New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

One of the themes of this column over the course of its run has been the changing television landscape. No longer do we see mega-cultural hits like M*A*S*H, Cheers or Seinfeld, shows that draw both critical raves and massive audiences. As today’s biggest hits become reality shows and redundant procedurals that enjoy fractions of the viewers that, say, an All In The Family might have once had, the real quality programming has evolved into a bunch of little cult shows that survive by the skin of their teeth, due more to prestige and passion than any sort of massive national success. Think Friday Night Lights, Fringe or Parks and Recreation; shows that, by rights, should have been cancelled after their initial run failed to yield any sort of big numbers.

Yet, shows in this vein find ways of living a respectable television life. We always hear tales of a show that critics love and a handful of loyal viewers champion getting some sort of save-our-show campaign. Arrested Development, Chuck, and even Jericho are examples from the last decade of mini-successes that extended their episode count due to grass-roots campaigns to keep them around. The latest of these, one that has such a vocal fan base that it’s hard to believe that it isn’t already a big hit, is Community.

A few months back, NBC announced that it would be temporarily shelving Community to make room on the schedule for another prestige niche comedy, 30 Rock. Of course, it would be a mistake to confuse Internet culture with regular American culture, but to say that there was an online outcry would be an understatement. The blogs and message boards blew up, expressing concern that this was the beginning of the end. Seriously, you would have thought that it was 1995 and someone had suggested canceling Seinfeld (had the net been as evolved back then as it is now).

Of course, some reaction was to be expected. The show has been a critical darling since the beginning, and the fan base, though tiny, has never been shy about telling folks that they should be watching Community, lest they doom us to a sitcom landscape populated with a bunch of Whitneys and Two Broke Girlses (a proposition, to be quite honest, most non-Community fans don’t fear). However, over the course of the ensuing months, the chatter hasn’t settled down. If anything, it’s grown more and more vociferous, crescendoing with last night’s triumphant return.

Yes, the ratings were up. Quite a bit. At nearly five million viewers, it beat 30 Rock and pretty much matched The Office, the show considered to be NBC’s only real comedy hit. The numbers are a little skewed. The Big Bang Theory, Community’s hugely successful time slot rival, is on a short hiatus, but the general rumblings are quite positive. Rumors (unsubstantiated, of course) indicate that a fourth season pick up is more likely than not, which is really all the show needs to both hit syndication numbers, and satisfy the four years of college structure of the show itself.

Continued:       1       2