| abstract
| - Meet Jeff Winger. Jeff used to be an attorney until it was discovered that his credentials from Colombia weren't from the Columbia everyone was thinking. Now, in order to get a real degree and qualify as a lawyer, Jeff has to go back to school -- specifically, Greendale Community College, a less-than-prestigious institution in Denver. Jeff, of course, has no intention of doing any actual work; having once helped Professor Ian Duncan, the pompous British psychology lecturer, bail out of an inconvenient DUI charge, Jeff fully intends on exploiting the favour Duncan owes him and easily acquire all the results for the tests on his curriculum. Despite Duncan's recently-discovered ethics (and fear of getting caught), Jeff manages to browbeat him into getting the results and, in the meantime, decides to fulfil a primary interest and chase women -- specifically, Britta Perry, an attractive member of his Spanish 101 class who just happens to be struggling with the upcoming Spanish test they have the next day. Sensing an in, Jeff claims to be a Spanish tutor leading a study group in the hopes of getting closer to her. Unfortunately for Jeff, the first fly in the ointment appears in the form of Abed Nadir, a pop-culture obsessed acquaintance of both Jeff and Britta -- who, herself not being an idiot and sensing a rat lurking within Jeff's charming exterior, invites along. Abed, in turn, invites along a few more flies -- Troy, a slightly dim ex-high school football jock; Annie, a highly-strung overachiever and ex-classmate of Troy's; Shirley, a single mother highly devoted to both her kids and her religion; and Pierce, a local moist-wipe magnate who isn't quite as intelligent, attractive, well-liked or up with the times as he thinks he is. And they all think Jeff's a Spanish tutor. Although trapped in the lie, Jeff is a very clever, quick and manipulative prick, and soon manages to exploit the underlying tensions between the group members to get them at each other's throats in order to create an opportunity for him and Britta to get some alone time. However, Britta is increasingly seeing what kind of man Jeff really is, and Duncan appears determined to teach Jeff a lesson about moral relativism and his slippery ways -- however much he doesn't want to learn it. It's beginning to look like Jeff is stuck with his new study group -- whether he wants it or not... As with many pilots, this one has a noticeably different feel from the rest of the series - the characters in particular play directly into their stereotypes, rather than playing with them. This is most striking with Abed and Troy.
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