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All of NBC’s returning Thursday comedies will be coming back next year. The network today renewed veteran The Office (sans Steve Carell), Parks and Recreation (with Rob Lowe) and Community for next season. They join 30 Rock, which was given an early pickup late last year when the network announced its move to 10 PM. “I am so pleased to renew these three outstanding comedies which are all at the top of their game creatively,” said NBC chairman Bob Greenblatt. “Along with 30 Rock, they represent the best of what the NBC comedy brand stands for in terms of originality, wit, and sophistication. The Office continues to fire on all cylinders on the most competitive night of television; Parks & Recreation has come into its own this season as the rightful companion to The Office; and Community is one of the freshest comedies on any network and a solid foundation for Thursday night.”
With all 4 established Thursday comedies coming back and 13 comedy pilots ordered by Greenblatt this development season, the renewal chances of any of the network’s freshman comedies, Outsourced, Perfect Couples and the few that are yet to premiere, including Friends with Benefits and The Paul Reiser Show, are slim to none. And Greenblatt’s statement, anointing Parks & Rec as “the rightful companion to The Office” could be a sign that the comedy starring Amy Poehler may stay in the 9:30 PM slot next season.
The Office is delivering a 4.0/10 in adults 18-49 and 7.7 million viewers and ranks as NBC’s #1 scripted show. The Office is also the #2 most upscale primetime show on the broadcast nets, behind only 30 Rock. Season-to-date, Parks and Recreation is averaging a 2.8/7 in 18-49 and 5.5 million viewers overall. With its move this season to Thursday’s 9:30 p.m. half-hour, Parks and Recreation is up versus last season by 17% in adults 18-49. Community is averaging a 2.1/6 in 18-49 and 4.7 million viewers overall.
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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Thank God Community was picked up. Though not as good as the first season, it is still better than most other shows.
I was never a fan of “Community” until the D&D episode, this year. I haven’t deleted it from my DVR. It was so creative and showed a great respect for the hobby. Even if many felt that Pierce was a bit out of character, I felt that it fit with the theme of the episode. I truly enjoyed the episode and they even managed to make me empathize with the “Neil” character, though I’d never seen him before. After that episode, I became a regular viewer.
Congrats NBC! Except for The Office, you just assured yourself mediocre comedy ratings for another season. If you haven’t noticed, community gets horrible numbers! Can’t you at least try?!
Horrible #s? They beat some of the one-hours on the air that are less interesting, with less talented actors and that rarely create any buzz.
They are all good shows. Quit complaining and stick to NCIS.
Community held extremely well against Big Bang Theory’s move to Thursday. I would have been shocked if NBC hadn’t renewed it.
You know you’re hurting if the number 1 scripted show on your network is a comedy and it’s netting you only 7.7m.
Why does it being a comedy have anything to do with it? Friends, Seinfeld, etc.
Unusual that you choose to emphasize overall viewer numbers rather than demo numbers. Ad rates (and thus renewal decisions!) are not made on the basis of overall viewer numbers even if they look nice in PR pieces.
This is great news. These three shows, plus 30 Rock, represent my favorite lineup of comedies. I’d be more than happy to see Outsourced go away as well.
HOORAY FOR “COMMUNITY!!!”
If you’re not watching the show, Chang your perspective.
POP! POP!
And what about LOVE BITES? Are we EVER going to get to see it?!
Now NBC just needs to pick up Harry’s Law and Parenthood.
yes!
Yes (only Harry’s Law though imho)
Excellent block of shows. Wish people would wise up and watch!
WOOHOO!!! Parks and Recreation is the best comedy on TV!
Community is MUCH better this season than season 1. Parks and Rec is amazing and The Office is still one of the best comedies out there.
Too bad for Outsourced though, it never had a shot, people just didn’t care. It is/was an amazing little show.
It was offensive garbage. Everyone on that show is on my shit list.
Outsourced is awesome. Very disappointing
I too hate quality shows. Come on NBC, hurry up and get The Marriage Ref back on the air!
Remember Cheers was doing abysmal in the ratings when NBC kept renewing it.
The problem
with COMMUNITY is it’s a cult show, which means growth beyond the core audience is a massive uphill battle. Sure, a sci-fi or genre cult show can be profitable on broadcast because of merch and other licensing opportunities, but it’s a much harder path for comedy. NBC needs to find shows that can draw 15 million
viewers not 5.
WOW. with the numbers these shows get, they wouldn’t even make the CBS Saturday night lineup. Boy standards have sure dropped at NBC
Community is the best comedy on TV – good job picking it up for a third season!!!
So NBC’s Thursday night line up is going to keep on sucking for another season?
Perfect Couples is hilarious. Best new ensemble on TV, great writing – Olivia Munn. Let me say that again, Olivia Munn!
They should give it a chance. It WILL build an audience in Season Two as word gets out — you have to give sitcoms more than one season — just look at all the shows being renewed!!! All of them had iffy first seasons. Grow some balls and commit to your artists, NBC.
