Tag Archives: NBC

Just Don’t Watch It

Posted on by
4

Community is a terrible facsimile of what it once was. I don’t want it to come back. I want it to be canceled because knowing it’s out there going through the paces makes me sad.

The common retort I hear is that I don’t have to watch it. This is true. But, for one, I am a big enough fan that, even though I’ve decided it’s not the same show, I probably will keep watching it and I probably will keep getting sadder and sadder.

But this is beside the point. Who cares if I watch it or not? I think, internally, the show should care about itself. I think shows should have enough respect for their own settings and characters to pull the plug when it’s no longer working.

This is about people in creative positions having the sense to move onto a new project. Creativity is by nature meant to be fun and exciting. If you’re repeating ideas and things are getting stale, you should move on for the sake of the project. Otherwise you get the unfortunate situation The Simpsons is in where ideas have run so dry that characters are now routinely completely betraying the things that once defined them (for example, Mr. Burns became a superhero in an episode this season). It’s offensive to fans, but, more than that, it’s offensive to the show when it was at its best.

Barring some kind of miracle (Jim Rash as showrunner, maybe?) I suspect seeing Zombie Community on TV is always going to make me sad. But, ultimately, for me, this isn’t about how a lesser Community is a disservice to the fans. It’s about how it’s a disservice to itself.

Community Spec Script – “The Science of Sleep Deprivation”

Posted on by
Reply

This is a spec script (my first one ever for anything) that I wrote for this TV show called Community that I believe some people like.

VIEW/DOWNLOAD THE PDF RIGHT HERE!!!

If you’re interested, after the jump I’ve written a big, rambly postmortem sort of thing of the whole screenplay.

Community Reminded Me of Why I Like Sitcoms
And It Was a Great Show, Too

Posted on by
1

Here is proof Dan Harmon is a lovely sonofabitch:

http://kellyoxford.tumblr.com/post/479774445/my-story-about-the-film-monster-house

However, I’m sure he is something of a network nightmare, evidently to the point they couldn’t even stomach him for one more mini-season. I’m only just really realizing that the finale last week was effectively the series finale as critics like Alan Sepinwall have noted: http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/can-community-work-without-dan-harmon

Furthermore:
http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/saying-goodbye-to-the-dan-harmon-era-of-community

I don’t think I’ve ever watched a show that was so clearly driven by one person’s head get suddenly upended in such a way. It’s vastly different compared to something like The Simpsons which certainly had a golden age but has swapped writers constantly throughout its existence, its drop in quality more of a gradual deterioration based on just going on for way too long as it exhausted all its ideas and novelty. Probably the closest comparison I can think of to this Community debacle is Twin Peaks, which had big problems every time David Lynch left the room and was, in the second season, irreparably wounded by network interference that effectively forced the removal of all potential future dramatic heft and tension from the show in one fell swoop.

Of course, I haven’t actually yet seen what a Community without Harmon looks like, but I honestly can’t imagine how it won’t become completely crippled. I feel there’s something very creepy about this — a kinder, gentler, more budget-conscious, less challenging Community going through the motions, in no way ever attempting to overextend itself — because, even at the times it didn’t exactly work, that’s what Community did.