On The Change In Community
I was never the biggest fan of the NBC comedy, Community.
When I say that I wasn’t the biggest fan, it doesn’t mean that I disliked the show. I mostly watched it when I found that my friends (dedicated fans, which is an adjective that describes a decent number of the show’s fans) were watching it, and I found Community, for lack of a better term, pleasant. It made me feel good to watch it. It wasn’t centered around the flaws of people and why those flaws made people funny. It was centered around people, and, well, people being funny. The “flaws” weren’t presented as flaws. It wasn’t a gimmick show. It wasn’t a sitcom biology experiment where you put a few different people in a room and hoped the writers could build some semblance of plot around them.
And that is why Community was never a ratings darling.
A “ratings darling” is a show that is very popular, and kills in ratings. It’s a show like American Idol or Dancing With The Stars or NCIS. Those are shows that have a mass appeal, because those are shows that you can expect consistent things from. In the case of the first, it’s a few weeks of people sucking and then a few more weeks of talented people trying not to suck. I’ve never watched Dancing With The Stars, but that’s because I assume it’s awful, so I’m justified. And in the case of the NCIS, they solve crimes. Not a lot happens. It’s a procedural drama. I’m not dissing NCIS, but it’s case opened/case closed. When they pull a bigger risk than AND ONE OF THESE CHARACTERS ISN’T. COMING. BACK., I’ll give it a bit more credit.
But back to a paragraph and a sentence ago. Sure, there were personality types on Community, but they weren’t pieces of a puzzle in the sense that television shows tend to fit people together. The cast wasn’t made of parallels to one another. There were no hot girl/nerd or sexpot/gentleman clashes for people to look forward to every week. Community was always a bit too meta, a bit too weird for general audiences. I hate to be the kind of person who says “PEOPLE LIKE WHAT THEY LIKE AND THEY’RE DUMB FOR IT” but Community was a little too “out there.” Community definitely didn’t have to be the way it was. It could have fit it’s characters into the stereotypes that, week after week, one could expect definite things from.
Abed would’ve been a Big Bang Theory cast-off, making nerdy references but losing all the deeper shit. No more talks about “realities” or “time lines.” Way more Star Wars and World Of Warcraft humor, though. And him dressing up as Batman? Milk that for all it’s worth.
Troy would’ve been legitimately stupid. Sure, he still would have rapped and been friends with Abed, but it would’ve been more of an ”ABED, THAT’S WHY YOU CAN’T GET LAID, MAN!” kind of friendship.
Jeff would have been a bit older, a bit more sexually aggressive and would have dressed differently. He’d have revelatory moments about his own character still, but they wouldn’t change who he was. He’d say to himself “What if I was a better guy?” and then he’d swig his beer and hit on Britta. Cue laugh track.
Britta might have been the only character to change over the course of the entire series. Sure, she’d start as a bit uptight, but as soon as the wily Jeff got his way, boy, she’d show that she could get a bit crazy! There can’t be two uptight girls in a group.
Annie would stay completely innocent, the youngest member, constantly threatening to sabotage whatever madcap situations the study group got themselves into. Oh, and she might share a tender kiss (turned into something passionate and awkward and HILARIOUS) with Troy or Abed (whoever the audience liked more) when the show had it’s last episode.
Shirley would have had her sandwich shop, and she would yell about it. She’s the only black person in the group, and God help her if she’s not going to be outspoken about every fucking thing in the world. She has to sit at the bottom right corner of the study table? Is it because she’s black? Abed’s dressed as Batman and spooks everyone. I keep a gun in my purse. I’m from the hood. Get it, America?
Let me run down the list of things that Pierce could joke about:
-Viagra
-His eye sight
-Shirley and Annie
-How weird Abed is
-Viagra
-His life in his youth compared to his life now
-Viagra, because there’s nothing funnier in the world to make fun of, as proven by comedy and history repeatedly, than an older man’s limp, failing genitals.
Chang would’ve been a more strapped-in version of first season Chang. And nothing else.
Dean Pelton would’ve been about as gay as you can make someone. Have you been working out, Jeff? Maybe back in World War II, Pierce!
And that is why Dan Harmon was replaced. I’m not a flag-bearer for the man. I’m not going to praise his name because he helped to create a good TV show and was dropped in an email by faceless executives. I’ve read his post about how he came to learn about being replaced and his thoughts on it. He seems well-spoken enough and he seems to have a good sense of humor.
I’m also not saying that, with new showrunners, Community is going to become the lame joke nightmare that I listed above. I think that it’s going to continue in a similar fashion to how it’s been going. But I think it’ll feel a tad different, if only because the fan base is dedicated, and they’ll sense it.
When a machine that’s performed well in the past isn’t performing to par now, why not replace the operator? That’s think that’s what NBC feels. It might be a little more about money or a little more about creative differences, but, for the most part, Community wasn’t doing great and, when something’s not doing great, I think NBC felt that it would be okay to change the people behind that something. Couldn’t hurt, right?
-Daniel
http://danielsfunny.com/
