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Revision as of 14:39, 16 December 2010

Community
File:Community title.jpg
GenreComedy
Created byDan Harmon
StarringJoel McHale
Gillian Jacobs
Danny Pudi
Yvette Nicole Brown
Alison Brie
Donald Glover
Ken Jeong
Chevy Chase
Opening theme"At Least It Was Here" by The 88
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons2
No. of episodes36 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producersGary Foster
Russ Krasnoff
Dan Harmon
Anthony Russo
Joe Russo
Neil Goldman
Garrett Donovan
Production locationsLos Angeles City College, California
Camera setupSingle-camera
Running time22 minutes
Production companiesKrasnoff Foster Entertainment
Russo Brothers
Harmonious Claptrap
Original release
NetworkNBC
ReleaseSeptember 17, 2009 (2009-09-17) –
present

Community is an American television comedy series created by Dan Harmon that airs on NBC. The series is about a group of students at a community college in Colorado. The series heavily uses meta-humor and pop culture references, often parodying film and television clichés and tropes.[1] The series premiered Thursday, September 17, 2009, and airs in the 8:00pm ET time slot.[2] It previously aired in the 9:30pm ET time slot, beginning with its premiere, but later relocated with its fourth episode. On March 5, 2010, Community was renewed for a second season[3] and premiered on September 23, 2010.

Premise

Community centers on Jeff Winger (Joel McHale), a suspended lawyer who was forced back into school after his college degree is deemed invalid by the state bar association because his degree is from Colombia, not Columbia University. The series focuses on Jeff's experiences while attending the Greendale Community College in Greendale, and the people he meets there. He has an obvious crush on Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs), a female student trying to get her life back on track, and receives perplexing life lessons from Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase), an elderly, bigoted moist-towelette tycoon who has been married seven times. However, the focus of the series has become less centralized as the series has progressed, with plots revolving around other characters within the core group or the dynamics of the group itself.

Cast and characters

Main article: List of Community characters

The ensemble cast centers on Jeff, Britta, Troy, Abed, Pierce, Annie, and Shirley, members of a Spanish-class study group: Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi), a film student; Shirley Bennett (Yvette Nicole Brown), a recently divorced mother attending college for the first time; former high school quarterback Troy Barnes (Donald Glover); and straight-laced nerd Annie Edison (Alison Brie), who has had an unrequited crush on Troy since high school. Also recurring are unbalanced former Spanish instructor Señor Ben Chang (Ken Jeong), psychology professor Ian Duncan (John Oliver), whom Jeff once represented for a DUI, and the overwhelmed Dean Pelton (Jim Rash), who desperately wants his school to be more like a real university and goes to strenuous and excessive lengths to seem politically correct.

Episodes

Main article: List of Community episodes

The first season premiered on September 17, 2009 in the 9:30pm ET timeslot. After three episodes, the show was moved to the 8:00pm ET timeslot. In October 2009, it was announced that the show had been picked up for a full twenty-two episode season.[4] In January 2010, NBC ordered an additional three episodes for the first season, extending it to a total of 25 episodes.[5] On March 5, 2010, NBC announced that Community was renewed for a second season.[3]

Webisodes

In addition to the regular episodes, NBC produced a series of webisodes. The newest ones are focused on the daily life of Dean Pelton. Others include a Spanish project, study breaks, and Abed copying his friends' lives and turning them into student films. These webisodes are featured on the front page of the Greendale Community College website on the AV Department page.[6]

Production

Casting

Donald Glover, Danny Pudi, Gillian Jacobs, and Chevy Chase at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2010

Dan Harmon emphasized the importance of the cast to making the premise of the comedy work. "Casting was 95 percent of putting the show together," he said in an interview.[7] He had worked with several of the cast members earlier; Joel McHale, John Oliver, and Chevy Chase all had cameo roles in episode 9 of Water and Power, the short film series produced by Harmon for Channel 101.[8] Actor Chevy Chase had long been a favorite of Harmon. Though principally not very partial to sitcoms, Chase was persuaded to take the job by the quality of the show's writing.[7] Harmon saw similarities between Chase and the character he plays on the show. Though Chase has often been ridiculed for his career choices, Harmon believed this role could be redeeming: "What makes Chevy and Pierce heroic is this refusal to stop."[9] Harmon had to warn Chase against playing a "wise-ass" the way he often does in his roles, since the character of Pierce is a rather pathetic figure who is normally the butt of the joke himself.[9]

