Sometimes when you’re in a relationship you need to make compromises on what shows you watch, and sometimes you want to watch certain shows together as a couple. Sometimes one person wants to watch a show but never has time to, and other times one person might not like a show. Relationships can be tricky when it comes to entertainment, sometimes, and it’s nice to have full reign of the visual and aural decisions.
So I’ve caught up with Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and I’m working on catching up with Dexter. These are all shows I really like, and, though I don’t have too much time to watch all of them, when I’m eating dinner or on a weekend, I get to enjoy a couple episodes of something. My favorite is still Breaking Bad.
And speaking of video entertainment, my personal Australian, Liam, has uploaded another episode of ENDERCRAFT: LEGEND OF THE DARGON. It’s episode 3, entitled, “What are Australians?” These are getting better and better if I do say so, myself.
So, now that that’s out of the way, time to rant about Community just a bit.
I know I don’t talk about Community, much. I don’t recall if I’ve ever made a comic about it. If you are intimately familiar with the show you might know that it’s one of the most meticulously scripted, plotted, and planned artworks ever made for television. If you are only somewhat familiar with it you might think it’s a show about Community College. A few months ago, Dan Harmon, the show’s creator, showrunner, and person whose experience the show was based on, was fired by Sony for being one heck of a hard guy to bend. He wouldn’t sacrifice his vision for the funders’ “recommendations” and so he was let go and replaced by two guys who are best known for their work on You, Me, and Dupree.
I don’t mean to be a Negative Nelly about this whole situation, but removing the creative lead who literally was in the middle of telling a story based on their own life is like me handing over Allan to someone named Biff and telling him to write it like he’s me. So the story hits a little close to home, because I can relate to the passion that is telling your story your way; Dan is fast becoming one of my heroes and I hope his next project can live up to the majesty that was Community, seasons 1 through 3.
The show has finished producing a number of episodes of its fourth season, and its scheduled premiere date was October 19th. NBC liked their Thursday night lineup at the time, however, and decided to push back Community’s air to a later date. The new showrunners produced a short which you can view here to “explain” why the show was delayed. I had been holding out judgement, knowing that the show would essentially be a fan fiction of what Community was, but the work in this “snippet” has already left me abashed. The new showrunners do not understand what Community is, nor will they.
The difference between “being meta” and “breaking the 4th wall” is a subtle one, but it was one that made the show exactly what it was; knowing when to call attention to itself without having to say, “Hey, I’m calling attention to the show!”
Another foul egg about this video is that the decision to make this video was the new showrunners’. Simultaneously, the entire cast was told to tweet about this video, thanking the fans for their dedication and calling us “The Best Fans in the World!” While I can appreciate the cast’s thanks for our dedication, I will remind you, this was the showrunners’ baby. The new guys. The guys who don’t know the fans from Adam and who only have been told, “They are the greatest fans because there are a lot of them, and they are online.”
It doesn’t bode well. I want it to bode well. I sooooo want it to bode well. But it doesn’t. Not for me.
Anyway, I had my first day of the new job on Friday. I’m going to get back into making little strips about life, soon, and not just notes about how to get better. This is the 10th, that might be a good place to stop. We’ll see, though.
Wanna buy a book? I’ve got about 50 left.
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