...its attempts at emotional growth or character development are pretty lame, and pretty freaking repetitive.
I call this The Scrubs Effect. :\ Every episode of Scrubs ended the EXACT same way, and the characters would go back to square one at the beginning of the subsequent episode. I completely agree with you when it comes to Community. I've ignored it because so much else on the show makes me laugh that it used to not matter, but into its second season with the threat of almost immediate cancellation, the writers need to change their M.O.