You must be a plant because that show is barely humorous and Olivia Munn contributes nothing whatsoever.
I can assure you that I am not a plant and I think Perfect Couples is a pretty humorous show. It just needs to be properly promoted. NBC sucks in promoting their shows. Now that Zucker is gone, I hope for some improvement.
While I certainly think she show has improved since its awful pilot, it is not worth renewing. It is, by far, the worst show in NBC’s comedy block and averages, maybe, three genuine laughs an episode.
The promotion is not the problem; the writing is. They could move this garbage to 8pm, let it take the Big Bang Theory hit, and give Community a real shot at Thursday night greatness.
How are they supposed to promote it, have a Perfect Couples parade? I saw tons of commercials for it. The show is just not very good. We watched a few episodes, but as others have said, it’s just not very funny. And by the way, Oliva Munn was the worst part of the show.
Perfect couples is hilarious. So is Outsourced. All the Indian people I know don’t think its offensive. Just the politically corect Americans. Parks and Rec is garbage. Enough with the SNL retreads
Olivia Munn is great and clearly needs to be on tv but Perfect Couples is just not very good.
I bet ever struggling comedy on network TV wishes they were Parks and Rec… NBC just kept importing talent to make up for Poehler and Anzzi’s shortcomings.
This complaint seems unusual; while P&R has had some great guest stars (Louis C.K.’s turn in early season 2 was a particularly good run), none of the guest stars before this season’s Rob Lowe were really high profile relative to Poehler.
The first season of the show faced a middling reception, but the entirety of the second season had pretty significant critical praise, so evidently you can’t attribute that to Lowe.
So I’m not really sure what the point is. Can you elaborate on how you feel Poehler or Ansari drop the ball and which specific imported talent has contributed to fixing this?
I don’t think any of them have actually fixed it… I still can’t watch the show.
I’m merely saying it’s a nice problem to have when your network keeps dumping more money into a dying concept, rather than just dumping the show.
Maybe I’m looking at it as glass-half full, but I didn’t seem them dumping a bunch of money into the show as much as acknowledging that many, many good shows don’t have their footing right out of the gate. They trusted all of the talented people involved and that trust has paid dividends because the show has really found it’s wheelhouse and is regarded as being one of the best comedies on TV.
From my perspective, NBC lost faith in it by pushing it to midseason, but held out hope that is now getting paid off with its 17% bump.
I think it’s a good show. I don’t even see what was particularly bad about Season 1, either. It was six episodes long…obviously your first six episodes are going to be somewhat uneven, but there was a lot of good stuff in there. And Chris Pratt is hilarious.
Also, dude’s name is “Aziz Ansari”, not “Anzzi.”
I hear Community isn’t bad. Too bad I – and many others – won’t watch NBC as long as Jay Leno is still employed there. That’s one of the reasons millions of viewers won’t check out your few shows that are supposedly decent, NBC. Wake up!
Jeez, this new show is shaping up as massively embarrassing for Paul Reiser. If it even gets on the air. Can we just hammer the last nail in his career coffin now?
If you’re still not watching NBC over the Conan/Leno debacle, get OVER yourself. He’s still on TV. You can still see him. You boycot NBC, but does that mean you fully support TBS and watch Lopez Tonight and Tyler Perry Presents Stereotype Theatre? Leno is still shitty, but still holding his audience. Conan moved to TBS and is, frankly, not doing anything amazing over there. No reinvention. No new spark. No adaptation to a looser network. No direct appeal to the fans that tried to save him. The show is nowhere near as good as Conan’s “Late Night” was. Kimmel and Fallon are actually taking forward strides with the talk show format. Conan’s format and content is stuck in the Dark Ages of the post-Carson era. He’s rarely picked up on blogs or HuffPo. Meanwhile Fallon has sketches going viral all the time. Conan (who I supported and still really respect) had a chance to come out swinging on TBS (a channel that allows some looser standards and language) and yet he’s still doing a ten year old, network-safe version of his show. He, just like Leno and Letterman and the rest, is hosting a 15 minute comedy show with 30 minutes of promo time for movies, TV shows, and recording artists. And that 15 minutes of comedy isn’t worth boycotting the hard work and creativity of talented people who happen to make sitcoms that air on a network that screwed up their late night schedule for about a year. I’m sure whatever channels you watch are all guilty of some sort of criminal act against talented millionaires too.
Really? Why is The Office still successful, then? Your Jay Leno-based boycott is only working in your delusional head.
I agree that Jay Leno is sickening but not watching some of the best shows on television just because he works at the network is ridiculous. 30 Rock, Parks & Rec. and The Office are all great.
Complete opposite at CBS. David Letterman has been the best of late night tv for nearly 30 years but the CBS primetime lineup is a joke. Congratulations to them for all the ratings success but the quality of the shows is just pathetic.
Community? ….. It barely averages 5 Million viewers. A repeat of HIMYM does better then original Community’s.
