How Not to Save a Sitcom

This is a film blog so I won’t make this too much of a regular thing; but given the cinematic tendencies of Community it seems fitting that if I’m going to talk about one TV show it should be this one. Dan Harmon’s sitcom IS the funniest, sharpest, smartest programme going. What seems bizarre then is that the folks over at NBC should think it a good move to axe the show’s creator and show-runner just at the time when it is reaching its creative peak. By now the Twitterverse has surged and receded over the news of Harmon’s removal so this post is a little bit redundant information-wise – but I’ve been doing exams and I want to vent some bilious spleen.

In what world is it a good idea to get rid of the man responsible for this:

and this:

for the people who did this:

Admittedly, David Guarascio and Moses Port also currently oversee Happy Endings - which is a pretty dang good sitcom. But while Happy Endings may be pretty dang good, it’s also pretty dang standard. It’s just not exciting in the way Community is. Also admittedly, Dan Harmon is apparently a pretty difficult man to work with. But I imagine that a man would have to fight pretty hard to keep things as truly groundbreaking as Community so frequently is. You’ve got to wonder what would’ve happened to the show if it called HBO or AMC its home. The latter especially currently demonstrating what can be achieved when a network gives full blessing to the new breed of television-auteurs (oh hai Vince Gilligan and Matthew Weiner).

Unfortunately, as Slate recently pointed out, Community generally pulls in just under a tenth of the audience that the ultimate popularity-model Seinfeld drew at its peak. But in ridding the show of its more extreme influences (Joe and Anthony Russo of Harmon's alma mater Arrested Development have also mysteriously declined to return for the forthcoming season), rather than simply cancelling it at its best, NBC seem to have decided to bastardize Dan Harmon’s baby, attempting to gentrify it into something that it was never meant to be – a standard sitcom.