promos of NBC's upcoming shows

What is community college? You've heard it's "loser college" for remedial teens, twenty-something drop-outs, middle-aged divorcees, and old people keeping their minds active as they circle the drain of eternity.

Via Kristin at E!: NBC has picked up Joel McHale's (E!'s The Soup) pilot, Community, to series. I have to say, NBC's promotional video is top-notch. We're introduced to the major characters (Chevy Chase as a horny professor!), and the jokes are both funny and appropriate -- Jeff's limited knowledge of Spanish includes the phrase "do not scratch my car," Chevy Chase giggles at the word "Asperger's," and Ahmed breaks out with Bender's "You know what I got for Christmas? A carton of cigarettes!" speech from The Breakfast Club (as a product of the 80s, I totally geeked out). This show looks really fantastic. Joel McHale has leading man good looks and such a subtle delivery of comedy ("school-shaped toilet") that I think very few actors could pull off this role believably. He's not an outlandish character -- none of them are, really -- and the weight of realism is what will separate this show from others like Better Off Ted or Scrubs (both of which, mind you, I thoroughly enjoy). My one wish for this show is that Patricia Belcher, who is hysterical in every role she takes on, stick around as a recurring character -- and further, that she inadvertently becomes Jeff's "cosmic mentor." There's potential for greatness with that.

On a related note... NBC has promos on their other upcoming new shows: 100 Questions looks awfully cliché; Day One offers a boring behind-the-scenes look at the apocalypse; Parenthood looks like a modern, more dramatic take on the Steve Martin film of the same name(*); and Mercy, about a group of nurses, has potential (it's postfeminist in the way that Sex and the City failed to be) and I'll definitely give the premiere a shot.

(*) I feel that if this show isn't funny, it would be too uncomfortable for people to watch. Do parents really want to see the drama of being a parent mirrored back to them, or would they rather have Steve Martin in a cowboy outfit?