1) Syndication prospects. A fourth season of Community would put it in the 88 episode range, which is the commonly-accepted standard for syndication. Furthermore, Sony has gone to lengths to get shows favorable syndication deals before.
2) Dedicated fanbase that skews young. While Community does not have a large viewership, many of its viewers are young adults in college, which is a highly desirable demographic for advertisers.
3) Everything else on NBC is doing terribly. Community has terrible ratings, but everything else only has slightly-better-than-terrible ratings; this means that Community's awful ratings are less of a justification for cancelling it.
critical hit too. It hasn't won the awards that 30 Rock did (yet) but it's getting legitimate respect right now from a lot of people.
Yeah, Community has been picking up a lot of critical steam recently, but unfortunately the real support this translates to is likely rather intangible.
An Emmy or two would have been really nice, but we can't expect that shitshow to actually recognize quality TV on a reliable basis, so oh well.
baronfelWould you say I havea _plethora_?Registered Userregular
It's so bad I read it while I was ripping the DVDs so I could watch them on a flight in a couple weeks. It's gonna be the best trip, and I'll probably worry my seatmates with my suppressed laughter.
The thing to remember about Communities bad ratings is that they are going against Big Bang Theory which means something. Despite how much we all hate the show it is popular and gets huge ratings.
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
Going back that far, March 17 was when Community was announced to be picked up for a 3rd season, so will the luck of the Irish be as fortunate this coming year?
Just wanted to chime in to say that after finally catching up on the new season, it's a crime against television that this show may not get renewed. I have never watched a show, much less a comedy that surprised me as much as this one.
The thing to remember about Communities bad ratings is that they are going against Big Bang Theory which means something. Despite how much we all hate the show it is popular and gets huge ratings.
Yeah, not going up against BBT and Idol is absolutely going to help. My main worry is just that the inevitable timeslot switch after a hiatus may leave some of the audience behind along the way.
Just wanted to chime in to say that after finally catching up on the new season, it's a crime against television that this show may not get renewed. I have never watched a show, much less a comedy that surprised me as much as this one.
Glad to hear you've caught up! The third season has really been knocking it out of the park, especially in terms of serialized character development and callbacks. I honestly cannot wait to see where they go next.
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NappuccinoSurveyor of Things and StuffRegistered Userregular
The thing to remember about Communities bad ratings is that they are going against Big Bang Theory which means something. Despite how much we all hate the show it is popular and gets huge ratings.
Yeah, not going up against BBT and Idol is absolutely going to help. My main worry is just that the inevitable timeslot switch after a hiatus may leave some of the audience behind along the way.
I think we'll be fine as long as the show actually does come back.
NBC has lead their audiences on before. We'll see what they actually do.
I'm fairly certain they're contractually obligated to air all 22 episodes, no?
If they wanted to cancel the show they wouldn't have them going ahead on production with the back half of the season, from the sound of things they're up to at least 315 or 316 at this point.
I doubt the contract forces them to air the episodes, but they have to pay for them for sure. Many shows have had episodes produced that never aired. In this case, though, it's not like the network has a lot of other content jockeying for the airtime.
It's an affront to humanity that Big Bang Theory, Jersey Shore, Idol, X-Factor and all those shite programs with untalented hacks get great ratings and extended contracts while amazing television like Community might get scrapped.
Fucking stupid people keeping stupid television alive.
I doubt the contract forces them to air the episodes, but they have to pay for them for sure. Many shows have had episodes produced that never aired. In this case, though, it's not like the network has a lot of other content jockeying for the airtime.
more often than not they'll air it at some point. Even if it means burning off the episodes at 11 pm on friday
It's an affront to humanity that Big Bang Theory, Jersey Shore, Idol, X-Factor and all those shite programs with untalented hacks get great ratings and extended contracts while amazing television like Community might get scrapped.
Fucking stupid people keeping stupid television alive.
While I don't think TBBT is in the same league of comedy as Community, no way is it as bad as Jersey Shore. I at least like the actors that are in TBBT and can find the show more entertaining than most other comedy shows on network television right now. The Big Bang Theory isn't funny enough to warrant me watching it in lieu of Community, but I can check it out the next day online without hating myself for propping up "the machine".
I especially think Jim Parsons is an incredibly humble and decent human being and deserves all of his success.
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten in your presence.
