Shot/Reverse Shot: Episode 29 - Community Season 4

Continuing our run of doing semi-topical episodes, this week Joe and I talk about the recently finished fourth season of NBC's Community. It was a turbulent year for the show, a favourite of mine and most of the Internet, it seems, which started with the firing of creator Dan Harmon, then saw the show being delayed from its October start date to the Spring, then the departure of Chevy Chase, yet it still managed to earn a fifth season renewal. We talk about all of these issues, how we felt they impacted the final product, and what hopes we have, if any, for the next season.



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Changing Horses: Thoughts on Community "History 101"

There's been a lot of hand-wringing and pontificating about the present and future of NBC's Community over the last year (some of which occurred on this very site) as the series struggled to stay afloat amidst a perfect storm of middling ratings, a reduced order of episodes followed by it being pulled from the schedules entirely, and the firing of creator/showrunner Dan Harmon. Even during the uncertain period when the show was in production but no one had a clue when it would see the light of day, there was the additional trauma of cast member and crotchety old man Chevy Chase leaving the show even though there were still episodes left to film. Admittedly that last one was less of a surprise given Chase's repeated assertion that he didn't want to be on the show, but it still couldn't have been easy for all those involved.

Hope Lies on Television #15 - Only Forward

After a lengthy break which was largely due to me moving countries, I have now started writing the Hope Lies on Television column for Hope Lies at 24 Frames per Second. Since this is in some sense a reboot of the series, and because it's nearly Halloween, I decided that the subject of the first new addition to the series would be remakes. Using the remake of The Munsters (renamed Mockingbird Lane) as the jumping off point for a broader discussion about the differences between cinematic and televisiual remakes, it returns to key themes that I've written about before - the importance of character and length of time - whilst also taking in the different economic models that film and television are based upon.

I'm really pleased to be writing the columns again since I find them really fun and rewarding, and I'm hopeful that the new monthly schedule (with the occasional extra column when appropriate) will offer plenty of time for research without leading to the lengthy breaks that have marked the column in the past.

The Weirdest Timeline: The Complicated Nature of Community's Fourth Season Renewal

Back in November, I wrote about NBC's decision to hold the second half of Community's third season back until a later date, one which, at the time, was undetermined.The aim of that article was to establish why the news was not necessarily a sign that the cultishly adored sitcom was in imminent danger of being cancelled, and that everyone should calm the fuck down already.