Community

Overview

Community is a show that is as much a satire as it is a sitcom. Created by Dan Harmon, the show focuses on a study group at Greendale Community College who come together to try and pass Spanish 101. They soon form a tight bond with one another and face off against whatever crazy situations the school can throw at them.

The plot initially revolves around the sexual tension between Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) and Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs), but as the series progresses this becomes more of a subplot and the series focuses on the group dynamic as a whole.

Season 2: A Little Spare Chang

With the second season, Community becomes much more of an ensemble showcase, with each member of the group getting their own time in the spotlight. Community has become well known for its parodies and tributes to modern pop culture, with episodes themed around Pulp Fiction, My Dinner With Andre, Goodfellas, Apollo 13, and the paintball episodes (which contain nods to a large number of action and western films).

Community also has a habit of subverting many standards within the sitcom formula, such as the clip show episode in which none of the clips were actually from preceding episodes. The show has developed a devoted following and was renewed for a third season.

Season 3: The Darkest Timeline

The show's third season was, even by Community standards, consistently shocking and subversive. Featured were anime foosball sequences, an entire episode that took place in a videogame, an evil timeline, and detailed homages to Law and Order and Ken Burns documentaries. John Goodman features as principle of the air conditioning repair school, who tries to court Troy to join the school. Michael K. Williams also prominently guest stars as Dr. Kane, the group's Biology teacher.

Despite the usual fan and critic adoration, Community suffered in the ratings. NBC announced that it would be shelved from the mid-season schedule. The 8 o'clock time slot would be filled by 30 Rock. A massive outpouring of fan support emerged. Inspired by the episode "Remedial Chaos Theory", wherein an evil timeline is created, goatees were mailed to NBC. NBA player and Community fan Blake Griffin added one to his avatar on Twitter. Twitter was where a majority of the fan support came from. The hashtags "#SaveCommunity" and "#SixSeasonsAndAMovie" became very popular. The show returned on March 15th.

The show returned to the highest ratings of the season. However, tension grew behind the scenes between Chevy Chase and Dan Harmon. While shooting the season finale, on a "non-script day" (where pages of the script are literally sent down to the set), Chevy Chase walked off of set. At the season wrap party, Harmon made a speech directed at Chase, who attended with his wife and daughter. The entire cast and crew was also present. The speech was a "fuck you" to Chevy. Dan even tried to get the whole crowd at the event to chant "fuck you" at Chevy.

Chase left two voicemails on Harmon's cell phone. The first one was a profane rant, where Chase called Harmon a fat alcoholic, and said he wouldn't like past 57 with the way he eats. Harmon played it for a group of people and it leaked onto the internet. Harmon apologized for this. Chevy left another voicemail for Dan, which was more of a critique of the show and Dan's writing, which his says is getting "worse and worse." This voicemail was also put onto the internet. Harmon apologized to Chevy in his blog. During this turbulence, it was announced Community would return for a fourth season.

At the end of the season, it was announced that Dan Harmon would no longer be the show's showrunner. While they announced that Harmon would still be a consulting producer, Harmon denies this was ever discussed. Harmon also says he has no idea why he was fired:

The important one is this quote from Bob Greenblatt in which he says he’s sure I’m going to be involved somehow, something like that. That’s a misquote. I think he meant to say he’s sure cookies are yummy, because he’s never called me once in the entire duration of his employment at NBC. He didn’t call me to say he was starting to work there, he didn’t call me to say I was no longer working there and he definitely didn’t call to ask if I was going to be involved. I’m not saying it’s wrong for him to have bigger fish to fry, I’m just saying, NBC is not a credible source of All News Dan Harmon.

Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan, Chris McKenna, Dino Stamatopoulos, Joe and Anthony Russo are also leaving the series.

Season 4 will be airing in a new timeslot, Friday at 8:30PM instead of Thursday at 8:00PM.