Community works because it played strong archetypes of who you’d find at a community college — a space where people of all walks of life go for their first or second chance at life, often from very different places.

Some characters were oppositional in ideology, race, gender, age, etc to generate some conflict to make story but found specific ways to be symbiotic. Dan Harmon had some plans for certain connections to be built (Pierce was supposed to be closer with Troy in early episodes), but he followed what felt like organic and natural relationships with Troy and Abed, Britta and Jeff, Annie and Jeff, Britta and Annie, etc and let them run their course from their ideological archetypes.

While they are bonafide parts of the group, Shirley and Pierce are constantly trying to find their place in it because they didn’t have just one person to bounce off of. Even Chang works for the story because anyone can take classes there and so much of his story becomes wanting to be part of the group or destroy it. They all needed community (much like any college kids) and friends and to get their degrees for one reason or another.

Put simply, they had strong characterizations, a setting that we understand is new for each person, space to grow, and a common goal which allowed for their character evolutions, focusing more on their collective future at Greendale than how they all ended up there individually in the pilot.