NBC's announcement this week that "Community" was being replaced in the 7 p.m. Thursday hour early in January certainly isn't good news for one of network TV's most innovative comedies.
Nothing's been said by NBC about "Community," which some fans see as a glimmer of hope.
I've been a fan of the show, as well as a booster of its creator, ComedySportz veteran Dan Harmon. It's not necessarily Milwaukee-flavored comedy, but Harmon is a unique talent.
In fact, it's a sitcom that's hard to fathom if you're not into its rhythm. Here's a sample from last week's episode.
I can't criticize NBC for programming arguably its best comedy, "30 Rock," at the opening of its crucial Thursday comedy lineup. And I have to admit I was surprised when "Community" didn't make the list.
But I will be sad if this smaller, less conventional comedy doesn't land somewhere.
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
