By Oliver Kelly

Community is a 2009 sitcom available on Netflix that centers around a group of college students in a study group in community college. It’s quite funny, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes to laugh.

Community starts out as cliche as it gets. You have predictable character arcs, like the handsome jerk, the rebel, and the cooky old man, but through time, their character development becomes unique and interesting to watch. The quote on quote “handsome jerk,” a character called Jeff Winger, is a former lawyer who doesn’t care about anyone, but over the course of the show he slowly comes to care for the people around him.

This show was created by Dan Harmon, so naturally it is pretty wacky. Nothing is off the table for the students at Greendale Community College. Weird events happen all the time, and on multiple occasions the main characters play paintball on school grounds. There’s even a side plot about Troy Barnes, one of the main characters, deciding if he should attend the evil air conditioning repair school, which goes on and off for multiple seasons.

I think my favorite character would have to be Abed, whose dream is to make movies, and who spends all of his time making movie references and being weird. One of the running jokes of the series is how Abed pretends his entire life is a movie, so he does all sorts of fourth wall breaking and calls out setups for cliches.

However, this show is not without its flaws. It’s supposed to last four seasons because that’s how many years it takes to complete college, but for some reason it returns for two more simply because the writers thought it should be longer. They do this by making Jeff a law teacher after his lawyer business failed, which makes enough sense, but the last two seasons are a severe drop in quality. Trust me, if you want to watch this series, you are not missing anything if you just don’t watch the final two seasons. They are really not worth it.

My final rating for this show is an 8/10.

By: Yanyoua Xiong

In 2019, the film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile came out about the famous serial killer from the 1970s, Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy was famous for killing young women he either seduced or lured in by playing inured. He was later convicted for several things which led to the death penalty. 

The film uses real life quotes and basically re-enacts Bundy’s whole life starting from when he gets caught the very first time for running a stop sign, twice. Obviously, there are details that can’t be thrown into the film, but it holds a lot of facts that were caught on camera.

Things like Bundy’s personal thoughts, his plans, and even his feelings were all put into the film. After my own personal research, I found that Bundy’s friends, attorneys, and prosecutors released recordings of Bundy explaining how and why he did things. They also released information about personal meetings they had with him that unfortunately couldn’t be recorded. The film captures these emotions well and it sometimes even feels like it’s truly Ted Bundy himself.

Something that interested me was during Bundy’s trials, women were stacked in the audience watching. They were scared, yet found an attraction to him. Every one of them watched his trials knowing he attacked only women, especially young women, yet they still went hoping to catch his attention.

Bundy’s attorney even noted that some women would even sneak her some notes and ask her to give them to Bundy. Bundy’s attorney wasn’t in the film but they put in the interviews of women that explained how they felt about Bundy. 

I personally enjoyed this movie even though there were some unsightly images, but it added to the realism of the film. I recommend this film to people who like thriller and mystery films. It was accurate and interesting, and really showcased Ted Bundy’s trials. 

There is no question that we are in unprecedented times. With the coronavirus taking the world by storm, who would have thought that reunions of our favorite TV shows and movies would be keeping us busy.

There is no question that the majority of the population has been spending a lot of time at home. Luckly, for most, streaming our favorite shows and movies has been keeping us relatively busy. 

Not only do we get to spend our days binge-watching all sorts of entertainment, but we also get to watch reunions of our favorite shows. Virtual reunions have brought together our favorite casts. All the way from Scandal, to The Office, to Austin & Ally, a variety of shows have reunited during these difficult times. Disney channel favorites, 90s dramas, classic comedies, and even recent shows (like Tiger King and Too Hot To Handle) all are reuniting virtually for fans.

As of April 30, TV Line reported that there have been more than 20 virtual cast reunions. 

Here are just a few of the reunions so far…

Chuck, 90210, Desperate Housewives, Difficult People, Entourage, Frasier, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Friday Night Lights, Glee, Grimm, Hannah Montana, Jessie, The Last Man on Earth, Melrose Place, The Nanny, The Office, Outsourced, Parks and Recreation, Scandal, SCTV, Sonny with a Chance/So Random, Taxi, Twin Peaks, and Victorious.  

