All's for the Best in This Best of all Possible Worlds

Community shows signs of life!  Come on, Hulu!  Maybe it won’t be cancelled!  Could we have 13 more episodes of one of the best shows on TV?  Let’s celebrate!

Oh, what’s that you say, nation’s online TV critics?  You don’t want Community to be revived?  Well, you must have never liked the show in the first place.  Wait, what?  You did like it, and still like it?  Yet you’re happy with its cancellation?  I’m confused. 

Let’s start with Todd:

The show had a tremendous run: Community made it to five seasons and ran 97 episodes, far more than the vast majority of TV shows ever have. 

It’s also funnier than the vast majority of TV shows.  97 episodes, a lot of them pretty fucking good.  Let’s have thirteen more!

It had, by any stretch of the imagination, a terrific run, particularly when one considers how close it came to cancellation so many times. Is it really worth potentially sullying that reputation for a handful of additional episodes, 

Um—that last season was kind of good, wasn’t it?  So, odds are, a potential next season would be good too.  And if it’s not, oh well—maybe we get one or two more great episodes—no harm in that! 

I sense a creeping Victorianism in Todd’s worldview today—“sullying reputations”—never want to do that.  Keep that chastity belt on, Community!

particularly when it could be fun to see all involved stretch their wings?

Little birds, leave your nests!  Fly, fly, fledglings!  Your home is in a newer, probably worse nest!

Will I watch more episodes of Community if they come along? Undoubtedly.

Will I continue to write like Donald Rumsfeld?  Indubitably.

And I’ll likely enjoy them, too.

So, of course, you’re happy that Community is over.  That makes sense.  Todd’s asceticism is stronger than ever.  Enjoyment?  Pleasure?  Fie!  Fie on that!

But everything—even TV shows—has to end, and Community is at a point where its legacy is secure. Why mess with that?

Maybe because it’s still really fucking good?  Sure, TV shows have to end.  Maybe for, you know, TV shows that actually make you laugh, they could end when the creators and stars want them to end or when they get bad.  That has not happened with Community.  But Todd “Chopping Block” Van DerWerff wants us to think of the children.  He’s so concerned with the “legacy.”  You’re not trying to get your kid into Yale, Todd.

To steal from a friend, here’s basically Todd’s argument, transposed into another context:

Ya know, Lebron is great, but I think I'm ready for him to retire. I'm not really sure there's anything else he can show me at this point. He's a great, great basketball player, sure, but we've seen what he has to offer already. He doesn't want to linger just for the sake of it, like Jordan did with those pointless final three championships.

Also, Michael Jordan kind of did stick around too long with that ill-fated Wizards comeback.  Did that destroy his legacy?  Not exactly.

Could Sony get more Community on the air? Sure. But why should it have to?

Going for the gold there with the rhetorical questions today, I see. Sony doesn’t have to produce more shows.  But the show’s kind of good—as you attest!  So why the hell not?

Community was a great show, one of the best of its era. But new shows—sometimes from the same people—will rise up to take its place. They always do.

Do you hear the throbbing drums, the vaguely “exotic” background singers?  They’re swelling and rising.  Yes, I hear it now—it’s “the circle of life”!   And it moves us all!   It’s the circle, the circle of TV sitcoms!

Yes, look for Community in the grass.  It will filter and fibre the blood of new brilliant sitcoms like NBC’s remake of The Odd Couple starring Matthew Perry.  Because really good sitcoms are as common as dandelions.  And for a new one to be born an old one has to die.  So off with their heads!

If it proves to be time to let it go for once and for all, don’t let that be a sad thing. Let that be, instead, a celebration of all that the show was so good at—including telling stories about letting things come to a peaceful, natural end.

Man, you just love endings, don’t you?  You’ve been wanting Community to end from the moment it began.  Forget the humor and innovation—what you want is a “peaceful, natural end.”  The essence of all great comedy. 

Also, the primary feeling I feel isn’t sadness.  It’s anger—anger at reviews like this, and anger at NBC for cancelling the show.  But far be it for you to even possibly suggest that NBC might have gone so far as to make a mistake—no, no, Father Network knows best.  All’s for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

For more of the same, here’s Andy Greenwald.

The new status quo rolled for a while: Somewhere between Troy leaving on a lake of lava and Jeff hallucinating himself into a GI Joe cartoon, Community reclaimed its mantle as the most inventive show on network television as well as the one most contemptuous of its rules.

Community—still the most inventive show on television.  Kind of a shame it got cancelled in its prime, huh?

But eventually there was simply too much entropy to overcome. By the time the final two episodes aired — one of which was built around the idea of nothing happening at all — it was hard to avoid the sense that Community was out of gas. The finale, “Basic Sandwich,” wasn’t just lousy, it was exhausted.

So let’s get this straight—for 11 of its 13 episodes. Community was the most inventive show on television.  But two lousy episodes (which were actually really funny, but whatever) and you’re convinced that the show is lousy and exhausted?  Two fucking episodes!

Sentiment aside, where could this show possibly go from here?

Let’s take it to Mars!  Strap on the jetpacks, put on the spacesuits, and shoot that sucker into space!

