Anonymous asked: Whats your theories on Dan Harmon Being Fired from Community?
What hasn’t surprised me about all of this is the fact that every Community fan (you know, not just the 3.5 to 4 million that watch live on Thursday nights) considers the show to really be called “Dan Harmon’s Community”.
This creator branding is, unfortunately, not a network TV notion. Sure, JJ has cracked the code but amazingly, he’s only created 2 shows since Lost. Bill Lawrence and Ryan Murphy may be close to this notion but in any case you don’t really get “David Milch’s Luck”, ”Kurt Sutter’s Suns of Anarchy”, “Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men” on network television.
To prosper on network television, comedy has to be broad, laden with stereotypes and (apparently) inoffensive. Occasionally a Happy Endings or a Community slips through, one hopes through a kind of beautiful subterfuge where their pilot is simply a first draft of what the show actually is.
As a result, we the smart marks of television, latch on to these gems and never let go. We create a cult. And due to the internet, the creators can LISTEN to us. We feel we are a part of the show. This is such a new phenomenon, we have no hope of a Les Moonves or a Bob Greenblatt even beginning to understand it. We would bend reality to the show’s very whim if asked properly. This DOES NOT mean BATTLESHIP IN 3D THIS WEEKEND plastered over the screen. It means treating the viewing public (finally) as customers and intelligent humans. Traditional 30 second advertising is dying (unless it’s the Superbowl or other live TV). If this was 2017, Sony would probably sell Community Season 4 directly to us and be done with it.
But it’s not 2017. And Dan got fired. And he’s not cool about it. And we’re not cool about it. Community might be OK for now. The two new showrunners may be great people. And a move to Friday and new broader writing might extend it to 22 episodes. And 6 seasons. And a movie.
But it won’t be our Community. Not really.
