TV is not an endowed museum.  People who play have to find ways to make it pay or they fail. That's the reality.

Or, people get it and choose to not watch.   Thus, the power of the marketplace.  This idea that those who favor the show are somehow endowed with some superior sense of what the show is doing is, in fact, the problem with the show.  It's not transparent, but it's also not the Dead Sea Scrolls - and Harmon obviously…

Just like poker - let them beat themselves.  Good luck with that schtick; I can only hope it's a safety school and there's a real tenure review somewhere down the line.

It may not be a fair comparison, but there isn't much TV history to examine in the context of Community.  I think Arrested Development endures because it was smart, clever and good.  It pushed and broke through boundaries as a matter of course because it had to in order to succeed at what it was trying to accomplish. …

Because it's a larger sample size, I think it's useful to think about clever in the world of novels.  The universe is littered with thousands of smart and clever efforts that failed because no one wants to read them.  Then there's Slaughterhouse 5, On the Road, Gravity's Rainbow….ULYSSES and countless more that are…

Well done!  It is low rated because of how it's wired and does overdose on smart and clever.  For the niche audience that gets off on that it translates into good, or great.  If there's a business plan that can translate into profit, the show may survive.  However, I think it's lasted to date becuase of the overall…

I think this reinforces a point of the article.  If your age is such that Sopranos is the furthest back you can reach to benchmark what was being done, and what followed, then that's history to you.  I would recall Wiseguy as something that also belongs in the conversation, at least from premier through the arc with…

almost lost it on that one.

i look at it as analogous to taking different courses…both differential equations and rocks for jocks give out A's, and even though they count the same toward gpa, they don't in any way correlate in terms difficulty or effort required.

it's not a policy, a program or even a theory, it's a philosophy - a construct for explaining why things are.  disagreement is part of what it's for, but sheez at least do so in the context of what it is. john locke is turning over in his grave.

with Mick Jagger!

you forgot awful acting…as much as i want to buy into "chemistry" between the two leads, they are terrible at delivering lines.

I somehow landed on this episode last week in the middle of the afternoon (Traffic School); my wife walked in and said I must be really bored or desperate to avoid doing something productive.  I replied that it's probably been 10 years since I've seen this show and I find myself laughing.  The routine with the dummy…

What get’s missed, or forgotten, is that successful comedies must, at some point, be funny.  In order to be funny within the TV sitcom structure, you need some combination of well written jokes delivered by well drawn characters.  The characters become drawn through a combination of writing and acting (good acting is…

Community only exists because NBC is on life support.  Otherwise, it would already be nostalgia.  Louie is genius, but still in its infancy - what, 24 episodes to date?  It remains to be seen if he can sustain what he's started.   The Modern Family comments appear to be rooted in age old insecurities - if it's…