Community, the tv show

I'm high as hell and you're about to get shot

By his own account, Harmon rewrote everything.

yard margs at skeepers

Regardless of whether you think the rehauled show will be better or worse or maintain the same level of quality, it almost literally blows my mind that someone could fail to process that the near-complete turnover of a television show's writing and production staff and replacement of the guy who keeps all the plates spinning (not to mention the fact that Sony's decision makes it clear that they weren't happy with the direction of the show) would most likely result in a vastly different show, if not necessarily on a surface level. I mean, yes, at least much of the cast is likely still gonna be around and the show will probably still center around community college...but different creative teams have unique ideas of what they want to do with a particular set of elements. This isn't really a complicated concept.

You know, the US Office was totally different - cast, writers, massively more episodes, etc. - but they did OK for a few years.

Like, it ain't rocket science. It's television.

but those are wildly different shows. I'm not sure who runs a lot of the day to day of Don't Trust the Bitch... etc, but Community is not Two and a Half Men where you have 4 or 5 characters and you just need to hire guys to plug in jokes. The Office is far more of a collaborative effort, as well as its format being pretty simple (know the characters and riff on their situations).

How is that really that different from Community? They're not spelunking into the deep dark recesses of the mind or anything. It's still largely a situational comedy.

the quality of yr average television show indicates that television is a hell of a lot harder than rocket science

The Office US is an adaptation that was developed from the get-go by Greg Daniels, who still runs it.

though if someone wants to say "so what if the hands-on creator of this show's been fired, some americans adapted a british show once, turned out ok" we're obv off the fucking rails here

Yeah, no kidding. I can't tell if some people here are being wilfully contrary or if they have serious issues with reading comprehension.

this might be bullshit, but i've always thought there was a correlation between the office's drop-off in quality and greg daniels turning his attention to creating parks and rec.

which in turn has made me scared for the day that parks and rec finally goes south, but so far so good

the quality of yr average television show indicates that television is a hell of a lot harder than rocket science

Who ever said quality was the driving force behind TV? Every time we get something great I'm extremely thankful, because "According to Jim," "Two and a Half Men," et al, are the standard, not the exception.

And I wasn't saying that "The Office" - an adaptation - was some sort of be-all proof. But it is proof that if you take a property that was in someone else's creative hands - Merchant and Gervais - and give it to someone else, it can do OK. And that is not always the case! (See: Life on Mars, for example). But it is possible. It's worth keeping in mind that "Community," even under the exclusive watch of Harmon, hasn't been this consistent, out of the park success. It's had ups and downs, just more ups than downs. Yet as much as I love this show and wish it stayed on the air as good as it is for as long as possible, I really don't see it that hard a property to hand off. Now, whether the new people go hands off is another matter. My guess is they won't, so the question is, what will they do to it?

xxpost

Yeah, it's like...I'm sure everyone here has worked someplace where everything went smoothly while you were working under one particular boss. And then, once that boss left and was replaced by a new boss, everything went kinda pear-shaped. The work environment and the end goals of the job are the same, but when you have someone who's new or who's less competent or less passionate, or more concerned with efficiency or with pleasing the bosses, the tenor of the workplace and the end product itself can sometimes ultimately suffer.

Sounds like a plot of "The Office."

Mike Schur leaving with Daniels to create P&R is absolutely and clearly the signal of a sea change at the Office, how is this even a vague pondering

(and Daniels hasn't run The Office since then, Paul Lieberstein has been runner since S5, and has just now left to develop the Dwight spin-off)

By his own account, Harmon rewrote everything.

everything in S1, he eased off and learned to trust the new hires after driving all the S1 writers bar McKenna away with long nights.

hey JF, here's an example of some of the plotting done in the room, under Harmon's leadership, before McKenna got credited for Remedial Chaos Theory

They're not spelunking into the deep dark recesses of the mind or anything.

Ha, I think this was their intention with something like "Virtual Systems Analysis" (maybe even "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas").

Bah, these dudes are not on some journey of discovery.

I didn't say they succeeded.

Seriously, though, I do see a significant creative difference compared to Two and a Half Men. i.e. I do think they sometimes do more than write jokes for characters in a readymade situation.

they had an episode that purported to play up a Pulp Fiction angle but was really a parody of My Dinner with Andre and it featured great character development for both Abed and Jeff. that's not "Charlie gets drunk with a crazy girl and Jon Cryer is pathetic".

The Office US is an adaptation that was developed from the get-go by Greg Daniels, who still runs it.

well daniels has been co-showrunning with paul lieberstein (toby) for several years now, i.e. mostly just picking up a check. Also The Office has radically declined during that period.

I think a lot of what we think of as "meta" in Community is what used to be called "high concept."

Interestingly, I think we've gotten more character development of Pierce than any other character.

I think I actually distinguish between the two. I like Community's high-concept stuff but dislike a lot of its meta stuff

Yeah, everyone who's complained about Community beyond just random quibbles about individual episodes needs to get some serious perspective. Like a long-term Ludovico treatment with the bulk of sitcoms that the networks churn out. It's not the best show on TV, but it's easily one of the best sitcoms of the last ten years. It's maintained a pretty high level of quality overall, but it also had a period of genius that has made a lot of people underrate everything that came after. But it's cool. I think once we've all had a little time to sit with NBC's fall 2013 sitcom crop, most people will come around and appreciate this little golden age we've just had.

