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Community: let's crap out this piece of crap [S6 March 17th]
Apparently the whole Community Season 6 / Yahoo Screen original program experiment was a massive $42 million sinkhole. So any of you sending your "Please Save My Lowly Rated Show" ideas to Yahoo, you can stop now.
Of course it was a massive failure. You can't just make shows and hope people show up. Netflix (and Amazon) can make their own shows because it supplements their already expansive video streaming service. Community was the only reason I've been to Yahoo in the past, oh, 5 years or so. And as much as I like the show, I couldn't be assed to go there after the first three episodes.
I just assumed it was intended as a loss leader/proof of concept.
I mean, the ads didn't even work. For a lot of people, their player refused to work at all unless you turned ad block on.
It was basically like a bunch of college kids deciding to get together and make a movie just to prove they can. Only, you know, with a much bigger budget.
And I hope this doesn't mean that Other Space isn't going to get a second season. That's a fun little show.
Yeah, I enjoyed Other Space and was hoping that it would get an S2, but considering the exec specifically called out Yahoo Screen's original programming as the reason for the money problems and said it "didn't work" and they're moving on seems to be the final nail in the coffin.
Need to get my non-AT&T commercial Milana Vayntrub fix somewhere, dammit.
Admittedly, I watched the first two episodes when they came out, thought they were 'okay', and then completely forgot to watch any more.
Catching up now, I've seen 3 through 6. I'll say, while different from what the original show was, so far this is definitely better than seasons 4 and 5, and maybe better than 3.
On a whim I started watching Community from season 1.
That was a good show. I still enjoy most of the other seasons, but I can see how people who really liked the first season were turned off by season 3. 1 has just the right mix of silliness and real, while every season afterwards got progressively sillier.
Yeah, by the end of season 2 it definitely seemed like it had turned into "TV Tropes: The Series". Everyone was just a caricature of their one defining trait.
I think I'm kind of glad Hulu Japan only has seasons 1-3 on it. I wasn't as disappointed by Season 4 as most people, but I fear a rewatching it.
In a retrospective sense, I'd say the first two seasons are absolutely fantastic. Season 3 has a handful of good episodes, but it's already changing into a different show, especially in the back half of the season.
I will say, having watched it all now, I liked Season 6. It's a different show from the first couple seasons, and also a different show from the seasons that followed. Taking it for what it was, I enjoyed watching it. I found myself watching each episode because I wanted to, rather that out of a sense of obligation or habit.
If this is how the show ultimately ends, it's definitely on a higher note than if it had ended after season 5.
Man what. The pilot wasn't anything special but the second episode of season 1 features Senior Chang making ridiculous speeches and arguing with Starburns, and ends with a ridiculous rap in Spanish. The 3rd episode features a teacher who gives As based on weather or not his students seize the day with a B story of Abed torturing a friend trying to help him so that it makes his movie seem more real. And the 5th(?) episode features Abed trying to convince Troy that he's an alien, making up a complex language in the process.
Community was always a little bit cartoony. Its just becomes way more noticeable as it gets more extreme with time.
So for those who aren't aware, apparently Ken Jeong has been doing hit own sitcom called "Dr. Ken" on ABC, a semi-autobiographical tale of a Doctor who dreams of becoming a professional comedian. Pretty much everyone from "Community" has appeared on "Dr. Ken" at some point or another.
Tonight, it was Dan Harmon and Alison Brie's turn.
Both of them play themselves and they ask Ken to play a series regular as a Spanish teacher in a show about a community college. The guy who plays Garrett also makes a cameo.
I guess ABC still hasn't decided on whether or not they want to renew this show, so I guess this serves as a possible series finale.
Apparently the whole Community Season 6 / Yahoo Screen original program experiment was a massive $42 million sinkhole. So any of you sending your "Please Save My Lowly Rated Show" ideas to Yahoo, you can stop now.
Yahoo recorded a $42 million impairment charge in Q3 on the value of its video assets, and Goldman specifically singled out “Community,” as well as original shows “Sin City Saints” and “Other Space,” when asked what went wrong.