While I don't think TBBT is in the same league of comedy as Community, no way is it as bad as Jersey Shore. I at least like the actors that are in TBBT and can find the show more entertaining than most other comedy shows on network television right now. The Big Bang Theory isn't funny enough to warrant me watching it in lieu of Community, but I can check it out the next day online without hating myself for propping up "the machine".
I especially think Jim Parsons is an incredibly humble and decent human being and deserves all of his success.
Yeah, you're right. I only included TBBT to give a range of programs I didn't think were as good as Community, not ones I thought were of a similar standard.
TBBT is decent, just like HIMYM is alright as well. I'm not a big fan of sitcoms though, but it annoys me that they do so much better than programs like Community >: (
Community is already on the Comedy Central cycle here. It was on every weekday at 18.30 a few weeks back, which means I watched a lot of it.
Sadly, suspicions of TV viewing audience were confirmed. All but one person don't really pay attention, so they miss over half the jokes, or zap somewhere else during commercials, miss 5 minutes because they were watching Discovery Channel, zap back for the last 3 and then complain it's a weird show.
I love Community and wish it 6 seasons and a movie, but it's a poor show for syndication.
Recently I've been reaching eps that I didn't like the first time around, like Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas. I'm going back to Mixology to see if it can be salvaged.
Community is already on the Comedy Central cycle here. It was on every weekday at 18.30 a few weeks back, which means I watched a lot of it.
Sadly, suspicions of TV viewing audience were confirmed. All but one person don't really pay attention, so they miss over half the jokes, or zap somewhere else during commercials, miss 5 minutes because they were watching Discovery Channel, zap back for the last 3 and then complain it's a weird show.
I love Community and wish it 6 seasons and a movie, but it's a poor show for syndication.
I disagree, its not a perfect syndication show like Two and a Half Men or Big Bang Theory where one can turn off ones mind and watch it. On the other hand there is no great continuity to it and one can watch the episodes out of order and miss very few jokes which makes it better than something like How I Met Your Mother.
I disagree, its not a perfect syndication show like Two and a Half Men or Big Bang Theory where one can turn off ones mind and watch it. On the other hand there is no great continuity to it and one can watch the episodes out of order and miss very few jokes which makes it better than something like How I Met Your Mother.
Sorry, but this is very incorrect. Community is very heavily serialized through character development and references to earlier episodes. There's no real overarching plot, but the episodes are very dense with references to previous events.
While it's not an ideal show for syndication, Community does have an advantage in that "concept" episodes like "Modern Warfare", "Epidemiology" and "A Fistful of Paintballs" are pretty much ideal for syndication; there's still a fair amount of character development and references in them, but their parody nature makes them accessible.
I disagree, its not a perfect syndication show like Two and a Half Men or Big Bang Theory where one can turn off ones mind and watch it. On the other hand there is no great continuity to it and one can watch the episodes out of order and miss very few jokes which makes it better than something like How I Met Your Mother.
Sorry, but this is incredibly wrong. Community is very heavily serialized through character development and references to earlier episodes. There's no real overarching plot, but the episodes are very dense with references to previous events.
Not really, there is some like Annie's Boobs, some of the inspector spacetime stuff, and I think they used the fake group members from abed's film once or twice in later episodes, but to call it very dense is over stating the case. For the most part Community episodes require only a general working knowledge of the show, not of particular episodes. Comparing Community's "Paradigms of Human Memory" to HIMYM's "The Wedding Bride" is a perfect example. Neither episode is funny if you have never seen an episode of their respective shows. "Paradigms of Human Memory" is funny if one has a general knowledge of Community (Jeff's penchant for speeches, Deans penchant for costumes etc.). "The Wedding Bride" on the other hand requires one to have seen particular episodes that aired a year and a half to two years before.
Can't say I agree with you there; Community is in fact very dense with jokes, references, continuous character development, and callbacks; in fact, I'd say it's more dense with the above than most series on TV today. That one HIMYM episode may rely on a previous arc of the show, but that's not typical for the show; Community possesses more a much more in-depth sense of continuity, and it's only had two and a half seasons to work with. Weigh an episode like "Remedial Chaos Theory" against "The Wedding Bride", and you've got a very different story.
Even in Paradigms, we have the following callbacks off the top of my head:
-The Jeff/Britta clips from Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas-nobody is going to have any idea what the hell is going on here if they haven't seen the show before.
