Tonight, a show called Community is going to premiere its third Christmas episode, and it might be its last. The show is being put “on hiatus” until the spring. Even if that does mean NBC has every intention to really bring it back for the spring, fans are pretty damn mad about it, myself included. I’m just going to say it: NBC did not give the show much advertising. I can’t remember a commercial that just featured Community or even a joke from Community. So yeah I’m a little bitter, especially when there’s going to be a goddamn Rob Schneider pilot premiering early next year and I have to wait until the spring or longer to see one of the best written shows on TV.
I don’t want this to become another Arrested Development — three seasons of brilliant, ground-breaking comedy that gets cut short. I’m asking our readers who haven’t tried out the show to give it a shot while it’s still on network television. There’s something for everyone! Are you a Glee fan? Do you loathe Glee? Troy and Abed’s Christmas rap is both a nod and a slight towards the FOX show.
How about the chemistry between the cast? They got together last night for Joel McHale’s other show The Soup for one last plug for the show. This was the best part of my Wednesday, just seeing a whole episode of The Soup with them popping in randomly.
Community: “It’s like Fight Club, only you’re too much of a pussy to actually fight somebody.”
But the other joy of my night was finally getting to watch the amazing Save Greendale Community College video produced by CollegeHumor and unknowingly by the Greendale Athletics Department (shh … secret). So much of what I love about this show (I mean, college) is assembled into this video, including the cast.
Sure, Greendale isn’t an Ivy League school. Sure, not everyone can relate to its students. Sure, the school is a festering, racoon-ridden semi-educational institution with a crossing-dressing dean and a history of zombie attacks. But it’s our Greendale, our show and we don’t want it going anywhere.
Clacked by Katie Schenkel 
on Dec 08, 2011 @ 10:30 EST5EDT
This show is hilarious..I have tried to rally the troops for tonight’s show so the numbers are gloriously high. The Soup was great last night, not that I like it’s new timeslot but I’m glad I remembered to tune in!
Shouldn’t NBC have learned from their many, MANY mistakes?
Whitney stays on the air, get the same ratings as Community even though it’s only at it’s 10th episode and the ratings are still garbage, and that it has the best timeslot on NBC for a comedy when Community is up against the biggest comedy on TV?
Idiots at NBC. First they cancel Star Trek, now they are not quite canceling (yet) Community.
Remember that Community premiered in the same slot, with significant ratings, and bolstered by a stronger The Office two years ago. It stayed there until that SNL Thursday special series ended, when it moved to its current slot. Post-Office is one of the few places NBC can still premiere new shows, and Whitney, like Community and Outsourced before it, will lose that protection as it is being moved to Wednesdays. Up All Night gets the plum Thursday slot because it actually has a chance of surviving based on its Wednesday ratings.
Also, The Big Bang Theory is only the second or third biggest comedy on TV, depending on which metric you use and how Two and a Half Men and Modern Family did that week.
NBC’s prolonged ratings slide and continuous failures of its new comedies have kept Community on the air this long, and there’s certainly every chance of that continuing until the show hits syndication numbers. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see it return in March or September.
I would say that we should pull a Chuck and do a campaign supporting the most advertised product/service that is shown during Community. Unfortunately, the most advertised thing during Community is the show Whitney.
It’s my favorite show currently on TV. I don’t want that title to no longer apply.
I like this show a lot when the episode hits the mark and it’s a shame that the last one before the show went off the air was this… it was a pain to watch because Glee itself is already on a downward spiral and you don’t make fun of something this late into its run. And it’s really not like I didn’t WANT to like this episode. It’s just that I haven’t watched an episode of Glee for two years.
The idea for the episode was good. Strike that. It was awesome. I think it could’ve worked. But it should’ve aired two years ago.
I also remember there was a certain someone (reviewer) who really didn’t like Annie hitting on Jeff. Back then I thought it was fine but the display in this episode even made me want to… dunno… throw up? Nah. Not really. It felt strange. It felt weird. It seemed to me that the lewdness of the dress was directed directly at the demo that tunes in to see this and that might want to see more. The finger biting, the baby talk… it made me feel icky. It was beyond weird and to be honest I felt robbed of what could’ve been between the two. Annie is a character that really has depth and finding out how she knocks the cynicism out of Jeff would’ve been nice.
But I think I already got that for about 5 minutes in an episode and the writers and I found out that this really wouldn’t work because it’s not a teenage romance. It feels weird within seconds and at a certain point you have to let it go and I feel like this is what I should do with the show.
I don’t see Community coming back, which is a shame. Then again it got two years more than anyone expected. The “You have to put up with Chevy for another year” of the producer after the filming of the least episode of season one really hit the nail on the head. Back then I was relieved like the actors – today I wouldn’t be because I HAD to endure Chevy for another year and at a certain point you’ve had enough.
It was a great feeling to see these guys come back but as Ken Levine said here:
https://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2011/11/what-shows-have-you-canceled-lately.html
“but it just got too uneven for me. I appreciate how innovative and ambitious the show is, but with each format-bending episode I cared less and less about the characters, and if I’m not invested in the characters, ultimately I go away. ”
That sums it up quite nicely, and it really is too bad that this was the last episode to air because Danny Pudi is an awesome guy, great actor, funny comedian – but he just can’t sing and that kinda made me sad. I wanted more episodes to be honest, I feel like there’s a couple of memes that can still be milked although I think the “Doctor Who” references and the way they were hyped on Twitter as weel as the way Annie dressed this episode smelled of desperation.
So, for the final question: do need a wrapup episode?
I think we’ve seen everything the show could give us and there really is no need for closure. After three years, community college is over and everyone goes their separate ways. Let’s just pretend that’s what they all did.
Arrested Development will be back in production soon. Let’s look forward to that one.