The funny stuff: Not so funny now, NBC

So all my shows are gone for the summer.  I am sad panda until everything comes back in September.

There has been some news, however.  I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that NBC renewed Community for an abridged fourth season of 13 episodes.  I was super happy about that.

And then, the internet exploded.

Sony, who owns/produces Community, fired Dan Harmon.  You may be wondering who Dan Harmon is.  Well, he is the MOST important part of Community.  He created the show, and executive produced it through the first three amazing seasons.  His vision, his procedure, his energy made the show what it was, and I really don’t know if it will be the same.

In a previous era, we would never have known who Dan Harmon was.  The show creator/producer was not someone people associated with the shows they were watching.  But then, Joss Whedon came.  The internet came.  Full season DVDs with behind the scene videos.  Those same videos that got posted to Youtube.  The world of television has changed from even five years ago.  Tumbler and Twitter, Facebook and various aggregators make news an instantaneous thing.  And when the show creator has as much notoriety as the stars, attempting to foist the news off on Friday so it’ll blow over by Monday isn’t going to work anymore.

Now, from what I understand, Dan Harmon was not an easy person to work with.  Community got lower ratings than a lot of cable shows.    However, I don’t think angering the show’s core fanbase is a way to grow the audience enough to order a back nine, especially when the genius in scheduling decided to dump Community to Friday nights following the drek that is Whitney.  According to Dan Harmon, he found out about his firing the same way the rest of the world did: from the story online.  It was as big of a shock to him as it was to the viewers.

So now, Community moves to Friday sans it’s show runner.

Is it still going to be on my viewing schedule come September?  I don’t know.  But I will say this: the season finale works as a series finale, and if the first episode disappoints me as much as I’m expecting, the fourth season doesn’t exsist.