-Duncan's presence at the piano
-The Jeff/Annie/Britta "triangle"
-The "Epidemiology" flashback
-The fact that their Anthro class is fake, which is why they always make dioramas
-Troy & Abed in the Morning mug
-Boobatron 6000 in the faux Jeff/Annie shipper video
-Dean's costumes (these do require a knowledge of specific episodes from earlier in the show, he usually doesn't wear costumes)
-Annie's Boobs (the monkey)
-Annie's pens from "Cooperative Calligraphy"
For further proof, consider the latest episode, "Regional Holiday Music". Here's just some of the references in it, off the top of my head:
-"You're the worst!"
-The whole Annie/Jeff sequence relies heavily on a knowledge of the interactions between the characters over the past two years
-Multiple callbacks to the glee club/glee club sequence in "Paradigms of Human Memory"
-Multiple references to "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas"
-The figures for the pageant plan are the same as from S2's "Paradigms" diorama
Like most shows, including HIMYM, only a general working knowledge of Community is required to watch and enjoy its episodes; however, in order to appreciate them fully a very complete understanding of the characters and previous episodes in general is required due to the in-depth nature of Community's character development.
You could watch "The Wedding Bride" without knowing anything about Stella and grasp what was going on, just as easily as you could watch "Regional Holiday Music" and achieve a basic comprehension of the show; however, all of the nuances and subtlety will be lost on you because you won't know the characters.
Can't say I agree with you there; Community is in fact very dense with jokes, references, continuous character development, and callbacks; in fact, I'd say it's more dense with the above than most series on TV today.
Comedy series right? And yeah its hard to argue when compared to Two and a Half men and The Big Bang Theory. (which I specifically mentioned). But it is nowhere near dense enough to be a problem for syndication. The character development after the first half of season 1 (which was figuring out the characters) is pretty subtle and nuanced outside of Pierce's season 2 douchebag turn and Jeff's season 3 douchebag turn (though the latter feels more like the writers are less sympathetic towards his flaws rather than any real change in character).
however, in order to appreciate them fully a very complete understanding of the characters and previous episodes in general is required due to the in-depth nature of Community's character development.
Its a sitcom not War and Peace. Sorry but it feels like people talk about Community like it is some PBS period piece.
You could watch "The Wedding Bride" without knowing anything about Stella and grasp what was going on, just as easily as you could watch "Regional Holiday Music" and achieve a basic comprehension of the show; however, all of the nuances and subtlety will be lost on you because you won't know the characters.
The point is not to grasp what is going on (and outside of heavily serialized dramas that is never going to be a problem), the point is to laugh. In syndication people are going to see random episodes and there going to see them out of order. Community at its most insular requires the audience to have a familiarity with the world (having gained that familiarity by seeing some number of previous random Community episodes) to find an episode (as a whole rather than specific jokes) funny. HIMYM at its most insular requires knowledge of specific details of previous events to find an episode funny.
Edit: I just feel this belief that Community would not work in syndication to be incredibly overstated.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
That one HIMYM episode may rely on a previous arc of the show, but that's not typical for the show;
I completely disagree for better or worse HIMYM is a show that has its head up its own ass in regards to continuity.
Not to the detriment of casual viewers though. Compare it to Friends. That show had continuity, it was heavy with it, but it rarely messed with a particular episode's funniness. You can still laugh because the jokes are funny on their own.
Your example of "The Wedding Bride" is not really as good as you think. Sure you have to know what happened previously but the actual facts of it are already explained in the episode itself. You'll enjoy it more if you've watched it a lot to catch the small jokes, but overall you're not required to have seen much of the show.
Which goes the same for Community. While the first season finale (and actually the whole first season) contains a lot of stuff that gets mentioned in the first episode of season 2 it is not detrimental to the enjoyment of it as is. It's funny, you're told about the important bits in the episode.
Its a sitcom not War and Peace. Sorry but it feels like people talk about Community like it is some PBS period piece.
I feel like that most of the time, Community stays on the right side of its episodes being just funny on their own and easy to understand on a general level, where the in-jokes/backstory add an extra layer for repeat/long-time viewers, rather than a requirement for enjoyment.
This is different than, say, Arrested Development as it went along, where it became so insular with its past references that giant chunks of an episode's jokes would be incomprehensible to people who haven't seen earlier episodes. Which is great for a cult fanbase, but disastrous for mainstream success.
