We are currently in the middle of a television renaissance period.
For a long time, the small screen was seen as a source of low budget, inferior entertainment.
Now with most homes equipped with giant big-screen high definition televisions, the “small screen” is being populated with more and more high quality entertainment.
Networks like AMC, IFC and FX have begun to show high quality dramas with incredible attention to detail and production quality.
Shows like Mad Men and Game of Thrones prove that sometimes television can be strange and unique and people will still respond positively.
However it seems that major primetime networks, especially NBC, still don’t trust their audience and they are suffering for it.
Most recently, NBC chose to fire the creator and showrunner of “Community,” just as news broke that the cult series would be getting a fourth season.
This choice is bewildering and ridiculous.
Dan Harmon created the show, and his unique singular vision was what made the show such a cult success in the first place.
One of the main reasons the show is still even on is because of the strong online petitions by rabid fans that begged NBC to keep the show on the air.
Fans of “Community” weren’t into the show because of the actors.
The cast is great and the show wouldn’t be the same without them, but it’s the writing and off-the-wall ideas from Dan Harmon and his writing staff that makes the show so unique. He refused to dumb things down for the people who weren’t on board with the joke.
“Arrested Development” was another cult series that has a rabid fanbase, and they have recently announced that they will be doing another season and a movie.
Those fans probably wouldn’t be as interested if the show came back with a completely different writer. It just simply wouldn’t be the same show.
“Community” without Dan Harmon is going to be a shell of what it once was.
Every episode will seem like someone else is trying to imitate what Dan Harmon built. It won’t have the same edge or weird charm that it used to have.
When will mainstream networks start thinking about television like AMC and FX do?
If you allow a series to get creative and reward it for being different instead of asking it to be the same as everything else, the audience will eventually follow.
When fans begged for another season of Community it was because they loved it the way it was.
They didn’t want them to bring it back just so they could fire people and change it around.
Hopefully someday NBC will realize that there is a market for smart and creative television shows. If they would just have faith in their audience, maybe more people would be willing to watch.
Matt Grippi is a senior journalism major and the diversions editor for the Daily 49er.