McHale, known from the E! comedy talk show The Soup, was also (like Chase) impressed by Harmon's writing. He commented that "Dan's script...was so head and shoulders above everything else that I was reading."[10] McHale appealed to Harmon because of his likeable quality, which allowed the character to possess certain unsympathetic traits without turning the viewer against him.[9] For the role of Annie, Harmon wanted someone who would resemble Tracy Flick, Reese Witherspoon's character from the 1999 movie Election. Originally the producers were looking for a Latina or Asian Tracy Flick, but could not find any. Instead they ended up casting Alison Brie, known from her role as Trudy Campbell on Mad Men.[9]

Dan Harmon

Development

The premise of Community was based on Harmon's real-life experiences. In an attempt to save his relationship with his then-girlfriend, he enrolled in Glendale Community College northeast of Los Angeles, where they would take Spanish together.[7] Harmon got involved in a study group and, somewhat against his own instincts, became closely connected to the group of people with whom he had very little in common. "...I was in this group with these knuckleheads and I started really liking them," he explains, "even though they had nothing to do with the film industry and I had nothing to gain from them and nothing to offer them."[9] With this as the background, Harmon wrote the show with a main character largely based on himself. He had, like Jeff, been self-centered and independent to the extreme before he realized the value of connecting with other people.[9]

About the creative process behind the writing, Harmon says that he had to write the show as if it were a movie, not a sitcom. Essentially, he says, the process was no different from the earlier work he had done, except for the length and the target demographic.[9]

Filming

Filming the show involved a lot of improvisation, particularly from Chevy Chase. About Chase, Harmon said that he "tends to come up with lines that you can actually end scenes with sometimes."[11] He also mentioned Joel McHale and Donald Glover, the actor who portrays Troy, as adept improvisers.[10]

Theme song

The theme song of Community is "At Least It Was Here" by The 88. Additionally, the song "Good Ol' Fashion Nightmare" by Matt & Kim is featured prominently in the pilot episode and in commercials.

Reception

The show's general reviews have been mostly positive, scoring a 69 out of 100 with critics on Metacritic and an 8.5/10 with viewers.[12] Notably, David Bushman (Curator, Television) of the Paley Center for Media called Community the best new show of the fall season.[13] Jonah Krakow of IGN gave the first season an 8.5 saying that "Community eventually ramped up and delivered some amazing stories in the second half of the season."[14] Emily Nussbaum of New York Magazine rated Community as the best show of 2010.[15]

Premiering in the 9:30pm ET spot on September 17, 2009, the pilot episode had a viewership of 7.680 million. In the 18–49 audience, it had a rating of 3.7. As such, it held 93% of this audience from The Office, which had been in the previous time slot. The show was called the "bright spot for the night" for NBC, seeing how The Office was down 18% from the previous year's premiere, while Parks and Recreation, in the preceding time slot, was down 30%.[16]

Awards and nominations

Ratings

Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of Community.

Note: Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps.
Season Episodes Timeslot (ET) Original airing Rank Viewers
(in millions)
Season premiere Season finale TV season
1st 25 Thursday 9:30 PM (September 17, 2009 – October 1, 2009)
Thursday 8:00 PM (October 8, 2009 – May 20, 2010) 		September 17, 2009 May 20, 2010 2009–10 #97 5.00[18]
2nd 24 Thursday 8:00 PM September 23, 2010 2010–11 — 480 (to date)

International broadcast

In Australia, season one of Community premiered on Go! on March 23, 2010, airing Tuesdays at 9:00 PM.[19] The series was moved to Mondays at 8:30 PM on June 7, 2010.[20] The second season started airing in Australia with a double episode on November 30, 2010 on Go! airing Tuesdays at 9:30 PM. In the United Kingdom, the show began airing on October 5, 2010 on Viva, airing two episodes on Tuesdays at 10:00 PM.[21] In Latin America, it is aired on Sony Entertainment Television. In Canada, the show airs concurrently with the American broadcast, both on Citytv and NBC.