1) Syndication prospects. A fourth season of Community would put it in the 88 episode range, which is the commonly-accepted standard for syndication. Furthermore, Sony has gone to lengths to get shows favorable syndication deals before.
Won't that only matter once they reach said number for syndication to kick in?
2) Dedicated fanbase that skews young. While Community does not have a large viewership, many of its viewers are young adults in college, which is a highly desirable demographic for advertisers.
I'm cynical that will mean much in the long run. Unless the top brass at CBS are really huge fans and will keep the show on the air no matter what the ratings are.
3) Everything else on NBC is doing terribly. Community has terrible ratings, but everything else only has slightly-better-than-terrible ratings; this means that Community's awful ratings are less of a justification for cancelling it.
Not necessarily. They're letting Chuck go with their final season, after all. Does Community have rating better or worse than Chuck?
4) Alison Brie.
Hopefully she'll land on her feet if Community ends. I'm gonna miss watching her every week.
Community's ratings are, last I checked, even worse than Chuck. Though possibly not the last few episodes what with new ones being aired on Christmas Eve Eve and New Year's Eve Eve.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Community's ratings are, last I checked, even worse than Chuck. Though possibly not the last few episodes what with new ones being aired on Christmas Eve Eve and New Year's Eve Eve.
That's depressing news. Oh well, could have been worse. At least Community got 3 seasons for us to watch.
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4) Alison Brie.
Yeah, Community has been picking up a lot of critical steam recently, but unfortunately the real support this translates to is likely rather intangible.
An Emmy or two would have been really nice, but we can't expect that shitshow to actually recognize quality TV on a reliable basis, so oh well.
That ties into the "dedicated fanbase", for good reason.
There was much disappointment later.
You are an awful, awful person.
{Twitter, Everybody's doing it. }{Writing and Story Blog}
Good times.
Well, technically that scene did come with the first season DVD set, just in the form of a comic book about Kickpuncher.
Yeah, not going up against BBT and Idol is absolutely going to help. My main worry is just that the inevitable timeslot switch after a hiatus may leave some of the audience behind along the way.
Glad to hear you've caught up! The third season has really been knocking it out of the park, especially in terms of serialized character development and callbacks. I honestly cannot wait to see where they go next.
I think we'll be fine as long as the show actually does come back.
I'm fairly certain they're contractually obligated to air all 22 episodes, no?
If they wanted to cancel the show they wouldn't have them going ahead on production with the back half of the season, from the sound of things they're up to at least 315 or 316 at this point.
Fucking stupid people keeping stupid television alive.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-comedy-syndication-20111231,0,2613458.story
more often than not they'll air it at some point. Even if it means burning off the episodes at 11 pm on friday
While I don't think TBBT is in the same league of comedy as Community, no way is it as bad as Jersey Shore. I at least like the actors that are in TBBT and can find the show more entertaining than most other comedy shows on network television right now. The Big Bang Theory isn't funny enough to warrant me watching it in lieu of Community, but I can check it out the next day online without hating myself for propping up "the machine".
I especially think Jim Parsons is an incredibly humble and decent human being and deserves all of his success.
Yeah, you're right. I only included TBBT to give a range of programs I didn't think were as good as Community, not ones I thought were of a similar standard.
TBBT is decent, just like HIMYM is alright as well. I'm not a big fan of sitcoms though, but it annoys me that they do so much better than programs like Community >: (
Sadly, suspicions of TV viewing audience were confirmed. All but one person don't really pay attention, so they miss over half the jokes, or zap somewhere else during commercials, miss 5 minutes because they were watching Discovery Channel, zap back for the last 3 and then complain it's a weird show.
I love Community and wish it 6 seasons and a movie, but it's a poor show for syndication.
I disagree, its not a perfect syndication show like Two and a Half Men or Big Bang Theory where one can turn off ones mind and watch it. On the other hand there is no great continuity to it and one can watch the episodes out of order and miss very few jokes which makes it better than something like How I Met Your Mother.
Sorry, but this is very incorrect. Community is very heavily serialized through character development and references to earlier episodes. There's no real overarching plot, but the episodes are very dense with references to previous events.
While it's not an ideal show for syndication, Community does have an advantage in that "concept" episodes like "Modern Warfare", "Epidemiology" and "A Fistful of Paintballs" are pretty much ideal for syndication; there's still a fair amount of character development and references in them, but their parody nature makes them accessible.
