Community is NBC's under-performing Thursday night sitcom which is set at a community college. A few years ago, that wouldn't have been a problem. Paired up with My Name Is Earl and assorted other failures, the show would have shined because it does include some actual humor and garner some laughs. But that was then. For over a decade, Jeff Zucker was allowed to destroy NBC's lineup. Back then, trashing Thursday nights was all the executive rage. However, today Zucker's finally (and thankfully) gone and, as if emerging slowly from a nasty bender, the NBC suits are wondering what happened to Thursday nights?
NBC owned primetime television on Thursdays starting in 1984 and continuing throughout the nineties. It owned Thursdays by being the home of funny. But funny wasn't good enough for Zucker. He wanted whimsy and, let's be honest, White performers, male performers. The success of Friends, the ratings domination of Friends for ten years didn't impress him because Zucker was threatened by a show where half the leads were women and where the women were actually funny.
Will & Grace was the last of funny on NBC Thursday nights for years and it's a sign of how much Zucker hated diversity (gay) and women that he refused to seal the deal for the Will & Grace spin-off. Megan Mullaly and Sean Hayes (Karen and Jack) were set to go for it. But Zucker wouldn't make the deal, couldn't close the deal. The performers wanted to be sure that the show would have a chance and Zucker refused to offer a commitment to airing even 15 episodes. Hayes and Mullaly won Emmys for their performances, won ratings and would be spinning these beloved characters off into a sitcom. It could have been NBC's new Fraiser (the Cheers' spin-off which ran for 11 seasons). Instead, NBC chose to continue the self-destruction of Thursday nights.
Community is an effort at rebuilding Thursdays and, in the 80s, it might have been a huge hit. You could, for example, easily see the show sandwiched between Cheers and Night Court. The show would, in fact, be perfect for the spring 1984 season. That's when NBC Thursdays was okay but not massive (The Cosby Show would debut in the fall of 1984 and turn Thursdays massive). That last season of struggling is when a show debuted in April of 1984 and didn't catch on for any number of reasons (static, single camera) but NBC was convinced (and some reviews in real time insisted) the show's lack of success was due to the lead being too attractive.
Did Loni Anderson get a WKRP spin-off that year? No. No, women are expected to be drop dead gorgeous on TV (and then they're attacked for that by the likes of Tom Shayles). No, the lead in question was a man, 22-year-old Jim Carey.
Community plays like a show following NBC's post-Duck Factory edicts: Slightly below average looking leading man, surrounded by at least one gorgeous woman, given the bulk of the laugh lines and, though morally ambiguous, allowed to set the standard for all the other characters.
Joel McHale is neither attractive nor funny and viewers are stuck with him as the lead character Jeff Winger. On the show, Jeff exists to be looked up to. As insulting as that would have been in the early eighties, it's all the more insulting today when there is actual diversity. Meaning, there's something rather pathetic about the charisma free performer playing an ethics free character and being looked up to by the female characters and the males of various races. Time and again, you're forced to wonder why Jeff is the leader and the only answer that comes back is: He's the White guy.
The series thinks they can mitigate the ingrained (not just built in, ingrained) racism of the show by forever making the other White male in the main cast, Chevy Chase's Pierce, the butt of the jokes. But while Pierce is prone to make sexist and racist comments, it's also true that Chevy Chase remains a charismatic performer. Your eyes naturally go to him and when he takes even a small step at awareness, you're happy for him.
Jeff just whines. And, in the seventies and eighties, this tired act might have worked. But on this show where you've got Chase and Donald Glover (Troy), Yvette Nicole Brown (Shirley) and Gillian Jacobs (Britta) who are all more charismatic than McHale, it's really noticeable how badly some real Affirmative Action is needed in TV comedies.
Instead of going with the four interesting actors and character, the show forever focuses on McHale. Will his Jeff choose Britta or Annie (Alison Brie)? Will he impart a semi-meaningful life lesson that Abed (Danny Pudi) will quickly turn into a pop cultural reference? Will he take anthropology so that the one-time Spanish study group can remain together?
McHale is Lyle Waggoner in that he smiles too much, is rather bland and -- judging by his many, many shirtless scenes -- some network exec finds him attractive.
The Office was NBC's struggling show. It still rarely achieves funny -- in fact, there are Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes with more laughs than the average episode of The Office; however, NBC did step in after the first season underwhelmed and 'explained' that John Krasinski's Jim was going to be the focus more. Krasinski is both very funny and hugely attractive. And everyone at NBC knows that it was the Jim and Pam (Jenna Fischer) angle that allowed the show to finally move up in the ratings.
America is not enamored with Joel McHale, no matter how many times he takes off his shirt or how many times he struts around in micro-boxers. Nor do they really care for Jeff Winger whose liabilities include being a one-time lawyer (now disbarred), morally ambiguous, vain and self-serving. Last year, the show was like Joel's mother working overtime to insist he was good looking and a catch. But pairing him with a college professor and Britta as well as having Annie announce on the season finale that she was in love/obsessed with him never made the viewers take the leap to: He's hot.
Because he's not.
Donald Glover is. He's hot and he's funny and he's stuck playing fawning admirer and Jeff Winger groupie. They could upgrade his role or they could add a new hot male. Otherwise, Community's going to continue to flounder.
The same way the storylines do. For example, one minute someone doesn't know who Sam & Diane were (lead couple of Cheers). But in another earlier episode, they do. One minute Annie is outing a college professor for not having a degree because that means they will all fail Spanish and have to take it over (thereby keeping the group together). In the next episode, she's planning to move off with her boyfriend. There's no continuity with any of the characters. Strong acting often helps cover that, but viewers who attempt to engage in the show will come away disappointed.
The ratings have been disappointing for Community and it's ability to generate laughs has remained doubtful due to each episode forever being tossed to McHale's Jeff. Probably an all time low was the season debut when Jeff declared, "Annie, all women deserve to be with me and vice versa." The sad thing was it appeared the writers believed that as well.
Last week saw the cancellation of Lone Star (Fox) and My Generation (ABC). The former was the best new show of the season, the latter one of the worst. And while there's plenty of more trash on TV, if we were Community, we'd be worried about, if not cancellation, at least academic suspension.