I can hazard a guess at what went wrong:
I have never heard of those other two shows until this very moment.
GLOW is good, but those of you who continue to think of Annie as a pure snowflake, too young to be sexualized, will be in for a rude awakening in the first episode.
GLOW is good, but those of you who continue to think of Annie as a pure snowflake, too young to be sexualized, will be in for a rude awakening in the first episode.
I think those people missed alot of episodes of Community.
This is completely not surprising, but I'm glad that Harmon realizes that it's better to apologize profusely than to make excuses.
I always thought Megan Ganz got a bad rap. As many people here know by now, I've long theorized that Tristraam Shapeero was the real reason season 4 was terrible.
Why would an episodic TV director, who is one of the lowest people on the creative totem pole underneath the showrunner(s) and writers' room and who doesn't even get their final cuts of the episodes to air (those go to the showrunner), be responsible for a show being terrible? Even if you could somehow trace the "problems" with the show to him and what he was shooting, it still would have been on the showrunner to see the footage they were getting was subpar and then removing him.
A TV show’s creative problems (at least when there wasn't network interference) almost always belong to the showrunner, be it Dan Harmon in season 1-3, David Guarascio and Moses Port in 4, or Harmon and Chris McKenna in 5-6.
Tristraam Shapeero was also an executive producer throughout all of season 4 and 5, which is the same title shared by the "show runner."
But none of the other executive producers directed a single episode of Community during their reign, where as Shapeero managed to direct a majority.
It's the same "title", but the large amount of producers listed on a US TV show aren't created equally at all. It's a vague credit that applies to applies to a huge variety of positions with various levels of power. We know who served as the showrunner for each season of the show, and it was never Shapeero. He was also never a writer on the show, which is more of a key - the number of times I saw a bad episode of Community and thought, "wow, the writing was great, but the 'directing' really let it down" was close to zero - it pretty much always came down to a subpar script that needed more time and a few more rewrites in the writers' room (if you listen to Dan Harmon's commentary tracks, he agrees with that assessment - he almost always blames weaker episodes on running out of time and not being able to give a script enough passes).
I'm trying to understand your thinking here. The current showrunner is going through the footage that Shapeero directed to put together their edit of the show. The footage is terrible, not at all what they wanted, and is not going to the represent their vision of the show at all. So...they proceed to continue to use him for 6 years? Was Shapeero protected on high and un-dissmissible for some reason? The buck stops at the showrunner (putting aside higher up network interference). The 3 different iterations of showrunners the show had must have thought he was delivering what they wanted. If you thought it sucked, that's fine, but I don't understand why you've sharply focused on one specific name to place your ire on to shift blame away from the people who were ultimately in charge of the final product that was on screen.
It's the same "title", but the large amount of producers listed on a US TV show aren't created equally at all. It's a vague credit that applies to applies to a huge variety of positions with various levels of power.
There's a difference between a regular producer and an executive producer. While the other executive producers might have had more power, it's not like Shapeero was just some underling.
We know who served as the showrunner for each season of the show, and it was never Shapeero. He was also never a writer on the show, which is more of a key - the number of times I saw a bad episode of Community and thought, "wow, the writing was great, but the 'directing' really let it down" was close to zero - it pretty much always came down to a subpar script that needed more time and a few more rewrites in the writers' room (if you listen to Dan Harmon's commentary tracks, he agrees with that assessment - he almost always blames weaker episodes on running out of time and not being able to give a script enough passes).
Community was a show where a lot got changed at the last minute, and if writers are running out of time, which gives the director a lot of freedom to fill in the blanks. Especially if the director is also an executive producer, and planning to direct the majority of the episodes throughout the season. I have a really hard time believing they would give one person that much responsibility and not let him have any influence on the writing staff.
