By Leor Galil, guest blogger

Before Community’s Season 2 premiere Thursday night, the people behind the TV show will dish out laughs in 140-character bursts during a “Twittersode.”

That’s a Twitter episode. No, the creators of the comedy, which follows disbarred lawyer Jeff Winger and his interactions with students when he starts attending community college, won’t be posting video links on their Twitter accounts. Instead, Community’s characters will tweet to each other as they prepare for the first class of the new semester. Fans can watch the action on NBC’s Community Twittersode site, or follow the characters’ Twitter accounts.

It should be interesting to see how the technologically inept Pierce Hawthorne (played by Chevy Chase) is able to keep up on Twitter. But beyond the gimmickry inherent in announcing a Twittersode, the people behind Community may be the one team on TV that could make an endeavor like this entertaining, and even successful.

Though well received when it debut last fall, Community did have a few naysayers. In a review of the show, Variety’s Brian Lowry wrote, “It’s a little too self-conscious about the genre’s clichés — or at least, feels that way because its satirical elements aren’t as crisp as they need to be.”

Like many shows, Community significantly improved after its pilot aired, and the show’s satirical elements became crisper, all while keeping that element of self-consciousness intact. By the end of Season 1, Community was an excellent reflection of our zeitgeist, addressing modern times better than most TV shows.

That’s why the Twittersode could very well work. Community is perhaps the one TV show to integrate social networking into its narrative without distracting from the plot. Like the college students it emulates (or exaggerates), Community has successfully integrated Facebook and Twitter into its universe, if ever so slightly.

“For your information, I don’t have an ego. My Facebook photo is a landscape,” Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) said in an episode from last season entitled “Contemporary American Poultry.” Like the show itself, the Facebook joke is sharp and speedy.

It’s also the best use of the word “Facebook” in any piece of televised dialogue. It’s easy to find a TV program these days willing to name-check Facebook in an effort to make viewers think what they are watching is relevant. Yet, in the guise of Community, the use of technology and social media as a narrative tool seems less like an attention-grabbing gimmick, and more like a normal part of the characters’ lives.

Which, in the spirit of things, sets a strong precedent for a successful debut Twittersode. At the very least, here’s hoping there are a few more hilarious tweets from Troy’s (Donald Glover) @shitmydadsays spoof account, @oldwhitemansays.

Community airs at 8 p.m. Thursday on NBC. The pre-show Twittersode begins at 7 p.m. Eastern.

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Leor Galil is a Chicago-based freelance journalist. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Follow us on Twitter: @imleor and @TheUnderwire.

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Authors: Leor Galil

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