Hot Take: What If Community Isn't Actually All That Popular?
It is one of the most dubious shows in TV history.
The late 2000s and early 2010s marked a golden age for sitcoms. Many new comedy shows emerged during this era – Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory, Cougar Town, Hot in Cleveland, to name a few. The first two became huge hits for their respective networks, while the latter two are today mostly remembered only by devout fans.
Where does NBC's Community fit into this spectrum, you might ask? Well, that's a difficult question.
Community premiered in 2009 and ran for six seasons until 2015. Over its six-year tenure, the sitcom amassed a substantial following, leading many viewers to classify it as a cult show. However, it would appear that Community isn't as universally loved outside its fanbase.
Boring and Not Funny
In reality, Community's viewership is constrained by the show's unique sense of humour, which is satirical and surreal. As a result, many people perceive the show's jokes as flat and the plot as tedious.
In other words, numerous viewers don't find Community amusing in the slightest. On the contrary, the show's far-fetched absurdity is often seen as tiresome and irritating. Meanwhile, the sitcom's humour is reduced to a circus-like spectacle of jesters and fools engaging in nonsensical antics.
To add insult to injury, Community doesn't really feature many jokes, not even simple puns or dad jokes and thus, there's precious little that the rather bland and nonsensical plot can hide behind.
Divided Community
On the other hand, the show retains a cult status among its devout fans, who regard it as a television masterpiece, which often alienates them from their friends and family, who see the show as silly and mediocre.
'I love the show, but my friends, who mostly like and watch the big mainstream shows and movies (nothing wrong with that btw), hated Community. They didn’t find it at all funny and thought it was a terrible show,' a Redditor complained.
Community is certainly unconventional, which inevitably makes it niche by definition. You either get it, or you don't. If it came out in 2023, it would probably be an epic fail and would end up getting cancelled mid-season. After all, we've got much better sitcoms to choose from these days, such as Ghosts, for example (especially the original BBC version).
Source: Reddit.