Image: Dan Harmon attends the 2012 PaleyFest presentation of "Community" at Saban Theatre on March 3, 2012 in Beverly Hills, California.
Tuned In+Television | May 19, 2012

Community Without Dan Harmon? Suits Axe Auteur, and Fans Lose

By James Poniewozik

Harmon was one of a small but growing number of TV creators who are inseparable from their shows. He was also, admittedly, a royal headache of an employee. But by making the show without him, the studio and NBC may be punishing the audience most.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | April 20, 2012

The Morning After: In Dreamatoriums Begin Responsibilities

By James Poniewozik
Neil Jacobs/NBC

I loved last night’s Community, but I’m really posting here not to review it but to poll Tuned Inland as to what you thought of it. Community’s very-high-concept episodes (e.g., the various pop-culture parodies) tend to polarize viewers, as do the episodes that are lower on jokes and higher on character study (e.g., “Mixology Certification”). [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | March 15, 2012

TV Tonight: Community-mentum?

By James Poniewozik
Lewis Jacobs/NBC

I’m not going to tell you to watch Community tonight. Don’t take that to mean I don’t love the show. Instead, let me just give the Community fans a couple of pieces of encouraging news, for once.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | February 21, 2012

Human Beings Rejoice! Community Returns to NBC March 15

By James Poniewozik
NBC

When NBC pulled Community from its schedule in December, saying it would bring the show back in midseason, fans began to spin all sorts of dark predictions as to what would happen to the show. Well, if you bet on “NBC will bring it back in midseason, just like it said,” get ready to collect: [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | December 2, 2011

The Morning After: Light the Foos

By James Poniewozik
Lewis Jacobs/NBC

“Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism” would not make my all-time list of Community episodes, yet it’s the kind of episode I hope the show makes more of if it sticks around.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | November 15, 2011

Intermediate Suspended Animation: NBC’s Midseason Slate Puts Community on Hold

By James Poniewozik
Lewis Jacobs/NBC

NBC says the inventive comedy will be coming back before long. And TV, after all, is a business. But this is still the opposite of Batman.

+Review Music | November 14, 2011

Music Monday: Childish Gambino's Camp

By Claire Suddath
Childish Gambino

Though Donald Glover is most famous for his role as Troy on NBC’s Community, his hip-hop album under the moniker Childish Gambino is not a vanity project.

+Television | October 18, 2011

A Behind The Scenes Look At One of Community’s Best Episodes

By Gilbert Cruz

On his blog, creator Dan Harmon reveals the mysterious creative process behind the writing of “Remedial Chaos Theory.” The secret: whiteboards.

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | October 13, 2011

TV Tonight: Community Rolls the Die

By James Poniewozik
NBC

Community has always been a deeply but not broadly loved sitcom, and its fans may be justifiably nervous about its future given the season’s ratings so far. (The show gave a meta-nod to these worries a few episodes ago, with Abed’s anxiety over the prospects of Cougar Town: “Six seasons and a movie!”) Well, if [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Tuned In | September 23, 2011

The Morning After: Cummings and Returnings

By James Poniewozik
NBC

You know the drill: too many season debuts, not enough time. Here’s your space to offer your morning-after critiques of the various premieres, returns and other TV shows of Thursday night, including: * the season premieres of Community (haven’t yet watched) and Parks and Recreation (solid, but what did you think?) * the CBS debuts, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | July 25, 2011

Comic-Con Roundup: The Final Not-Final Answers to Lost

By James Poniewozik

As Comic-Con wraps up in San Diego (at which point, I believe, people start getting on line for the panels at next year’s Comic-Con in San Diego), a few more items of TV news: * Entering the panel discussion wearing a stormtrooper outfit and a Dharma jumpsuit respectively, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof kicked off [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Television | July 14, 2011

Emmy Nominations 2011: The Good, the Bad and the Surprises

By James Poniewozik

The Emmy Awards are a big ocean liner that turns very slowly, and this year’s nominations, announced this morning, were no exception: a lot of familiar faces and a few new (or old but underrecognized) entries. So there were a slew of nominations for Mad Men, Modern Family and [Insert Name of HBO's Big Movie/Miniseries [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | May 13, 2011

Community Watch: You're Already Accepted

By James Poniewozik

“For a Few Paintballs More,” the conclusion to Community‘s epic two-part finale/sequel to its vaunted first-season paintball extravaganza, wasn’t quite the tour de force of last week’s “A Fistful of Paintballs”; but since I was on the road and couldn’t weigh in on that one, this is a good time to give credit where due, [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+March 17, 2011

NBC Renewals: Community (Yay!), Parks and Rec (Yay!), The Office (Duh!)

By James Poniewozik

NBC spared a lot of fans a lot of nailbiting this afternoon and announced that it is bringing back Community, Parks and Recreation and The Office for another season. 30 Rock was already renewed as of last fall. As for the other Thursday comedies: there is a very, very low ratings bar at NBC right [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | February 11, 2011

Community Watch: Pierce's Progress

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s Community follow: Consider this not so much a review of last night’s Community as a decision to defer judgment. As for the chief running storylines, they were… fine. For the first time in a while, Britta carried a strong comic story, with her comedy-of-PC-errors “lesbian” date at the Valentine’s dance. Troy [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | February 4, 2011

Community Watch: Character Alignment

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s Community coming up: You knew that “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” was going to be a special episode of Community, because it was structurally different (as many of its best episodes are), because it had a stripped-down (and thus budget-saving) setting and because, well, most of the episode involved a single game [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+February 3, 2011

TV Tonight: Community Rolls the Dice with D&D Episode

By James Poniewozik

Throughout its second season, Community has weekly redefined what its half-hour comedy can look like: there was a Christmas stop-motion episode, an Apollo 13 parody, a study-group mystery involving a stolen pencil and an honest-to-God zombie episode. Tonight, the show plays—literally—with its structure again by constructing an entire episode around a game of Dungeons & [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | January 28, 2011

The Morning After: Stop… Pooping!

By James Poniewozik

So here’s the deal: Now that Parks and Recreation is back and Archer has returned, on Thursday night we have several sitcoms that are capable of delivering a killer episode. Last season I tried for a while doing a picture gallery of Thursday comedies with paragraph reviews, but I felt I managed to hit everything [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | January 14, 2011

TCA Roundup: Headless Peacock in Hotel Bar

By James Poniewozik

Another round of headlines from the Television Critics’ Association winter press tour, which is winding down at the lovely Langham Hotel in Pasadena, and it was NBC’s turn to face the critics and reporters… * …except no executives were on hand to do so. NBC has a new team coming in to run the network [...]

Tuned In
Tuned In+Uncategorized | December 10, 2010

Community Watch: Snow Fortress of Solitude

By James Poniewozik

There’s a delightful little detail in “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas,” last night’s stop-motion holiday episode of Community, that fascinated me. When characters “appear” and “disappear” from the Planet Abed fantasy world, they open a little curtain in the fabric of the fantasy, through which you can see—the study room, which they other characters, playing along with [...]