IT isn't but they don't care.

While I agree, I think it's kind of funny coming from you. Aren't you one of those who has griped about how they make you watch commercials on Hulu? If it doesn't make them any money, they don't care. Simple as that.

Why funny. It was a statement of fact that had nothing to do with my views on Hulu.

That's FX brother.

The laugh track is bearable if the show is actually funny like Seinfeld was.

GO AWAY! - 'BAITIN'

duh

Community got renewed for the 4th season

Looks like 13 episodes for Community and 13 for 30 Rock next season. Haven't seen anything on Parks.

Community was my favorite of these shows and I wasn't really expecting that many episodes to wrap it up.

Mindy Kaling and BJ Novak are working on a new show called "It's Messy," (about a young female Doctor) and as you mentioned Paul Leberstien is leaving to write and work on Dwight's new show. So that's at least 5. (6 if you count Carrell who is already gone). Wouldn't surprise me if Jon K & Jenna Fischer didn't renew their contracts.

Not all programming can be tailored towards sophisticates like yourself.

John Kransisky and Ed Helms are currently in negotiations on new contracts. And BJ Novak, as far as I can tell, will be back. He's not leaving for Mindy's new show. Maybe I'm wrong on that. But everything I've seen online indicates that BJ will be back.

Oh really? I just thought since this was about NBC, it should stay in that realm and not deviate. Thanks for the heads up though.

Enjoy 2 1\2 men. *shrug*

lol

that is the height of comedy, to suggest that anyone would... enjoy... two and a hal-*is crushed by nielsen ratings*

The Office, Parks & Rec and Up All Night have all been officially renewed. The article doesn't mention if this will be P&R's final season or not, but it does confirm a shortened season.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/05/11/nb...ks-recreation/

NBC renews 'The Office,' 'Parks & Recreation,' more
by James Hibberd

Three more NBC comedies are returning next season: The Office, Parks & Recreation and Up All Night have all been renewed.

The Office has endured serious downsizing this season. Despite continuing to rank as NBC’s top-rated scripted show, its ratings have dropped precariously and longtime showrunner Paul Lieberstein is exiting to focus on the show’s planned spinoff. Co-star James Spader is leaving at the end of the season, and Mindy Kaling is exiting to focus on her new Fox comedy, which received a series order last night.

Still, regulars Jenna Fischer, John Krasinski and Ed Helms are all expected to return, having reached new deals with the network. The Office remains NBC’s tentpole comedy on Thursday nights (averaging 6.4 million viewers and a 3.4 adult demo rating) and any spinoff will be easier to launch while fans of the flagship are still tuning into the network.

Parks & Recreation (averaging 4.4 million viewers and a 2.2 rating) is really modestly rated, but has passionate fans and plenty of critical praise. NBC figures it’s worth at least another half season to maintain some schedule consistency. Parks, like Community and 30 Rock, have shortened 13-episode orders.

Well this entire thread was much ado about nothing.......

What the **** is up all night? Last show that used that title I believe was usa with gilbert godfried and rhonda.

Up All Night is a sitcom created by Emily Spivey and produced by Lorne Michaels. It stars Christina Applegate, Will Arnett and Maya Rudolph.

It's about a couple with a new baby. I think it's a pretty good show. Nothing groundbreaking. But it's funny and I feel like I know the characters. Well written.

Parks and rec got a full season

http://www.eonline.com/news/watch_with_kristin/parks_rec_renewed_fifth_season_what/315481?cmpid=rss-000000-rssfeed-365-topstories&utm_source=eonline&utm_medium=rssfeeds&utm_campaign=rss_topstories

NBC really went down the hill after the ending of both "Friends and Seinfeld." As well as "Fraiser."

I read that they wrote last night's episode of Parks and Rec as if it were a series finale. (Not a season finale, which it was) You could tell. It was pretty great.

Community was great too. (Continues to be the most underrated show I make a point to watch.) They've got 3 episodes left, I think.

It was.really that Leno primetime 5 nights a week thing that did them in. They are still struggling to recover from that and develop quality shows. They were nails in the 80s and 90s.
Posted via Mobile Device

Celebrity Apprentice >

a poke in the eye

I'd rather watch P&R or Community than any of those three, and it's not close.

(Not a 30 Rock fan)

Blasphemy!

Seinfeld.

Best.
Show.
Ever.


Edit: and its not close :)

Awesome.

Gay

I actually liked the original Apprentice without the B list stars. Unfortunately it didn't get the ratings the B list gets.

Yeah man they were second to none with that lineup. Couldn't be beat.

