Kathy Savitt leaving Yahoo

[briefan1972]

Something that we've never really discussed as a....ahem community, is the little situation with Community's champion, Kathy Savitt, leaving Yahoo a few weeks ago, for another opportunity. I'm not sure that just her leaving has sealed the show's fate, but Dan certainly seems to credit her with playing a huge part in getting a sixth season and would

Comments

[briefan1972]

I'm honestly not sure what this development might lead to but (and I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this) my first thought immediately went to what this could mean for Jeff and Annie. Obviously that's ridiculous to worry first about fictional characters before the actual people involved, but when it comes to J/A, my brain just operates differently. To say nothing of really not even being sure that we'll ever see anything of the pairing again, regardless of Dan's individual situation.

[ambrosefan23]

Any level headed show runner would put their feelings aside and do what's best for the show (which obviously is J/A) but then again this is Dan Harmon we're talking about, so hopefully if we do get some sort of continuation of Community he will put his feelings aside and do what is best for J/A

[blovich]

Are you talking about what's best for business? Whenever you have self confessed control freaks like a Vince McMahon or a Dan Harmon running the show their knee jerk reaction is to not give in when the audience tells them what they want to see. It's why it took so long for Daniel Bryan to be pushed or Jeff/Annie to get some sort of closure. Those guys intentionally kept their most over acts on the bench in limbo while trying desperatly to get other things over to the detriment of the product. Both storylines were poorly managed but at least Bryan got his definitive moment at the end even if afterwards it didn't end well. All we got for JA is yet another fanservice moment, clarification after the fact of what the scene was supposed to mean and more postponement of something possibly (but not definitively) happening between them.

[cgkm2099z]

I presume this is in reference to Dan's commentary on 6.13, where he was talking about how he doesn't believe in giving in to the squeaky wheel. He said something about the 80/20 principle in business where if you drop the 20% of your customers that complain the most and cause the most problems, your business will actually do better because you can devote more time/energy to the "silent majority." He also took a number of shots at shippers for getting upset at the lack of progression. I do understand some of his points, but if the reason he didn't do anything with J/A until the very end was because he didn't want to give in to the "squeaky wheel" then that just seems rather petty, and as you said, to the detriment of the final product.

[liz_marcs]

The thing that gets me about this is that there is NO WAY Dan could possibly believe that J/B shippers or non-shippers were some kind of "silent majority" in people who watched Community.

What? The overall horrible reaction to J/B at the end of season five didn't convince him? I mean, he had friendly critics and his own damn writers on Twitter *begging* J/A shippers to tune in for the final episode of season five because the reaction was so overwhelmingly bad.

And the overwhelming positive reaction in live settings to J/A advancing? At ComicCon? How on earth do you say they don't represent the majority of your fanbase?

The whole thing is just mystifying to me.

Plus...here's another thing. If "the shippers" want a fucking payoff, it's probably because you've been feeding them for five damn years leading up to your "final season." I don't thinking wanting a payoff is being entitled.

[briefan1972]

Fully agree. Expecting and desiring a payoff to all the seasons of creator-pushed ship tease is not being entitled; it's simply anticipation of decent story telling. And I don't feel that's too much to ask.

[cgkm2099z]

I think he was referring more to non-shippers as being the silent majority, but I agree, I don't understand the response. Maybe he was specifically referring to the people that get so worked up that they post long rants about how disappointed they are (like us lol). But yeah, I don't think asking for a payoff is too much to ask. It's not like we were the ones who started writing Jeff and Annie together because it made for great television. I also don't understand why Dan can't see it for the compliment that it is. Something he created and wrote has inspired such love and passion from his fans, and he gets annoyed when they want more of it? What?

[jmunney]

It's petty if you assume that the reason he waited until the end was specifically to not give in to the people who were asking for it, as opposed to having that plan right from the get-go. I don't think the progression of S6 (and what led up to it) was his plan from the beginning, because working towards a definitive end point is not how he generally works (especially not in S6). With that said, I don't think there was any way around him being influenced by the fandom's shipping contingent. Still, I think it's reductive to say that he made his decision all on this one basis. Yes, he himself talks about the squeaky wheel on the commentary, but he talks about a lot of other things, and there are a lot of other things left unsaid. Basically, when I see an antagonistic reaction to Dan's creative style, I kind of agree with it, but there's a greater context, which makes it not necessarily better, but certainly different.

[cgkm2099z]

Well yeah, I don't think that was the sole reason why it was done. His initial comment was something about how "it's not a soap opera." But that goes back to that whole thing about Community not being about relationships, except that it has always been about relationships, and this only came up when it came time to finally put J/A together for real. But like I said above, I don't get his reaction wherein he's annoyed that fans are passionate about something he created and want more of it.

[ambrosefan23]

Oh don't get me started about Vince McMahon that would be a discussion for another time.
But yeah you do make a valid point they have a lot of similarities. I think that Dan Harmon (like Vince McMahon also) has gotten so used to doing things his way because at the end of the day it is his decision and no one else's on who gets paired with who. And even though Dan Harmon finally gave in to J/A sort of (like Vince did with Bryan) I think he still resented doing so because he didn't get to do what he wanted (also like Vince was with Bryan) which was J/B. But at least he did give us some J/A which is better than getting nothing at all.

BTW: Were you able to tell I was a wrestling fan from my username?

PS: Sorry to people who are reading this and find the wrestling references confusing but in terms of giving fans what they want they have more in common than you think.

[blovich]

@cgkm2099z it's reference in general to how JA has been handled up to this point by Harmon and a comparison to Vince McMahon's treatment of a wrestler named Daniel Bryan whom he held back despite his popularity by using the excuse that it was "best for business".

@ambrosefan yeah, it was a dead give away as I couldn't personally think of any other Ambrose that's currently relevant. I'm a wrestling fan too and figured you'd appreciate my comparison.