With Community (and Britta’s glasses) returning tomorrow, it feels like everyone involved with the show — short of Annie’s Boobs, busy drowning her sorrow with banana schnapps after the cancellation of Animal Practice — has either been on a talk show, will be on a talk show, or given an in-depth interview this week, doing their best to brainwash (but the good kind of brainwashing) Big Bang Theory fans into giving Pierce a chance. One of the more interesting chats comes from Splitsider’s Bradford Evans, who spoke to ex-showrunner/creator Dan Harmon on what he would have done this season and if he plans on watching the series when it returns.
Are you gonna watch Community at all when it comes back?
Not immediately. I think that the best thing I can do is nothing at all, so that nothing I say or do can be interpreted as anything. Obviously, I’m very, very close to the show, therefore, my opinion of it now that I’m not working on it is #1 gonna be the most charged, #2 probably the least-representative of the average fan. I am the guy whose job it was to go into that office every day and – no matter how good the show was – say “I don’t think it’s good enough.” That’s arguably why I got fired and arguably why if the show is good enough and everyone’s happy with it, you don’t want to hear my dumb ass piping up about it. That could ruin everyone’s experience. So, I’m gonna wait a long time until the dust settles, until my opinion doesn’t matter so much anymore. (Via)
That’s a good call by Harmon, who has nothing to game by sharing his feelings about the direction his show’s going in without him. In that same interview, he also reveals that after his prank phone call with Jason Sudeikis, Chevy Chase called him back…and pitched him an idea for a new TV show. GOD, can you two just f*ck already? In less mentally scarring news, Alan Sepinwall chatted with Community‘s new showrunners, Moses Port and David Guarascio, and they feel very confident about NBC picking up the series for season five.
So you have plans in mind for a fifth season if a fifth season happens?
David Guarascio: We have – yes, we are ready to approach a fifth season if it should come. The finale is not something that should suggest that the show is over. Even though, if God forbid, the worst thing happens, we feel like we have a finale would be a great way to go out.
And being in this vacuum all this time, are you more confident now, less confident, the same in terms of whether it continues?
David Guarascio: More confident. I would make the bet now that there is a season five.
Moses Port: And I would make the bet with him.
Okay.
David Guarascio: And I would take it from two angles. One is I think the show holds up as being, this is still Community and it’s still a funny and neat show with great characters and we’re telling interesting stories. And I think there will continue to be an audience for it. Two, frankly the bar for how much of an audience you need seems to get slightly lower every year, which helps returning shows in particular. And the network is losing two shows next year. They’re losing The Office and they’re losing 30 Rock, so just from a business standpoint, and no one’s paying us to think about it this way, but I just think they’re going to want something that has some familiarity to it. Because with development, you’ve got 15 hits on your hand in January and then in May you have a couple and then in October you have one or zero. And something that has been on the air, that has an audience and has a loyal following, you’re going to want in your corner. And I think this show can do that. (Via)
Lastly, an uncomfortable looking Joel McHale was on Howard Stern’s radio show this morning, where he discussed the N-word incident and Chevy Chase wanting to physically fight him.
Is it October 19th, yet?