A hearty "meh".

I didn't hate it. It was better than Friends or Frasier.

I think Friends is better than Seinfeld. Seinfeld was certainly quirkier. But Friends was a game changer. I think Friends feels less groundbreaking now because so many sitcoms since have been modeled after it. Seinfeld had a formula that it's almost impossible to copy. In that sense, Seinfeld is one of the best and most original shows I've ever seen.

The downside is that I don't think that brand of humor holds up as well over time. When it worked the humor was untouchable. But it missed as much as it hit. And when that brand of humor misses... yikes. Friends might have been safer (less risky in terms of style of humor), but it was also more consistent for longer.

Having said that, I still think both shows went on a couple seasons too long.

Friends was a great show but nothing touches Seinfeld. FYI, if you like Friends, check out Happy Endings. It's basically Friends in Chicago instead of New York.

I'll check it out.

Can't argue that.

I never really liked Seinfeld all that much, and it's always struck me as one of those shows that was popular because it was the 'in' thing at the time.

I actually liked it better before it got really huge and had a smaller following. Around 92 or 93? Once they moved it to Thursday Night Must See TV a few yer later it didn't seem as good, but it got huge in popularity.

Nah, I just like Larry David's brand of humor. Curb is awesome to me as well.

I most certainly have to disagree. I love it today as I did then. It holds up. My 13 yr old son loves it.

The world of entertainment really went downhill after the 90s. I guess I'm just an 80s/90s kid

So, is Community been renewed or cancelled with a wrap up couple shows / season? I like all 3 shows, but Community to me is must see & awesome, IMO. The Paintball episode may be one of the best television sitcom episodes in history.

I don't get why NBC does so poor when networks like CBS have a lot of crap except for How I Met Your Mother.

Amazing how CBS essentially traded spots when CBS outbid NBC for the NFL rights as Primary network for AFC games. Well, if I recall, Fox took the NFC from CBS, and CBS took the AFC from NBC.

TROY & ABED IN THE MORNING ...

Just a personal theory, but I believe NBC has in recent years been trying to draw a younger audience, which is I think more difficult to retain than the more geriatric crowd that watches CBS. They're also the audience most likely to be doing other things than sitting at home during primetime watching TV, and is the audience most likely to watch shows through other means like hulu (or piracy). They also have a tendency to put their big new shows up against established shows, which basically puts them behind the 8-ball (like having Prime Suspect, The Firm and Awake on Thursday at 10/9). And part of the problem is just that the NBC brand as a whole right now is the low dog on the totem poll, and perception is reality. They're in last place, so their shows must suck.

I am waiting for NBC and maybe even the CW to give the middle finger to the Nielson company and say they're getting their ad numbers else where so it will include a much broader (and more accurate) rating. I have heard numbers as low as 20,000 people who are counted for Nielson ratings. It makes me sad to think that networks have to fold under them to be successful.

The common trend is people now more than ever are watching less primetime TV with the exception of sports. Something has gotta give, and I am betting it will be the outdated rating system before anything else.

THIS IS THE STUPIDEST OPINION I'VE EVER SEEN.

ON CHIEFSPLANET DOT COM. EVER.

I QUIT

Mainstream entertainment is by and large horrifying and mortifying to me at this point, but at the same time we're in basically a golden age for TV dramas and have had some all-time classic comedies, to boot. It's like a cesspool with a few incredibly clean spots.

Seinfeld is genuinely brilliant, though I might be biased after watching every episode in a row several times over. It weirds me out every time I remember how huge it was.

Also, even the (ignorantly) maligned later seasons feature a lot of the funniest episodes and characters in the series, thus making them some of the funniest things in the glorious history of the medium of television itself.

That's pretty impressive. I'm strangely kinda proud of this.

As well you should be. I'm not saying you're dumb, by the way. I'm just saying you have the taste of a dumb person.

(I'm saying this with the utmost sarcasm if that isn't clear. I'm sure you are swell! But seriously, Friends is trash.)

I liked Friends, but it went too long.

Seinfeld could have went a few more seasons. Its humor still holds up today.

What Seinfeld did was open the doors for every stand-up comic out there to get their own show. Cosby and Redd Foxx and some others had done it OK before, but Seinfeld (maybe along with Roseanne) was the beginning of the new crop of comedians in a new kind of sitcom, where the plots were based on the comedian's act, and (s)he was the undoubted center of the show. From him, we got Home Improvement, Everybody Loves Raymond, Jeff Foxworthy, Drew Carey, George Lopez, King of Queens, Grace Under Fire, Bernie Mac, and probably a whole bunch of others I can't remember.