Suppose a writer presents a scene where characters act in a way that seems out of character for plot reason. How does the director respond? A lot of directors will look for a way to make the behavior seem more believable. Or maybe they'll try to gloss over it and hope that the audience doesn't notice But Shapeero's style seems to be to turn the wackiness levels to 11, turn the characters into self-parodies of themselves, as if to say "this scene doesn't make any sense, but it's on purpose."
Shapeero's specialty seems to be self-referential, absurdist, arbitrary, emotionally empty humor. That's fine on a show like "Kimmy Schmidt," or even a show like "The Good Place." But he's weaker at creating emotional connecting. His episodes focus on spectacle and "meta", where we laugh at the characters instead of with the characters.
I'm trying to understand your thinking here. The current showrunner is going through the footage that Shapeero directed to put together their edit of the show. The footage is terrible, not at all what they wanted, and is not going to the represent their vision of the show at all. So...they proceed to continue to use him for 6 years? Was Shapeero protected on high and un-dissmissible for some reason? The buck stops at the showrunner (putting aside higher up network interference). The 3 different iterations of showrunners the show had must have thought he was delivering what they wanted. If you thought it sucked, that's fine, but I don't understand why you've sharply focused on one specific name to place your ire on to shift blame away from the people who were ultimately in charge of the final product that was on screen.
Maybe David Guarascio and Moses Port were fans of his work, and actively encouraged him. Maybe they just didn't care. In the commentary tracks, Harmon himself seems to be a big fan of Shapeero. The show really started to decline in season 3, and while Dan Harmon was the showrunner back then, I think he and Shapeero were on the same page for most of it, hence Shapeero's promotion to executive producer when Harmon left. The show continued to decline when Harmon left, and David and Moses took over. And it was still pretty bad when David and Moses left, and Harmon returned to the show. But when Shapeero left the show, the show got noticeably better.
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MalReynoldsThe Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered Userregular
The Good Place is so far from emotionally empty, what are you talking about.
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Holy shit that's bad.
And I hope this doesn't mean that Other Space isn't going to get a second season. That's a fun little show.
I mean, the ads didn't even work. For a lot of people, their player refused to work at all unless you turned ad block on.
It was basically like a bunch of college kids deciding to get together and make a movie just to prove they can. Only, you know, with a much bigger budget.
Yeah, I enjoyed Other Space and was hoping that it would get an S2, but considering the exec specifically called out Yahoo Screen's original programming as the reason for the money problems and said it "didn't work" and they're moving on seems to be the final nail in the coffin.
Need to get my non-AT&T commercial Milana Vayntrub fix somewhere, dammit.
Catching up now, I've seen 3 through 6. I'll say, while different from what the original show was, so far this is definitely better than seasons 4 and 5, and maybe better than 3.
That was a good show. I still enjoy most of the other seasons, but I can see how people who really liked the first season were turned off by season 3. 1 has just the right mix of silliness and real, while every season afterwards got progressively sillier.
I think I'm kind of glad Hulu Japan only has seasons 1-3 on it. I wasn't as disappointed by Season 4 as most people, but I fear a rewatching it.
I will say, having watched it all now, I liked Season 6. It's a different show from the first couple seasons, and also a different show from the seasons that followed. Taking it for what it was, I enjoyed watching it. I found myself watching each episode because I wanted to, rather that out of a sense of obligation or habit.
If this is how the show ultimately ends, it's definitely on a higher note than if it had ended after season 5.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Community was always a little bit cartoony. Its just becomes way more noticeable as it gets more extreme with time.
Chang was hilarious in S1.
Seriously
I bought the Community Soundtrack, and it's so good, and it was probably dirt cheap too brahs but nooooooooo.
"So you were a Comedian? Is that how you became a janitor?"
Tonight, it was Dan Harmon and Alison Brie's turn.
Both of them play themselves and they ask Ken to play a series regular as a Spanish teacher in a show about a community college. The guy who plays Garrett also makes a cameo.
I guess ABC still hasn't decided on whether or not they want to renew this show, so I guess this serves as a possible series finale.
And is that Vicki behind Garret?