Stack it for midseason
I caught an episode of “How I Met Your Mother” on an airplane. It was that exact brand of empty-headed, lowest common denominator, “Big Bang Theory”-esque doggerel that is why I barely watch network television. I watch “Community” and “The Office” (used to watch “30 Rock” but it’s gotten pretty awful) and that’s about it. Everything else – “Justified,” “Mad Men,” “Big Love,” “Boardwalk Empire,” “Walking Dead,” “Hung,” “The Tudors” (R.I.P.), etc. – is cable.
Huh? “How I Met Your Mother” takes way more chances with storytelling than many of the shows you name (I’m not talking about the mother mystery, but the use of different time/flashback gimmicks, unreliable narration, etc).
Not that taking chances = quality. That’s one thing about “Community,” that its incredible ambition isn’t always matched in the execution. But it’s pretty clear now that many of the challenging or experimenting shows are on broadcast while cable’s in a bit of a rut.
As a HIMYM fan, I think it’s a pretty bold show structurally for the reasons you mention, but the actual writing is pretty broad lowest common denominator stuff definitely on par with the Chuck Lorre CBS comedies. Huge reliance on catchphrases, telegraphed jokes, really broad physical humour.
I don’t mean that as an insult to the show, just a description, and I think that’s what “bounder” was talking about.
I ADORE THE OFFICE ONE OF MY FAVORITES, I MISS LAW & ORDER EMENSELY, DON’T LIKE L.A./STILL A SVU FAN. I WOULD LIKE TO SEE MORE OF HARRY’S LAW, PARENTHOOD AND THE EVENT, NBC KIND OF RUINED THAT WHEN THEY TOOK IF OFF FOR SO LONG.
JUST STATING MY PERSONAL OPINION.
Who cares? What about Harry’s Law? You know, a show on NBC that people actually watch.
NBC has cemented themselves in last place for another year. And 30 Rock no longer even brings homes any Emmys. Its slide in quality has been severe. Almost Entourage like. The saddest part of all, though, is that their number one show– The Office– hasn’t been funny (or even watchable) in about 3 years.
Great news for all of the people involved in those shows and the show’s fans. Especially, in my opinion, for Community — one of the most inventive, spirited, playful, reflexive, interesting, ambitious, human, meaningful, and funny shows on television. Being up against Big Bang Theory and American Idol does it’s ratings no favors and has likely hindered viewership growth, but that show has performed yeoman’s work taking the bullet every night and if more people found it and gave it a chance, they might be really surprised.
Also: while some people lament that this “cements” NBC to another year in last place, or shows that they aren’t trying:
Pragmatically — NBC already has so many schedule openings next fall that canceling all these shows — which have stable and known audiences — wouldn’t benefit them with launching whole nights of completely unknown content. Doing so assumes that a well above average number of the commissioned pilots would make it to series and be better than the series that — especially in year 3 — will just be hitting their stride. The odds simply aren’t realistic, regardless of what you think of the pilot scripts this year.
And philosophically — how many times do we lament when art gets crushed by commerce? Now, these shows aren’t solving world hunger or rebuilding people’s homes, but each one is generally well regarded as representing quality TV. They’re all unique setups that diverge from the standard “single friends/family/doctor/lawyer/cop” formats that people routinely complain about dominating network TV. It’s nice when good shows with loyal and invested fan-bases can live for another season.
NBC is perfectly justified in renewing these shows, particularly since their new comedies this season were so very bad that they have absolutely no reason to believe they can come up with anything that would do better than Community’s modest but consistent numbers.
I don’t think Community will ever be a hit, not because it’s too smart or whatever but because it’s (not surprising considering that it tries to do something different every week) uneven. Also its form, single-camera with no music or talking heads, makes it look for all the world like a drably-shot light drama. Not as inviting as BIG BANG or a colorful-looking single-cam show like THE MIDDLE.
It’s probably too late for NBC to rebuild its comedy brand since last year they had some promising multi-camera pilots and rejected them all in favor of terrible single-camera pilots. This season’s crop looks to be much the same. That being the case, they might as well stick with their Big Four (Office, P&R, Community, 30 Rock) as long as they can; these may be the only good shows they’ll have for a while.
Yeay Parks! So I guess Rob Lowe won’t be stepping in for Charlie Sheen then.
Community and 30 Rock have the smartest comedy writing on network television. For all the people complaining about them, name a show on network television that is smarter than either of them.
Maybe the people who don’t like them just can’t keep up with them. The jokes and references are pretty fast and sly.
Community, while it isn’t quite my cup of tea, is indeed cleverly written. A little precious, but well done. 30 Rock, however, is just a series of insanities, over and over, repeatedly. It’s one of those shows people can watch and then tell themselves “I watch GOOD TV”, without noticing that the show isn’t actually very good.
I think it’s pretty clear that next year is 30 Rock’s last year. With their numbers and a departing Alec Baldwin, I’m not sure how you can keep it around. Community just got lucky in the fact that everything else on NBC is so poorly rated.
Greenblatt has his work cut out for him. Most of the comedies he picked up aren’t worlds better than what they have now (if they are better at all).
No, but his drama choices are really great.