The Return of Community

Community has finally been released back on the world. Starting March 15 Community will return to NBC on Thursdays at 8 PM, pushing 30 Rock to 8:30 PM and taking Parks and Recreation off the schedule until Up All Night runs out of episodes. In doing so, NBC continues it's run of not having their 4 best shows on the same for a little bit longer. For whatever reason NBC just can't seem to let Community, 30 Rock, Parks and Rec and The Office on one night at the same time. Instead they throw out garbage like Whitney and Up All night - perhaps praying that people will fall asleep while The Office is on and thus be physically unable to change the channel when Up All Night arrives.

The bigger issue, however, is the return of Community - the great internet equalizer. Community gets some of the worst ratings a show can get in a primetime slot without cancellation. It's quirky brand of humor takes a certain type of fan, I suppose. Yet, the internet seemingly blew up early this afternoon when the creator of Community tweeted that the show was coming back. While the ratings scream "Who Cares?," Twitter seems to care way too much. Thus the juxtaposition - a show with no chance of surviving past season 4 (currently on 3), but a fanbase that will surely turn homicidal then suicidal when it inevitably gets cancelled. The math is all screwed up here - it must be that everyone who watches the show is a voracious internet voice for the internet, which has a much bigger audience than TV, to blow up when TV land doesn't care seems odd. Until you realize that everyone who does watch the show -- and its inability to have an episode that not so subtly references an entire movie per episode arc -- are exactly the type of people who stand in line for Star Wars 3D and spend several hours per day trolling message boards and creating Community memes like this.

Twitter feeds burst to life for 15 minutes with this seemingly joyous news, but in 12 weeks when the shows run is over and the cancellation rumors creep up, that's when Twitter will surely implode. All 1.2 million viewers of Community will strike hard and fast complaining till they get what they want. They've done it before, they somehow made this man a rap star.