DVD release

Name Region 1 Region 2 Region 4 Discs Extras
Season One September 21, 2010 TBA September 29, 2010 4 Commentary on every episode, Extended Cuts of the Pilot and Communication Studies, Outtakes, Season One Cast Evaluations, Season One Highlight Reel, "Creative Compromises" Featurette, Advanced Criminal Law Alternative Scenes, Three Mini Episodes.

Soundtrack

A soundtrack for the first season, titled Community (Music from the Original Television Series) was released on September 21, 2010[22] by Madison Gate Records.[23] The tracklist includes the main title theme, "At Least It Was Here" by The 88; original songs and incidental music composed for the show; and several songs were performed by the characters (a mix of original compositions and covers).

References

  1. ^ Ostroff, Mike (May 13, 2010). "Community never meta gag it didn't like". Eye Weekly. Retrieved November 12, 2010.
  2. ^ Matt Mitovich (June 25, 2009). "NBC ANNOUNCES FALL SERIES PREMIERE DATES". TV Guide Online. Retrieved June 25, 2009.
  3. ^ a b "NBC Gives Pickups To Thursday-Night Comedies '30 Rock,' 'The Office' and 'Community'". NBC. Retrieved March 5, 2010.
  4. ^ Flint, Joe (October 23, 2009). "NBC picks up `Community,' `Parks and Recreation' and 'Mercy' for season". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 31, 2009.
  5. ^ "NBC orders more 'Trauma,' 'Parks,' 'L&O,' more". The Hollywood Reporter. January 20, 2010. Retrieved January 20, 2010.
  6. ^ "AV Department". Retrieved December 28, 2009.
  7. ^ a b c "Fine writing spurs Chevy to move to 'Community'". Omaha World-Herald. September 22, 2009. Retrieved October 25, 2009.
  8. ^ "Water and Power Episode Nine at Channel101.com". Retrieved September 12, 2009.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g Hyden, Steven (September 19, 2009). "How Dan Harmon went from doing ComedySportz in Milwaukee to creating NBC's Community". The A.V. Club. Retrieved October 25, 2009.
  10. ^ a b Loggins, Emma (October 19, 2009). "Joel McHale & Dan Harmon of Community". Fanbolt. Retrieved October 25, 2009.
  11. ^ Elkin, Michael (October 1, 2009). "College Daze". The Jewish Exponent. Retrieved October 25, 2009.
  12. ^ "Community reviews at Metacritic.com". Metacritic. Retrieved February 16, 2010.
  13. ^ Bushman, David (October 13, 2009). "And the Best New Show of the Season Is..." Paley Center. Retrieved February 16, 2010.
  14. ^ Krakow, Jonah (May 27, 2010). "Community: Season 1 Review". IGN. Retrieved June 6, 2010.
  15. ^ Nussbaum, Emily (December 5, 2010). "The Year in TV". New York Magazine. Retrieved December 10, 2010.
  16. ^ Gorman, Bill (September 18, 2009). "TV Ratings Thursday: Strong: Bones; Weak: Parks, Office, Survivor; Good Start: Community". TV by the Numbers. Retrieved October 25, 2009.
  17. ^ Dawidziak, Mark (November 10, 2009). "Patricia Heaton's 'The Middle' and Russo brothers' 'Community' nab nominations". Cleveland.com. Retrieved December 4, 2009.
  18. ^ Gorman, Bill (June 16, 2010). "Final 2009-10 Broadcast Primetime Show Average Viewership". TV by the Numbers. Retrieved June 19, 2010.
  19. ^ Knox, David (8 March, 2010). "Airdate: Community, The Inbetweeners". TV Tonight. Retrieved 24 September, 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  20. ^ Knox, David (24 May, 2010). "Airdate: Eastwick. Bumped: Community". TV Tonight. Retrieved 24 September, 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  21. ^ "Community - VIVA". VIVA. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accesdate= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  22. ^ Community (Music from the Original Television Series) at Amazon.com
  23. ^ Community (Music from the Original Television Series) at the iTunes Store
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