A Seth Pohorence Pop-Ed: The Death of Must See TV

Well, it comes to no surprise to me that Community was canceled. Being a fan of the show, I always felt like the fates wanted me to not enjoy the show very long. It didn’t help that NBC essentially hated Community and the man who gave it life, Dan Harmon. At least Harmon has Rick and Morty, which is hilarious.

NBC has nothing going for them. Parks and Recreation is past its prime and now entering its final season. Every single series NBC made to replace 30 Rock and The Office has been an epic failure. How did we get to this?

First and foremost, NBC has made a living off of having some pretty bizarre shows which turned into hits. You may find this hard to believe, but there was once a show about an alien crash landing and residing with a family in Southern California ... and there were laughs. Paul Fusco’s creation, ALF, was a hit in its infancy and dragged on for four full seasons and an awful movie.

You look at My Name is Earl, and it’s a show that really has a short shelf life, but managed to hang around until the Peacock finally pulled the plug on a limited premise.

Loyalty can be helpful in small doses. Loyalty at NBC essentially means you have a job every five years or so. Also it doesn’t hurt to have Lorne Michaels in your back pocket. Maya Rudolph has a new show. It looks like a sketch comedy/variety show that was popular back when bell bottoms were in for men. I bet it’s produced by Lorne Michaels.  Maya Rudolph keeps popping up on TV and no one has told her she’s overstayed her welcome. She and Sean Hayes were the reasons I wanted Up All Night canceled.

NBC loves rehashing guys who used to be famous. I feel bad that Michael J. Fox has Parkinson’s. I feel awful seeing him move uncontrollably in interviews. I wanted his stupid show to be canceled. His performance for the NBC hit Family Ties was brilliant. The Michael J. Fox Show lacked so many things that made Family Ties funny or even remotely entertaining.

The same could be said about Paul Reiser. Mad About You is still a personal favorite sitcom of mine. It was well written with the intended purpose of bringing adult humor to adult situations. The Paul Reiser Show was the biggest piece of flaming unfunny crap out there. The lone exception was any scene that featured Henry Rollins. I loved his work since Lies and Alibis.

Where does NBC go? Do they go CBS’s route and just make bland, sugar-dosed comedy that's formulaic and riddled with stereotypes and toilet humor? ABC has some hits including The Goldbergs and Modern Family, but can you tell Modern Family is nearing its end?

Will NBC try to take another British series and fail at that?  While they succeeded at The Office, Coupling didn’t fly, maybe given that they already had Friends on for so long.

Will they give another fringe up-and-coming comic a chance?  NBC were quick to dispatch Whitney Cummings and Whitney, which I didn’t necessarily hate.

At this point, NBC might as well show reruns of Cheers and Frasier. They would draw better ratings than most of the shows NBC will bring back.  Now, if only they could make a hologram Phil Hartman and bring back my beloved NewsRadio.