"Community" on NBC HD - Page 35

I thought tonight's episode was eerily appropriate given the NBC scheduling news, with the stuff about the Dean not thinking Greendale was good enough for him.

Damn you, NBC.

It's hilarious that this is the episode that ran after Community was pulled from NBC. Imagine anyone tuning in last night to see what it was they were missing. Probably the most unapproachable episode of Community ever, and I loved it. It's not one I feel compelled to watch again, though. I loved Jeff as Dean and I loved Britta's line, "I don't know why this is the last straw, but it is..."

oh IDK

let me give you a little rundown on this episodes great elements...

Great Elements
1. Luis Guzman is in it
2.
3.

When he first noticed the statue, then he tried to stand in the same pose...

Well, they have to pull Community to make room for the "Munsters" remake! And we all know how well these remakes do, right?... Charlie's Angels, Knight Rider, Night Stalker, Bionic Woman, Dragnet, The Ponderosa (Bonanza), etal.

I hate NBC! I swore I would never get involved in another NBC show after Journeyman but I let Community grab me, now NBC is screwing another great thing up. NBC has plenty of stupid shows they could eliminate, like Whitney, so why mess with the good one.

Whitney is more in-line with what the masses want. But yeah, I'm done investing time into NBC outside of The Voice and Sunday Night Football. I'll catch Parks and Rec and 30 Rock on Hulu or Netflix, where I also watch SNL.

Look behind Allison at the end.

My son is in his fifth year of community college.

Anything that lets him postpone growing up and continue playing Warcraft!

The thing that is really weird is that Community looks at first glance like a super simple formulaic half hour comedy. There has to be a ton of people who have tried to watch it, the way little kids are attracted to the bright colors and sounds of cartoons. I imagine the vast majority of those people walk away wondering what the hell that was all about!

That's just amazing, the planning and foresight that has to go into a gag like that. Just to work, that writer has to be on the show for the whole three years, and they have to make sure Beetlejuice wasn't said somewhere else in the show a stray time or two!

Not to mention the fact that they were able to write "Beetlejuice" into the script seemlessly, three times!

I only watched the first 5 mins, but I already love it. The callback to one of my favorite moments from the Halloween episode killed me (the song Troy is humming). Annie's Bale impression was awesome. Troy crying makes any episode great.

Haha, I paused at the end of Leonard's youtube video, and this is the message that briefly pops up on the screen:

Loved the episode. All of it. Loved the human foosball. Really gonna be sad to see this go on hiatus.

I thought the German Foosball players were funny.

"We're gonna kick das butt."
"Enough Teutonic punnery!"

Re: Chevy chase - I get the impression that they actually write around him. On the day I attended a taping, he was the only cast member not there. His lines were read by a stand-in, and they'd shoot his close-ups and dialogue another time. Since then, I've noticed a few episodes where Pierce doesn't share the screen with any other main characters (troys bday where pierce gets stuck in the entryway for the entire episode and the recent episode where Annie moves in with abed and Troy come to mind)
Not sure if there's anything to it...

You mentioned this last year, which made me start looking for it, and you're right. A lot of his scenes are often shot with him as a single. It's kind of distracting when you're looking for it, which I now can't stop doing. I blame you.

I think Troy and Ron (from Parks and Rec) are my two favorite characters on TV now. So much Troy crying in this episode. It was too great. I loved the line delivery when he told Annie that her moving in was supposed to stop this sort of thing from happening.

"deutsche-bags"

Abed roughing up the landlord as Troy and Annie climb through the window:

Annie: STOP IT!
Troy: SKIN HIM!...I mean stop it.

TV Notes
Hulu, Sony strike 'Community' syndie deal
Hulu Plus 'exclusive digital syndication' for NBC series
By Andrew Wallenstein, Variety - December 2nd, 2011

Hulu has struck a deal with Sony Pictures Television to bring all three seasons of "Community" exclusively to its subscription service.

Pact will make Hulu Plus the home for next-day access to current episodes from the third season effective immediately, as well as home to both previous seasons. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The deal is a surprise development for the struggling NBC comedy, which recently had its place on the primetime schedule dropped for the midseason.

The five most recently aired episodes of "Community" have already been available on the free Hulu site prior to the deal along with most other primetime NBC series. The sitcom has always been popular on the service, where comedies like "Family Guy" have long been the biggest audience driver.

The "Community" sale represents the continuing growth of subscription VOD as a whole new arena in the syndication marketplace, where competitors including Hulu Plus, Netflix and Amazon Prime are ready to spend for exclusive right as a means of differentiating businesses largely awash in commoditized content.

This isn't Hulu Plus' first digital syndication deal. The service paid Debmar-Mercury for exclusive rights to the entire run of the Fox series "Hell's Kitchen" in June.

A notable difference with this deal is that while "Kitchen" had limited syndication value as an unscripted production, "Community" is in the scripted half-hour mold that can fetch big bucks from local stations or cable networks in the traditional aftermarket, where Sony still has freedom to sell the series.

However, the ratings struggles "Community" has experienced since its inception would likely make its conventional syndication sale a challenge. An infusion of dollars now may help Sony shoulder the cost of the show.

Hulu could end up a promotional platform for the series, where viewers who missed out on earlier episodes could catch up on what they missed and be incentivized to take in new episodes on NBC.

Netflix has landed its share of digital syndication exclusives including AMC series "Mad Men" and "The Walking Dead." Hulu has also looked overseas for exclusive TV rights, snapping up British series in June including "Misfits," "Whites" and "The Booth at the End."

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118046938

Congrats to Jim Rash (aka Dean Pelton) for co-writing the script for The Descendants which just won the National Board of Review's best film award.

I also enjoyed the episode, but was disappointed in one aspect: the show is groundbreaking in how original it is, but the anime sequence for the foosball was a total ripoff of the sytle used in The Hard Times of RJ Berger.

In RJ Berger, most eps had this style of anime/animation, used to show things happening between actual people in the show, but only in an exaggerated fashion (or to show something they couldn't/wouldn't show with real people).

Otherwise, I join with others in being saddened that the show is going on hiatus. Recall that I was proposing last off season that NBC move Community to another night so it wouldn't compete with Big Bang Theory. Still hoping they come to their senses and do it. Thursday at 8pm is just too much to compete with (even though, IMHO, Community >>>>>>>>> BBT, even when BBT has a rare good ep these days).

Sorry!!!!

That's funny, because the first thing I thought of was Thundercats. Snarf!

I thought it was very Scott Pilgrim