This ‘Community’ Episode’s Opening Was a Big Middle Finger to NBC

The big picture

• community
  they've faced challenges behind the scenes, including showrunner changes and clashes with network expectations.
• NBC wanted the show to be more mainstream and broad in appeal, causing conflict with the cast and crew.
• The episode “Biology 101” contained a meta-musical number that poked fun at NBC's desire for normality, reflecting the series' tumultuous relationship with the network.

By now, it's no secret to everyone and their moms that the beloved, crazy, extremely meta sitcom community, which ran at NBC from 2009 to 2015 and then at the defunct Yahoo! The 2015 display had its fair share of problems behind the scenes. The showrunners were fired, some actors (cough, cough, Chevy Chase) were a nightmare to work with, and the Dan Harmon-created series was often on the brink of cancellation. After all, it wasn't bringing in the numbers the network was hoping for with its quirky brand of humor, and even critics sometimes went on about how the show was too weird for its own good. However, this strangeness was what devoted fans community expected and is still part of what makes the show such a household name to this day. Maybe he was too ahead of his time? May be. But that doesn't change the fact that, before community it worked, requests abounded for it to be more normal.

These requests used to come along the lines of “the show needs to broaden its appeal.” Paintball episodes that parodied spaghetti westerns, entire stories set on D&D tables, plots that had one of the main characters turned into a Jesus-like figure for cinematic sake, and pillow forts that became full-fledged war zones didn't they were cutting it for NBC. And finally, showrunner Dan Harmon got the boot in an attempt to make the show more palatable to a wider audience, and then of course they brought it back. However, the cast and crew behind the show fought hard to keep the operation running with all its weirdness intact and even took jabs at the most successful competitors and NBC itself. The most prominent of these hits appears in an episode of the third season entitled “Biology 101”. And it comes in the form of song and dance.

The first episode of season 3 of community, “Biology 101,” begins with Pierce (Chase) returning to the study group after leaving it in Season 2. However, with the entire group enrolled in an introductory Biology class that has just completely run out of seats, Jeff (Joel McHale) sees an opportunity to put him out once more. Karma is a dog, though, and soon Jeff is kicked out by Professor Kane (Michael Kenneth Williams) to let your phone ring during class. With no excuse to be part of the group since he no longer goes to class with them, Jeff finds it hard to keep up with his friends, which drives him crazy to the point of destroying the study group table with an ax Brightness– style By the end of the episode, of course, things will be fixed as Professor Kane allows Jeff to return to his class, also giving him a ticket back to the study group.

Alongside the episode's main story, we have the Dean (Jim Rash) enter and lose a power struggle with Vice Dean Laybourne (John Goodman) of the attached air conditioning repair school, and an unemployed Chang (Ken Jeong) that live inside the Greendale air vents. Oh, and let's not forget Abed (Danny Pudi) losing his mind over his beloved's schedule change Cougar Town and finally presented by Britta (Gillian Jacobs) a Inspector Spacetimea Doctor Who parody that would eventually become one of the staples of the show.

Although “Biology 101” is a pretty tame episode by comparison community, is both very wild and very on-brand for the series. And, from the get-go, it's pretty clear that fans are about to get the ride of a lifetime—not just the episode, that is, but the entire season. After all, given the show's history, when the Dean arrives promising a year without “national lampooning” (probably a reference to Chase's fake departure) and claiming that everything will be as normal as it can be in the coming years, we know for a fact that nothing will be even remotely normal. The fact that the dean spends the entire episode trying to get rid of a monkey that supposedly lives in the ventilation ducts next to Chang is just more proof that there's no stopping communitythe monkey business

But the real gift of season 3 of community will be as wild as it gets, ending with developments such as Chang becoming a Napoleon-like figure with absolute power over Greendale, is in the song the show's main cast sings right at the beginning of the episode, before the normality of the dean. – Promising presentation. Titled “Finally We'll Be Alright!”, apparently glee-The inspired musical number takes place in Jeff's mind and serves as a representation of everything he wants for his next year in Greendale: more joy, less weirdness, and more sleeping with Annie. However, the song isn't just about Jeff's innermost desires: it's also a big middle finger to NBC executives who want it community it was more common and appealing to a wider audience.

Lyrics like “we'll hold hands in a brand new land, far from the border” and “we'll look like a widespread dream and appeal to all mankind” make it pretty clear what Jeff's dream really is. about The song promises a show that won't be canceled like it has been in previous years, as well as a show that will gain a bigger audience. Meanwhile, “we're going to have more fun and be less weird than the first two years together” is a direct reference to the kind of humor the show employed in its previous two seasons. And how, exactly, will the Greendale Seven do it? Well, they will be more normal and smile all the time! Most likely, they will also continue to dress in colorful costumes more commonly associated with traditional sitcoms.

The connection between the song and the higher-ups at NBC is made by Dan Harmon himself on the DVD commentary track of community Season 2, in which claims that network executives asked for Season 3 to be “more normal.” However, it's really not that hard to see where the song comes from or understand its references, provided of course you know about them communitythe difficult story of NBC.

'Community' and NBC had a bit of a rocky relationship

In an interview about his eventual firing during the 2012 season, Harmon described community as “a kind of show reviled by everyone who pays for it.” And, when we look at the history of the series, this disdain for these kinds of shows. As far as we, the audience members know, things went well for seasons 1 and 2. However, when Season 3 dropped, NBC dropped her from their midseason lineup without much explanation, bringing it back after a four-month hiatus. If Harmon had toned down the weirdness, NBC had definitely noticed and wasn't going to be teased without an answer. There was talk of cancellation, and when the series finally returned for Season 4, it was for 13 episodes instead of 22.

In Season 4, showrunner Dan Harmon completely lost control of his ship. While NBC told fans he would still have a say in what happened on the series, he took to Tumblr to say that wasn't the case. At the time, many assumed the firing had to do with broadening the show's appeal, but when Harmon returned for Season 5, The Hollywood Reporter did the aforementioned interview in which he explained that the showrunner had more than a little trouble with the deadlines set by the network and the show's producer, Sony Studios. Later still, it was revealed that Harmon had sexually harassed one of the show's writers.

Season 4 of community he was reviled by critics and fans alike. And while some of the love returned in Season 5, the series was never the same. It was canceled by NBC after its fifth series and was picked up by Yahoo! for a sixth and final season. Now, after six years of repeating the slogan “Six seasons and a movie,” a movie is finally coming out. The only question that remains is how much weirdness we can expect from it. Let's hope it's not too normal…

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