How ‘bout this—maybe Community shouldn’t “go” anywhere.  Maybe it should stick around and continue being the “most inventive show on network television.” High praise, from a certain Andy Greenwald.

Greendale has been saved, Jeff and Britta separated, and a deadly meteor could strike at any time. This feels right. Believe me, I understand the desire to pound on Community’s chest in hopes of a miracle, but sometimes it’s best to give the dead some dignity.

Let me suggest a more apt conceit: Mr. Community lies on his death bed, struggling for life.  Nefarious doctors with a peacock logo on their lapels disconnect his life support systems.  We all begin our process of mourning.  But suddenly: a turn for the better—do we dare hope for a miracle?  No—Andy Greenwald sheds his mourning weeds, takes out a sledge hammer, and bludgeons the almost restored Mr. Community to death.  And . . . scene!

But Greenwald doesn’t take the cake.  No, that honor goes to Ben Cosman from something called The Wire. 

Wednesday evening, Deadline reported that Hulu was "in talks" with Sony Pictures TV to bring Community back from the dead for a post-cancellation season on the streaming service. We respectfully ask Hulu to not do that. 

Don’t save a brilliant show!  Please, we beg of you.  The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will ride through a blood-red sky, the seventh seal will be opened, and darkness will descend over the face of the waters.

Community doesn't need to be revived. This isn't a Freaks and Geeks situation – Community had five seasons on air, more than most cult shows, and it isn't as if the show was only now hitting its prime.

No, it’s not just hitting its prime.  It’s in its prime.  Or let’s say, for comparison’s sake that Community is in its Seinfeld Season 6 phase—just after its prime.  That’s still pretty fucking good. 

Sure, it's one short of its six season hashtag, but that's no more reason to bring it back than any other Twitter joke. The show left very few story lines unwrapped at the end of the fifth season. There's no cliffhanger to resolve. This wasn't a premature death.

Yes, because the only possible reason for a show to continue is if there’s some serialized plot that needs to be resolved.  Not just that it’s a great show that’s still going strong.  Again, this is the whole problem with the growth and learning bullshit—comedies don’t usually have story arcs across episodes.  They’re not going to have cliffhangers.  Don’t judge comedies by the same criteria as fucking True Detective.

A sixth season on Hulu would be nothing but pandering fan service.

“Fan service” is a term that people keep throwing around recently, and like most terms that people obsessively throw around, it means nothing.  So, according to you, making more of a great sitcom is “pandering fan service?” 

Boy, that William Shakespeare: Henry IV Part I, fine, but did you have to do a part II?  I know audiences like Falstaff and all, but that’s just pandering fan service. 

And James Joyce, didn’t we have our fill of Stephen Dedalus in Portrait?  Did you really need to service your fans with more of the same in Ulysses?  

And moreover, Community shouldn't be revived. Just because this is the Internet and we can do that now doesn't mean every show that gets cancelled while people are still marginally interested in it needs to find a new home online. 

It’s true!  How many shows were cancelled this past year?  A fuck ton.  You don’t hear people clamoring for more Dads, do you?  You know why—it fucking sucked.  Community, on the other hand, is really good.  So people want more of it.  Is that so fucking wrong?

And that's the problem with these post-cancellation revivals, isn't it? How often do they live up to the hype (see: Arrested Development)?

Far be it for me to point out the most fucking obvious point in the world here, but kind of a different context between Community and Arrested Development.  Arrested Development: years go by and the show is resurrected under huge logistical constraints.  Community: basically, if it gets picked up on Hulu, it would just continue uninterrupted.  Exactly the same. 

Giving fans exactly what they want is the surest way to make nobody care about a sixth season of Community. 

I don’t even know what that means.  So providing a sixth season of Community is the surest way for people not to care about a sixth season?  I don’t know, I kind of think NOT HAVING a sixth season would be a better way for people not to care about the season.

So please, Hulu, snuff out this talk right now. Let Community rest. It had a good run, it was on a decline, it ended when it should have, and no hashtag can convince us otherwise. At its best, Community was the most creative and interesting show on television. It won't be the same on Hulu.

Because, why exactly?  The show “was the most creative and interesting show on television.”  But if it’s on Hulu, it won’t be?  Are there structural constraints about Hulu that will prevent the show from reaching its potential?  Oh, right—that’s the end of your article.  You’re just a fucking idiot. 

But let’s back up a bit.

It had a good run, it was on a decline, it ended when it should have.

Let’s ignore the fact that the show wasn’t on a decline.  Basically, this is the message of all three of the articles above.  In sum: don’t be upset.  Don’t complain.  Trust in Dr. Pangloss: All’s for the best in the best of all possible worlds.  Trust in our corporate overlords: they’re so wise, they’re so benevolent.  They know just the right time when every show should be cancelled.  And if the show’s not actually in decline, well we TV reviewers, as their faithful servants, will pretend that it was in decline.  March in lockstep, everyone!  Criticism, dissent—fuck that!  Just be grateful for what you have.  Don’t ask for more.  Those NBC execs, they’re better than us, more knowledgeable (and oh so competent in building hit shows).  Let the CEOs do their jobs, and the TV critics can just justify their decisions.  TV “criticism”?  I think not.