I think I actually distinguish between the two. I like Community's high-concept stuff but dislike a lot of its meta stuff

e.g. I liked the Law and Order parody and loved the video game ep but was less into "The First Chang Dynasty" and hated "Contemporary Impressionists".

whatever greg daniels' current input on the office is, my point is that it's not really a good example of something to soothe minds on the status of community. though it was based on a british concept, it had a strong hand running it from the beginning, one that wasn't forced off without warning three seasons in. wish devil's advocate optimists would at least rep for post-sorkin west wing or something actually similar in situation.

da croupier, I think you're forgetting that All In The Family was also based on a British sitcom. Case closed, dealwithit.gif.

Mike Schur leaving with Daniels to create P&R is absolutely and clearly the signal of a sea change at the Office, how is this even a vague pondering

"sea change" sure, that's a good way of putting it. i've had people get pissed at me for suggesting that the show started showing cracks immediately post-schur/daniels in season 5, and i still hear a lot of "the office didn't get bad until steve carell's last season/after steve carell left."

already awaiting the "community is still the best thing on at friday at 8:30" defense next fall

West Wing seasons 6 and 7 were fine, but nowhere near the quality of the first two and maybe third. I'm actually a bit of a naysayer about Sorkin's work on the fourth season, but that little slump was still way better than the travesty of season 5. But still, it was his voice that was missed and maybe his desire to show little political morality tales vs Wells' desire to go for straight-up soap opera.

Also remember that The Office was seriously retooled between seasons 1 and 2 (as was Parks and Rec, but to a lesser extent).

xpost But no one would deny that The Office was good enough those first five seasons, which is two longer than Community made it with Harmon. Five seasons of a quality show is pretty good, especially a network comedy.

come on now, what would whiney think

massive xposts but if i ever find myself thinking this, that's when i smash my laptop to smithereens and go check in with the trappist monks

Josh, no offense, but I think you're seriously missing the thrust of some of these arguments.

I mean, I'm not arguing, for example, that The Office wasn't pretty solid for most of those first five seasons. The argument is whether the quality dropped off after that and, if so, whether that had to do with the concurrent change in the person running the show.

I'll try to distill all the gibberish I've been contributing in this thread down to something simple:

—Dan Harmon was vital to the direction of Community. However, I'm not sure I liked where it appeared Community was going.
—I like the actual writing and acting of Community. All the actors are staying and some of the writers appear to be.
—If it ends up being bad, the 4th season will be forgotten in time kind of like the final season of Roseanne (which was inexcusably terrible).
—Dan Harmon is free to start fresh with a new project. I don't think Hollywood has ostracized him (yet).

obv showrunners don't define everything, the office was also suffering from the end of a will-they-won't-they, ed helms giving them one too many nincompoops in the office, a ginormous supporting cast each apparently requiring a line each scene, a shortage of plots that didn't require a field trip. and community had its own woes in s3. Community may well be watchable in the future, but if you loved s2 there's increasingly less reason to assume they'll reach it, and plenty of historical reason the show will get worse.

to demuddy that last bit: there's increasingly less reason to assume they'll reach those kinds of heights, and plenty of historical reason to assume the show will get worse.

Yeah, I say this (again) with the total caveat that I make no premature assumptions about the quality of s4, but a lot of this can be boiled down to: the show is being taken from the person who created it and for whom it is a labor of love and handed to people for whom it is a job.

(Which is not to say that it wasn't a job for Harmon, but his inability to choke down shit and do what what was maybe most prudent from a business angle makes it pretty clear to me that it was more of a labor of love for him.)

My argument has been that before the us office,.everyone was saying it would not work, not least because it was gervais and merchants baby. But it got a new showrunner and another five years and 100 eps or whatever out of an idea most thought was over and done with after a handful of eps. And it faced even bigger changes,.not least an entirely new cast. Why the us office went downhill after five seasons can be chalked up to a confluence of reasons, not least lasting five years.

And I agree there is every reason to believe it will get worse, not better, but I might have said that if Harmon had stayed on.

The first season of the us office is not thought of fondly, and that's likely all the time these new runners will get.

First season sticks closest to what preceded it, though!

You mean because they practically just remade some episodes with new actors?

a new showrunner and another five years

which showrunner and which five years are you counting from?

And it faced even bigger changes,.not least an entirely new cast.

See.....(okay, this is seriously my last attempt at unmuddying these waters): you are talking about one show which was adapted and turned into a wholly different show. In this thread, we're talking about a show that will, ostensibly, be the same show run by an almost completely new creative staff. There may be some similarities between the two processes, but for the purposes of this conversation, there are a lot more differences. If you're trying to draw parallels, you might find it more helpful to do so with the literally dozens of tv shows that have had a regime change at some point during their run (or even the handful of series that have transformed into entirely new shows as a result of massive creative/cast shakeups). Although, even in that respect, Community is in a somewhat unique position inasmuch as it seems likely that very little (or none) of the current production/writing team will be returning.