This is a plea to everyone who doesn’t have plans at 8 p.m. on Thursday night. Tune in to NBC and watch the return of the sitcom “Community.”
For those who already love the show, you know “Community” left the airwaves last December on an indefinite hiatus due to its poor Nielson ratings. Others may have heard the rants from fans like me, calling out to NBC to bring the show back.
For those who haven’t seen the show, “Community” is a sitcom about a group of oddball characters who become friends after meeting in a community college study group.
The show stars Joel McHale from “The Soup” as an exiled lawyer who becomes the leader of the group. Comedy legend Chevy Chase also appears on the show as a subtly racist and sexist moist towelette tycoon.
The show also stars upcoming stars Donald Glover, Danny Pudi and Alison Brie. Not to mention “Community” has its own Oscar winner Jim Rash-who won for Best Adapted Screenplay for “The Descendents”-as the ambiguously gay dean of Greendale Community College.
In addition to having a talented cast, “Community” has a brilliant writing staff that has written some of the funniest episodes in television history. Headed by creator Dan Harmon, the show has taken risks throughout its run that have paid off to loyal fans.
The show is grounded in reality, but also breaks a wall every episode escalating into parodies of classic film and television tropes with the characters in the middle of it.
“Community” has touched on parodies of war films, gangster films and musicals. The show has also played into Internet culture. That demographic has slowly become the sitcom’s biggest supporter through fan-made meme’s and viral videos.
However, even with a rabid fan base, the fate of the show’s fourth season is still up in the air and that has a lot to do with the show’s timeslot.
“Community” goes up against juggernauts like “The Big Bang Theory” and “American Idol” which are hard to snatch viewers away from. Even Tina Fey’s “30 Rock” didn’t fair well when it took over “Community’s” timeslot during the hiatus.
Another reason “Community” is in jeopardy is due to the way the Nielson ratings are setup. There are only a few of thousand families with Nielson boxes in their homes. They’re the ones deciding what America is watching by tuning to certain shows on their television.
When a show’s popularity thrives on people watching it on websites like Hulu, there is an entire demographic left out when calculating the Nielson ratings.
Whatever the show’s fate may be, don’t miss out when it returns this Thursday at 8 p.m. Being a college-themed show, “Community” reflects a lot of what we see on our campus everyday. Lose yourself in “Community” before we lose it forever.
Chase Doerr is a senior journalism major and assistant opinions editor for the Daily 49er.
