly swings between "this is the best show ever and I love these characters so much, NEVER LEAVE ME" and "I want to punch every single writer and director involved in this and then set them on fire and then kill them." Now, that's actually a less intense anger than the rage I felt for Glee, but it's of a very similar kind. Basically I feel like this show keeps telling the wrong stories, but then about 40% of the time it's the right stories, and they are SO PERFECT. (Glee had the right stories about 20% of the time, which is apparently the bare minimum required to keep me hanging on through an endless monsoon of shit. So Community is doing great.)

Anyway I could go on at more length on the disappointing/angrymaking parts, but who wants that, so I will simply note that at least so far, Troy and Abed remain 100% flawless. Tell me this will never change, you guys. Also maybe hook me up with another sitcom that has similar humor but is better with women? I know these exist, I've heard you speak of them before! Not that I plan to ditch Community, although I may need warnings for when I need to brace myself and soldier on re: the ladies.

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Yeah, Community is really pendulum like in that way - I like that they take risks and aren't afraid to venture to strange places, but when they fail, they fail hard. I do think that their representation of the ladies - especially Britta - gets better and more interesting as time goes on!

But the other show that you're looking for is probably Parks and Recreation - have you seen that? Leslie Knope is the GREATEST and her friendship with Ann is AMAZING and it's a wonderful and feminist show. The problem with it is that it really represents this hingepoint in American comedy between irony and sincerity - so, the first season is trying hard to be a small town version of The Office, and has a lot of embarrassment humour, etc. But starting in the second season it gets a lot more sincere and a lot more about love and found-family and stuff. So, I adore ParksnRec, but I always tell people to either brace themselves for the first season or to skip it all together. The other big problem I have with it is their portrayal of Jerry, who's a sort of middle-aged fat clumsy dude loser. On the other hand, there is Donna, who's a hot amazing fat black lady, so sometimes her presence mitigates the fat jokes for me. But still, something to watch out for.

Yeah, right now Britta for me is like being jabbed repeatedly in the ribs--even more because sometimes, when they forget to use her as an object lesson for bad women who is never allowed to be right about anything, she's so fucking amazing. So, uh, if that gets better, that will be GREAT.

Parks and Recreation I think is what I was thinking of, yes! I will check it out, and start with season 2.