So, why reunite now? And what are they doing to help?

Many shows are reuniting now because they have the time on their hands. Sometimes with a popular show, it is hard to get the whole cast together due to busy schedules. Now, people have the free time to connect again.

Another reason shows are reuniting is because of a rise in popularity. With more free time, old shows are gaining a newfound popularity. This encourages a cast reunion that maybe wouldn’t have been wanted before.

As for what the reunions are doing to help people, the Parks and Recreation reunion is a great example of what reunions should be doing. During the Parks and Recreation reunion on April 30, they encouraged viewers to donate money to Feeding America. They dedicated the entire reunion to Feeding America as well.

Although not every reunion is dedicated to charity, all of them have been spreading well needed positivity. Reunions are also putting smiles on people’s faces and encouraging them to stay positive.

These reunions are a great reminder that one day, our world will be back to normal. 

The Walking Dead has always been a show victim to jokes and complaints. Many people point out it’s many seasons, dumb characters, and awkward romance. The amount of people tuning in every week has been chopped by more than half.

Production of new episodes of The Walking Dead has been stopped due to the coronavirus, and recently the FCC decided to release its biggest complaints about the AMC show.

Almost all are about the violence, and many called for the show to be taken of the air. A few viewers even called it satanic.

Complaints about violence consisted of the idea that such gore does not belong on cable television. A Texas complaint said there is no need to show blood and cites Hitchcock’s Pyscho as a non-violent horror.

Lots of these violence complaints centered around season seven’s villain. He wields a baseball bat covered in barbed wire, and uses this as a weapon against people. One viewer had said the image of seeing the bat used had horrified them, and even days later they couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Another focus was a group of people in the show who wear zombie skin as a disguise. Ads were shown on different channels showing the people cutting and sewing the skin masks. The complaints had said that the ads were too graphic. One person had been “Watching Princess Diaries 2 for goodness sakes,” and couldn’t change the channel quick enough. Another was trying to watch the “wholesome, clean” Hallmark channel, but was subjected to the same commercial. Complaints like these span over many channels such as The Food Network and TV Land.

In the same vein as violence, people also said the show is satanic. This is due to the gore, language, and LGBTQ+ characters.

Complaints also centered around the swearing. One viewer didn’t understand why cuss words would be on a show for kids, despite the fact that it is a TV-14 rated show.

Another had said that the show pulled in people of all ages and should be more clean. Walking Dead’s rating has been under fire as well, due to people thinking the show is not age appropriate for teens, and it should be rated TV-MA instead.

It feels like most of the complaints are just due to personal taste. While you might think gore is horrible, another person enjoys the thrill and tension that it can come with.

At the end of the day, if you don’t like the show, you can always turn it off.

The Midnight Gospel is a Netflix show that came out on April 20th. The show was directed and produced by Duncan Trussel and Pendleton Ward, the creators of Adventure Time. The show follows the journey of a guy named Clancy who goes to different worlds and records podcasts interviewing people from those worlds. These interviews are based on real life conversations Pendleton Ward and Duncan Trussel had with philosophers around the world.

Each episode dives into different topics from the legalization of marijuana to the modern use of witchcraft. On top of the oftentimes bizarre topics, the animation that goes alongside it is very confusing, but interesting and fun to watch. The style of animation is very similar to Adventure Time in that it’s very colorful and there’s a lot of organic movement. 

The eighth and final episode was my favorite. This episode is based off a 2013 interview with Duncan Trussel’s mom. At the time, she had metastatic breast cancer that had spread to her bone marrow. She died three weeks after the interview. The episode dives into death and what happens after you die. They also talk about going with the flow of life rather than fighting against it.

Overall, this show was very good. I think that I will have to watch it a couple more times to fully understand everything because there is so much information, but the visuals make it interesting enough that it will still be fun to watch. I highly recommend watching it.