Not really, there is some like Annie's Boobs, some of the inspector spacetime stuff, and I think they used the fake group members from abed's film once or twice in later episodes, but to call it very dense is over stating the case. For the most part Community episodes require only a general working knowledge of the show, not of particular episodes. Comparing Community's "Paradigms of Human Memory" to HIMYM's "The Wedding Bride" is a perfect example. Neither episode is funny if you have never seen an episode of their respective shows. "Paradigms of Human Memory" is funny if one has a general knowledge of Community (Jeff's penchant for speeches, Deans penchant for costumes etc.). "The Wedding Bride" on the other hand requires one to have seen particular episodes that aired a year and a half to two years before.
Even in Paradigms, we have the following callbacks off the top of my head:
-The Jeff/Britta clips from Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas-nobody is going to have any idea what the hell is going on here if they haven't seen the show before.
-Duncan's presence at the piano
-The Jeff/Annie/Britta "triangle"
-The "Epidemiology" flashback
-The fact that their Anthro class is fake, which is why they always make dioramas
-Troy & Abed in the Morning mug
-Boobatron 6000 in the faux Jeff/Annie shipper video
-Dean's costumes (these do require a knowledge of specific episodes from earlier in the show, he usually doesn't wear costumes)
-Annie's Boobs (the monkey)
-Annie's pens from "Cooperative Calligraphy"
For further proof, consider the latest episode, "Regional Holiday Music". Here's just some of the references in it, off the top of my head:
-"You're the worst!"
-The whole Annie/Jeff sequence relies heavily on a knowledge of the interactions between the characters over the past two years
-Multiple callbacks to the glee club/glee club sequence in "Paradigms of Human Memory"
-Multiple references to "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas"
-The figures for the pageant plan are the same as from S2's "Paradigms" diorama
Like most shows, including HIMYM, only a general working knowledge of Community is required to watch and enjoy its episodes; however, in order to appreciate them fully a very complete understanding of the characters and previous episodes in general is required due to the in-depth nature of Community's character development.
You could watch "The Wedding Bride" without knowing anything about Stella and grasp what was going on, just as easily as you could watch "Regional Holiday Music" and achieve a basic comprehension of the show; however, all of the nuances and subtlety will be lost on you because you won't know the characters.
Comedy series right? And yeah its hard to argue when compared to Two and a Half men and The Big Bang Theory. (which I specifically mentioned). But it is nowhere near dense enough to be a problem for syndication. The character development after the first half of season 1 (which was figuring out the characters) is pretty subtle and nuanced outside of Pierce's season 2 douchebag turn and Jeff's season 3 douchebag turn (though the latter feels more like the writers are less sympathetic towards his flaws rather than any real change in character).
I completely disagree for better or worse HIMYM is a show that has its head up its own ass in regards to continuity.
Its a sitcom not War and Peace. Sorry but it feels like people talk about Community like it is some PBS period piece.
The point is not to grasp what is going on (and outside of heavily serialized dramas that is never going to be a problem), the point is to laugh. In syndication people are going to see random episodes and there going to see them out of order. Community at its most insular requires the audience to have a familiarity with the world (having gained that familiarity by seeing some number of previous random Community episodes) to find an episode (as a whole rather than specific jokes) funny. HIMYM at its most insular requires knowledge of specific details of previous events to find an episode funny.
Edit: I just feel this belief that Community would not work in syndication to be incredibly overstated.
Your example of "The Wedding Bride" is not really as good as you think. Sure you have to know what happened previously but the actual facts of it are already explained in the episode itself. You'll enjoy it more if you've watched it a lot to catch the small jokes, but overall you're not required to have seen much of the show.
Which goes the same for Community. While the first season finale (and actually the whole first season) contains a lot of stuff that gets mentioned in the first episode of season 2 it is not detrimental to the enjoyment of it as is. It's funny, you're told about the important bits in the episode.
It's Warren Piece.
This is different than, say, Arrested Development as it went along, where it became so insular with its past references that giant chunks of an episode's jokes would be incomprehensible to people who haven't seen earlier episodes. Which is great for a cult fanbase, but disastrous for mainstream success.
That's depressing news. Oh well, could have been worse. At least Community got 3 seasons for us to watch.