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Are Niche Audiences the Future of Network Comedy?

By Jason Bailey on

Flavorwire is celebrating Memorial Day with The Year in TV, a series of features on the 2012-13 TV season, which ends this month.

Last summer, NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt told the assembled press at the Television Critics Association’s press tour that, in the coming season, they could expect a shift in the network’s approach to comedy programming — a move away from the likes of Community, Parks and Recreation, and The Office. “Those Thursday comedies, which the critics love, and we love,” Greenblatt carefully noted, “tend to be a bit more narrow than we’d ultimately like going forward… Those are great shows. But it’s a challenge in comedy to broaden… I hope these new shows we’ve got for the fall and the spring are also clever and also smart, but can also broaden the size of the audience.” Well, here we are a year later, and NBC renewed exactly two of their sitcoms for next season: Community and Parks and Rec. So much for broadening, eh? … Read More

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Television

11 Shows That Wouldn’t Exist Without ‘Arrested Development’

By Jason Bailey on

Arrested Development fans are busy counting down the hours until Season 4 premieres this Sunday at midnight on Netflix, and here at Flavorwire, we’re no different. So, we’re passing the time by declaring this Arrested Development Week, all leading up to a Recap-a-thon on Sunday, when our own Jason Bailey will review the whole season, episode by episode. Click here to follow our coverage.

By now, the common wisdom is that Arrested Development’s original three-season run was influential and groundbreaking — but what, specifically, do we owe to the show? The dubious film career of Jason Bateman? David Cross appearing in those Alvin and the Chipmunks movies? The forgotten Fox animated flop Sit Down, Shut Up? Hardly. For your consideration, a brief survey of television programs that may never have existed were it not for the Bluth crew. … Read More

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Television

Where Can ‘Community’ Season 5 Possibly Go Now That Jeff’s Graduated?

By Jason Bailey on

Last Friday, after a rather successful (for this year, anyway) fourth season finale, we asked the simple question: should Community get picked up for another, Dan Harmon-less season, or is it time to let the characters — and actors — graduate to bigger and better things? It was a question answered far more quickly than expected; by Friday afternoon, there were rumblings that a fifth season was “all but a done deal,” and that deal got done over the weekend. It’s not all ducky for the Greendale crew; as with the just-completed season, year five will only run 13 episodes (initially, anyway), and there’s no set start date. The show is on neither NBC’s fall nor mid-season schedule, meaning the network is saving it to drop in when one of their new comedies tanks, which at least one certainly will. (Let’s be honest: it’ll be more than one.) So the ratings were good enough, and the show is good enough. But it’s time to ask the more pressing question: where does the show go from here, narratively speaking? … Read More

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Television

This Week’s Top 5 TV Moments

By Alison Herman on

There are scores of TV shows out there, with dozens of new episodes each week, not to mention everything you can find on Hulu Plus, Netflix streaming, and HBO Go. How’s a viewer to keep up? To help you sort through all that television has to offer, we’re compiling the five best moments on TV each week. This week, some shows wrap up while others get going. … Read More

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Television

Should ‘Community’ Stay In Session — Or Is It Time to Graduate?

By Jason Bailey on

For the past 12 weeks, in this space, Flavorwire has recapped the abbreviated, delayed, and frequently problematic fourth season of NBC’s Community. As you certainly all know by now, the third year of the often brilliant series concluded with the abrupt sacking of creator/showrunner Dan Harmon, whose distinctive, idiosyncratic sensibility gave the show much of its voice, and whose comic genius was reportedly matched only by his inability to suffer suits gladly. The transition to new showrunners Moses Port and David Guarascio was certain to be bumpy, and it was. But now that Community‘s senior year has come to a close, it’s worth asking: should the show carry on, or is it time to send the Greendale crew (and the gifted actors who play them) out into the Real World? … Read More

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Television

‘Community’ Season 4, Episode 12 Recap: The Darkest Timeline Update

By Jason Bailey on

After creator Dan Harmon was unceremoniously dismissed from his role as showrunner at the end of Season 3, Community‘s loyal fans feared its departure would plunge the show into what Abed Nadir would surely call “the darkest timeline.” But despite our concerns, we hold out hope that the new showrunners and their stable of writers are able to make the best of this worst possible role of the dice. This week’s episode, “Heroic Origins,” finds Abed advancing a theory that the study group was “destined” to meet, as evidenced by previously unknown or unnoted chance encounters. … Read More

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Television

‘Community’ Season 4, Episode 11 Recap: The Darkest Timeline Update

By Jason Bailey on

After creator Dan Harmon was unceremoniously dismissed from his role as showrunner at the end of Season 3, Community ‘s loyal fans feared its departure would plunge the show into what Abed Nadir would surely call “the darkest timeline.” But despite our concerns, we hold out hope that the new showrunners and their stable of writers are able to make the best of this worst possible role of the dice. This week’s episode, “Basic Human Anatomy,” is a riff on the old “body-switching” formula, with Troy and Abed swapping souls at a particularly opportune moment. … Read More

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Television

Flavorwire Interview: Jim Rash on ‘Community’s’ Season 4 “Learning Curve”

By Jason Bailey on

When Dan Harmon was dismissed as showrunner of his NBC sitcom Community at the conclusion of its third season, much of the show’s writing staff followed suit, leaving the abbreviated fourth season with several new writers. However, one of those novice scripters was hardly an unfamiliar presence: Jim Rash, who has played the morally and sexually ambiguous Dean Pelton throughout the show’s run, pens this week’s episode, “Basic Human Anatomy.” It’s not a case of an actor with an itch to try something new; Rash is an Oscar-winning screenwriter (he shared the Best Adapted Screenplay statue for The Descendants with his writing partner Nat Faxon and director Alexander Payne) and, now, filmmaker (he and Faxon’s directorial debut, The Way, Way Back sold for big bucks at Sundance). But this was his first time writing for the show that made him a familiar face. … Read More

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