by ladyfan
When NBC announced Dan Harmon’s departure from the show Community, a shock wave echoed across the Internet – at least in the households of the shows’ fans, many of whom, in addition to watching the show, religiously follow Harmon’s tumblr (whose entries are often geared toward them) and Twitter. There was an immediate backlash from these folks, who considered Harmon synonymous with the show’s success – and it revealed an interesting trend that’s emerging in TV culture right now.
Another review of a recent CW series. Uh, 2007 is recent…if you’ve been in a coma since, say, 2008.
BY ANTHONY MEDINA
**This episode originally aired in October 2007. If you are unfamiliar with the series, be aware this review contains spoilers.**
by ladyfan
As the media salivates over the ucoming season 7 of Doctor Who, lauding Steven Moffat’s work on both it and Sherlock, thereseems to be a good deal of jumping over the four seasons that actually brought Doctor Who back to life. Yes, we speak (reverentially) of what will surely in the future be known as the Russell T. Davies Dynasty (for you non Who-vians, the RTD Dynasty = Season 1-4 of new Who). Although Moffat was a freelancer on the show before his upgrade to showrunner, the voice and tone of the first four seasons is unquestionably Davies’.
The excellent and painfully truthful book about TV writing he’s co-written with Benjamin Cook reveals just how involved Davies was in the episode-to-episode process of the show – and while we wonder about how he was ever able to sleep (ever) we admire the unity of tone and carefully crafted subtle plot arcs that span from season to season each year. Bad Wolf? Torchwood? Harry Saxon? There is always a little extra credit for paying attention to the details (and if you’re an extra super nerd, like we are, watching the episode that fourth or fifth time illuminated that one reference we missed the first four times. It did! And it was worth it!)
By Christiana Miller
(EDITED BY LB TO ADD: Christiana Miller is the only human being, living or otherwise, who has placed first in both the PEOPLE’S PILOT and the SPEC SCRIPTACULAR contests – in the same year. I’m so proud of her I’m not even jealous of her current success. Well, hardly jealous anyway.)
Can’t See the Forest for the Trees Dept: Martha Thomases, co-creator of Dakota North for Marvel Comics, analyzes something we didn’t even notice: The increasing abundance of “shit” on TV. (No, we’re not talking quality here, we’re talking “shit.” Wait, that didn’t come out right either. Uh-oh, neither did that…)
Martha Thomases Is Talking Dirty – by Martha Thomases
They say “shit” on cable now. And “ass.”