Community, the tv show

imo one of the funniest unspoken jokes about Abed is that he's not like a hardcore nerd with discriminating taste, he nerds out about like Farscape or The Cape

a hoy hoy otm--it sucked but i'll give them the benefit of the doubt because there's such a strong sense that some producer told them to reintroduce every single character and rehash the dynamic. to me it seemed like Troy's delivery was affected by this more than anything else: there was so little conviction in "Annie's boobs" and "opposite of batman" that you basically get the impression that he's just steaming about having to say this stale shit at all, where in season 1 those would've been passable Troy lines.

xp always felt that abed was so far into nerddom that his taste transcended any notion of popular trends and he could see shows like cougar town and the cape for the genius they truly are. also that s301 was out of character.

Whenever I think about this show transcending comedy I think about the Who's The Boss plotline and I've never wanted to watch that show or What's Happening

im not sure annie existed bar many jokes about her boobs

this was a p terrible episode

Saw this again. I liked it more. Disliked the return to a "Jeff and the gang" feel, but I saw good bits here and there, more than I did on my initial viewing.

i know who sean penn is, i seen 'milk'

one thing i loved:

JIM RASH MADE THE OPENING CREDITS :DDDDDDDDDD

also chang having a ham to throw at jeff

not amazing, but i enjoyed it. totally see the glee parody/obvious callbacks as ploys to catch up new viewers, which is pretty acceptable to me

Not a classic, but funny. Goodman's character showing way more promise than Williams'.

Yeah, this was weak overall, but it had lots of brilliant little moments. Even though 2001 homages are played-out, the one in this ep was so good it gets a free pass. And even though Abed was definitely way out of character, it did give us "Inspector Spacetime" which was hilarious, especially in his concluding after like 10 seconds that it was the best thing he'd ever seen; it was like, *of course* somebody like Abed would react that way to Dr. Who.

Always amused by Americans doing poor English accents.

Abed not knowing *Doctor Who* perhaps isn't that unlikely - has he ever shown any awareness of British TV or films?

Not sure any of this will matter when the show gets axed mid-season.

Were the ratings that dire?

on the contrary, interminable pedantry will be all we have to hold on to.

xp not for nbc

I imagine it does well on DVD though.

Not sure any of this will matter when the show gets axed mid-season.

Did NBC order a full season or did they hold off on the back nine?

The ratings have always been consistently crap, but it's alive because it pulls in just enough of the 18-34 male demographic to make advertisers happy. Nevermind that the show pulls in an audience more likely to be college educated and thus, more likely to have a disposable income, another obv. pull for advertisers.

But that number was pretty low for a season premiere. I think total overall was pretty bad as well. NBC is in so much trouble that they're totally fine with a 2.0 in the demo, and I think they'd be happy with a consistent 1.8 tbh. If Community starts getting consistent 1.6 ratings, I think they'd want to move Up All Night to Thursday night and kill the Wednesday comedy block.

they were renewed for a full third season fyi

Doesn't mean they won't pull it.

that's kinda rare for a show this far along, more likely it would get moved around the schedule

but let's not forget that Outsourced consistently got better ratings than Community last year, i wouldn't worry that much about some of these crappy new shows outperforming it

Yeah, but I'm not sure where they would move it. If they want to get behind Up All Night, but feel that Wednesday isn't going to work for them - and if they decide to cancel the Azaria show - they'd probably want to move it to the Thursday block, in which case Community would probably be the first to go. xpost

True re: Outsourced, but Whitney has better ratings than that and Community's ratings are down significantly from last year.

If the reaper's scythe is near, I look forward to a few nice hemlock callbacks.

Maybe I'm just being very pessimistic. I don't think I normally would if Up All Night wasn't kicking about.

Whitney is getting pushed to the moon right now though, it would be this year's Shat My Dad Says (falling off quickly)

Up All Night, granted, is a much easier sell than Community

a couple thoughts re the possible threat UAN poses to Community being renewed:
a) UAN has aired one episode that had fine ratings but I'm sure NBC (and anyone invested in this conversation) wants to wait at least a few more episodes to see if those numbers drop off, and how precipitously (since obv there's no way it's going to keep the pilot numbers)
b) UAN has three expensive leads that are huge draws (Applegate, Arnet + Rudolph) but I have to imagine costs for UAN are much higher than Community of which I get the impression has been able to shrink their budget when necessary (see: bottle episode) -- part of the calculus has the be the perceived value wrt the cost
c) Community is very close - as I understand it - to syndication numbers (I think 88 is the magic number?). even with worse ratings it's much more likely to be renewed to get those syndication dollars than a marginally better rated show that only just began

and also other ppl have mentioned this but it bears repeating that Community doesn't have to beat - say - BBT or X-Factor to get renewed. It just has to be within the ballpark numbers that other NBC sitcoms are getting.

UAN numbers dropped in its second week, but with that cast they have a lot more invested in making it work. On top of that, it's still a new show that can build an audience. Wednesday night just might not be the night to do it, so they might want to think about moving it to Thursdays where they have a small, but known, comedy brand. They know by this point that Community is very unlikely to grow much beyond where it is. They were generally okay with that, but if they think they can build a new night with a broad appeal, I can see them shuffling things around. Perhaps Parks & Rec, which has a small but still bigger than Community audience that isn't going anywhere, as a lead-in for UAN.

