How (Not) To Revive A Show: Arrested Development vs. Community

They each feature ensemble cast made up of a bunch of quirky weirdos and one straight man to react to their quirky weirdness.

They're both very meta shows that repeatedly break the fourth wall in ways most other shows don't, and they both seem to have mastered the art of the callback with numerous jokes that span multiple seasons.

Even both shows have a notorious annoying star that has a history of making people they work with feel unsafe - Jeffrey Tambor and Chevy Chase- so we are really checking all the boxes.

But the biggest thing that ties these series together is their shared fat These are both shows that were critically acclaimed but ultimately unsuccessful during their initial network runs and we're each given individual opportunities to come back to life but with underwhelming results.

But while these two shows suffered eerily similar fates the path they each took to get there really couldn't have been more different. Arrested Development 2.0 was served on a silver platter and still managed to disappoint, while Community's attempted resurrection seemed doomed to fail from the start. Two shows each given a second chance at life but which one did a better job at fucking it up?

starting off with arrested development, the ratings were blowing up on the first season plus they won a couple of Emmys on its first season yet no sign of renovation was at sight. The critical acclaim wasnt translating into a broad enough popularity for fox[s liking.

In fact, the show was so jam packed with jokes that I think it was actually ahead of its time in a bad way. Because while Arrested Development has since earned a reputation as a show you sometimes have to pause and rewind, or re-watch episodes all together to catch subtle nuances you may not have noticed at first you couldn't really do that at the time. The show was meant to be binged. The wrtting of the show indictes an unprecedented level of foresight. The netflix spin off doesnt quite hold a candle to the original ruining the reputation of the og.

Moving on to Community, a sadder, weirder, darkest timeline kind of a story. At the time Community was unlike anything else on TV. You could watch five episodes of Community in a row and feel like you were watching a different show every time.

Its fucking brilliant, the crafting of the show and the running gags plus the dark humor, was insane. With the departure of Donald Glover, the show went downhill.

So you have to well-received shows that were murdered, brought back to life, and then murdered once more. Community was picked up by a non existing streaming service, Yahoo, and the departure of two of the main characthers. Arrested Development, on the other hand, They had all the marketing in the world from an online global superpower entering peak of its worldwide dominance. They had years of buildup and hype and a cast that had more star power now than they did initially when the show was first on and they still fucked it up because they lost what made them so good in the first place.