Also, the final tag was a classic, weird Dan Harmon way of ending it.
18 months late, but since we already bumped it...
I can hazard a guess at what went wrong:
I have never heard of those other two shows until this very moment.
On a video game forum. Two years later.
In semi-Community related news, everyone go watch GLOW. Annie Edison has traveled back in time and become an 80s wrestler!
... When I was watching Community S6 on Yahoo
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Enlist in Star Citizen! Citizenship must be earned!
I think those people missed alot of episodes of Community.
This is completely not surprising, but I'm glad that Harmon realizes that it's better to apologize profusely than to make excuses.
I always thought Megan Ganz got a bad rap. As many people here know by now, I've long theorized that Tristraam Shapeero was the real reason season 4 was terrible.
A TV show’s creative problems (at least when there wasn't network interference) almost always belong to the showrunner, be it Dan Harmon in season 1-3, David Guarascio and Moses Port in 4, or Harmon and Chris McKenna in 5-6.
But none of the other executive producers directed a single episode of Community during their reign, where as Shapeero managed to direct a majority.
It's the same "title", but the large amount of producers listed on a US TV show aren't created equally at all. It's a vague credit that applies to applies to a huge variety of positions with various levels of power. We know who served as the showrunner for each season of the show, and it was never Shapeero. He was also never a writer on the show, which is more of a key - the number of times I saw a bad episode of Community and thought, "wow, the writing was great, but the 'directing' really let it down" was close to zero - it pretty much always came down to a subpar script that needed more time and a few more rewrites in the writers' room (if you listen to Dan Harmon's commentary tracks, he agrees with that assessment - he almost always blames weaker episodes on running out of time and not being able to give a script enough passes).
I'm trying to understand your thinking here. The current showrunner is going through the footage that Shapeero directed to put together their edit of the show. The footage is terrible, not at all what they wanted, and is not going to the represent their vision of the show at all. So...they proceed to continue to use him for 6 years? Was Shapeero protected on high and un-dissmissible for some reason? The buck stops at the showrunner (putting aside higher up network interference). The 3 different iterations of showrunners the show had must have thought he was delivering what they wanted. If you thought it sucked, that's fine, but I don't understand why you've sharply focused on one specific name to place your ire on to shift blame away from the people who were ultimately in charge of the final product that was on screen.
There's a difference between a regular producer and an executive producer. While the other executive producers might have had more power, it's not like Shapeero was just some underling.
Community was a show where a lot got changed at the last minute, and if writers are running out of time, which gives the director a lot of freedom to fill in the blanks. Especially if the director is also an executive producer, and planning to direct the majority of the episodes throughout the season. I have a really hard time believing they would give one person that much responsibility and not let him have any influence on the writing staff.
Suppose a writer presents a scene where characters act in a way that seems out of character for plot reason. How does the director respond? A lot of directors will look for a way to make the behavior seem more believable. Or maybe they'll try to gloss over it and hope that the audience doesn't notice But Shapeero's style seems to be to turn the wackiness levels to 11, turn the characters into self-parodies of themselves, as if to say "this scene doesn't make any sense, but it's on purpose."
Shapeero's specialty seems to be self-referential, absurdist, arbitrary, emotionally empty humor. That's fine on a show like "Kimmy Schmidt," or even a show like "The Good Place." But he's weaker at creating emotional connecting. His episodes focus on spectacle and "meta", where we laugh at the characters instead of with the characters.
Maybe David Guarascio and Moses Port were fans of his work, and actively encouraged him. Maybe they just didn't care. In the commentary tracks, Harmon himself seems to be a big fan of Shapeero. The show really started to decline in season 3, and while Dan Harmon was the showrunner back then, I think he and Shapeero were on the same page for most of it, hence Shapeero's promotion to executive producer when Harmon left. The show continued to decline when Harmon left, and David and Moses took over. And it was still pretty bad when David and Moses left, and Harmon returned to the show. But when Shapeero left the show, the show got noticeably better.
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!