88 is the syndication number minimum, really, and that's generally for hit shows I think. Lesser-rated shows like Community probably need that magic 100 to seem like a worthy investment. Even then the syndication deals, while always good and profitable, might not be that good because nobody watches Community on its first run, and it's unlikely to pull in big numbers in syndication. I'll be interested to see how 30 Rock makes out in the syndication ratings, come to think of it.

Anyway, that 88 is still two seasons away. Shows get more expensive as they go on, not less. Also, I think Sony produces the show, not NBC, so syndication won't matter to the network.

But you're right that if Community maintains its current numbers it would probably stick around for the whole season. My concern is that they now have 6 comedies instead of 4, and if two are failing they can try to consolidate that into one night.

Here's hoping Whitney tanks next week.

is it possible the office ends up being the odd man out though? i know tanking numbers from the office are still > community on a good night, but this whole no-carell season has "experiment" stamped on its forehead and it just might not work out well enough to convince the network they ever should've ordered it.

i don't think anybody wants to be the guy who cancels The Office, and the numbers are probably still the best in the entire night, so...

The Office was down from last year, but it was still the highest-rated scripted program that NBC has, with a demo rating of around 4.0. Because viewers have already had a couple of Carrell-less episodes, I don't imagine the drop-off for next week to be as big as all that. It'll take a few weeks, but I think they've got enough loyal people to keep it going for a while. The upside for Community in all of this is that they don't have enough shows waiting in the wings to replace the number of shows that should be cancelled.

Prime Suspect was enough of a Thursday night failure that I think they'd set about trying to fix that first. I just worry because it looks like that Azaria show won't make it another couple of weeks, in which case they'll have UAN all on its own on Wednesdays where it will surely die a slow death that NBC doesn't want for it. I'm not really sure how many sitcoms they've got waiting in the wings though.

They could go back to the three hour Thursday night sitcom thing. Or cancel Whitney. Both options good!

I don't think they want to fall back on the 3-hour comedy block option so quickly. It didn't really work for them.

But yes, cancelling Whitney would be great. I imagine the ratings will drop off significantly. Of course, she's also co-created 2 Broke Girls, which might also be a hit. If it is, they'll want to keep her happy to stay in the Whitney Cummings business.

Also I have a sneaking suspicion that it's just shit enough that people might actually like it.

I just want to add that I'm always nervous that NBC is going to finally try to get its act together, clean house, and start over. NBC being pretty miserable failures at being a broadcast network over the last 7 or so years has been great for television.

still bitter about Journeyman's cancellation

Of course, they could move Whitney to Wednesday, so the older, cooler shows won't bully her.

Abed not knowing *Doctor Who* perhaps isn't that unlikely - has he ever shown any awareness of British TV or films?

It's a sci fi institution. How could he not have heard of it? Even as a young child, I was aware of Dr Who without even trying. It always seemed to be on public broadcasting, in Ontario at least. Is it that much easier to miss in Colorado?

I mean, if Britta could know it, why wouldn't Abed?

Ha, bad assumption, actually, considering that Coronation Street is also always on the Ceeb.

Anyway, not a classic but a perfectly decent little episode.

I mean, if Britta could know it, why wouldn't Abed?

Didn't Britta spend time abroad or was she just lying about that? She probably saw these "shows" on tv in the UK. Still, I think that Abed being the media omnivore that he is, would probably a) already know about them and b) know that typically series run 6 episodes over there.

As for the state of NBC, Free Agents is pretty much a sure thing to be the first show axed this season (if Playboy doesn't beat it to the punch). What might happen is that they swap out Up All Night for Whitney and pair her show with another three-cam sitcom on Wednesday nights. At least that's what I'd do, but I'm not the president of NBC.

Not sure any of this will matter when the show gets axed mid-season.

Did NBC order a full season or did they hold off on the back nine?

The ratings have always been consistently crap, but it's alive because it pulls in just enough of the 18-34 male demographic to make advertisers happy. Nevermind that the show pulls in an audience more likely to be college educated and thus, more likely to have a disposable income, another obv. pull for advertisers.

― Work Hard, Flunky! (R Baez), Sunday, 25 September 2011 23:18 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

How much does it matter that Community obv. will be the breakout show for a bunch o' stars of the future (Glover, Brie, presumably mchale)? Also I know it was only a 30 Rock injoke but Glover is p much alone as a big name marketable black dude on NBC right now? Just thinking that ratings wouldn't be the sole assestment of a show like Community.

Abed not knowing *Doctor Who* perhaps isn't that unlikely - has he ever shown any awareness of British TV or films?

It's a sci fi institution. How could he not have heard of it? Even as a young child, I was aware of Dr Who without even trying. It always seemed to be on public broadcasting, in Ontario at least. Is it that much easier to miss in Colorado?

Because it isn't actually Doctor Who and this isn't the real world we're talking about here?

haha THANK YOU matt

Ha, OK, fair enough. I guess by that point, I was responding to other posts more than to the Community episode. I still think the 'Inspector Spacetime' thing was kind of weak but that's probably not the best reason why.

I don't think it's absurd to critique a fictional show for making a cultural reference below its usual level of intelligence. I wasn't too bothered, but honestly I'm surprised they didn't have Abed say "it's a cheap rip-off of Dr. Who" before announcing it was the best show ever.