I never liked Friends, probably because it seemed fabricated to me; I could never get past the fact that those twentysomethings, besides being pretentious and annoying, would never be able to afford that spacious apartment in midtown New York.

We should post a shit ton of polls to see if the rest of CP agrees.

Cheers > Seinfeld

The apartment was explained. It was a Rent controlled unit.

:D

This is, like, the worst possible tribute to Seinfeld's legacy.

At least, on this much we can agree.

I would have ended Friends after the 7th season. Which is still probably too long. But some of my all time favorite Friends episodes are in that season.

Let me be clear, I love Seinfeld. It just doesn't have the replay value for me that Friends has. I can watch reruns of Friends all day long. I get wiped out watching too much Seinfeld.

Also, Seinfeld has this odd quality; it's actually better (to me) when I don't see a whole episode. It's the kind of show I like catching 5 to 10 minutes in. I've seen the ends of every episode. I'm not sure I can say the same of the beginnings.

2 of them, right across the hall from each other. Yeah.

Well, technically, if one of the apartments in rent controlled, the whole building is probably rent controlled. So, yeah.

But Monica's is the only one they address specifically. But Chandler has always had a real job and made pretty good money. Plus his parents are loaded. So it's logical.

They never mentioned the other apartment. Not that I recall.

There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of Nielsen's rating system, but sample size isn't one of them. They've got lots of methodological issues, like how to account for multiple TVs in a household, how to avoid double-counting people who watch both online and on TV, and a variety of other issues. However, adding another million people to the mix wouldn't fix any of those issues.

Regardless, the problem is that there's no such thing as "getting their ad numbers elsewhere." No one else really does it because Nielsen is WAY better than anything anyone else has ever come up with. So while it's flawed in some ways, it's better than nothing (and is a lot better than random people on a message board saying "those numbers are too low because I like that show").

Good points. Maybe I meant to say that NBC will give Nielson the finger and say we would rather keep shows that win awards and critical praise than win arbitrary rating wars.

And maybe the top 1% will just decide to give all their money to the poor.

And maybe I'll be lying in wait to rob those poor people who the 1% just gave their money to.

Could the finale of 30 Rock perhaps be the best finale of all time? Too early to tell?

Legitimately funny, in keeping with the run of the show, poignant, referential, creative, innovative, comprehensive.

I've seen finales that do things epically or emotionally, but I can't recall one that did so many things so well without missing a beat.

The Irma Luhrman-Merman murder
Turned the bird's word lurid
The whir and the purr of a twirler girl
She would the world were demurer
The insurer's allure
For valor were pure Kari Wuhrer
One fervid whirl over her turgid error
Rural juror
Rural juror
I will never forget you
Rural juror
I'll always be glad I met you
Rural juror

I will never forget you
Rural juror
I'll always be glad I met you
Rural juror (x2)
These were the best days of my flerm.

I mean how genius is it to have Richard Belzer PLAY Munch as Belzer playing Munch in his latest appearance as Munch on TV, putting 30 Rock in the Tommy Westphall-averse for all time? Then referencing the Westphall-averse in the end without directly going to it, but going back to the immortal Kenneth bit and mixing it with Liz Lemon's multi-racial progeny, and Jetson's sound effects?

Crazy making!!

I should totally start a business where you can spend Christmas in the Hamptons alone, drinking scotch and throwing firecrackers at Billy Joel's dog. Guess I missed the boat on Tan Penis Island.

Watch this and fail to tear up. I challenge you

http://www.vulture.com/2010/04/tracy...tional_wh.html

this is the worst day of my life

Community is back this week, I'm happy.

finially!

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/z584YZtS9c4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I'm still trying to figure out why people (for the most part) don't watch NBC comedies. Is it the lack of a laugh track? Do people need to be told when something is funny?

30 Rock, Parks & Rec, and Community are all brilliant. WTF is wrong with people?

I agree. I've never watched that broke waitress show but I've never even once came close to cracking a smile in their promo's. How do shows like that outperform great shows like Community?

They're too smart. I've literally had people tell me that when I ask. They prefer stuff like 2 Broke Girls because you can turn your brain off, and watching something like Community makes them either feel dumb, or like they're watching something that only snooty hipster people watch, and they don't see themselves like that.

(Seriously, I've been told this...)

Because people are stupid.

I used to watch Two Broke Girls simply for Kat Denning (or whatever he name is)

But I don't know where to laugh!!! Save me, According to Jim!

Kat has great bewbs, but Betsy has that ACE.

Man, the food poisoning bit on P&r.