On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 8:49 AM, Jim Ellwanger <[email protected]>wrote:
> On Feb 10, 2013, at 8:20 PM, Tom Wolper wrote: > > > Harmon said in interviews before Season 3 that his vision was for a > series that ran for 4 years matching the 4 years of a degree program. > > Then perhaps he should have put the kibosh on "#sixseasonsandamovie" being > printed down the sleeve of the Season 3 staff/crew sweatshirts. > I have been trying not to treat Community the way sanctimonious reports on the television beat treat Sorkin's *Newsroom*, but it does gnaw at me a little that Harmon seemed to have little regard for what actually happens at Community College. I will desribe some of these problems in the next paragraph to preserve them for the record, and because they become relevant given Harmon's claim, repeated above and made several times, that the arc of the show is somehow naturally 4 seasons (asumming each season is an academic year). A big chunk of students at CC of course are not really on any degree path - they are taking what used to be called adult education classes for personal enrichment, or specifc classes needed to meet the needs of a job or trade, or maybe just killing time while trying to fool themselves or others (like parents) that they want a college degree. Of the fraction that are on a serious degree track, the ideal track is two years at CC, followed by 2 years at a four-year college or university. In this sense there are no traditional "Juniors" or "Seniors" at a CC, in that students on a true degree track who go to school full-time should be done after their second year. For a couple of reasons (impacted programs, child-care and or work responsibilities) CC students may take 3 or 4 years to complete two years of credits, but even then they would only call themselves "Seniors" in their final year in the most metaphorical and self-depreciating way. It is possible that a CC would offer a 2-year degree in a career or vocational program that only requires a 2-year degree (a two-year RN is the most common example, but there are others). These people do somtimes refer to themselves as Seniors in their last year, though not as Juniors in thier first year (they usually refer to themselves as Freshmen then). Of the Community crowd, Jef,f Brita and Annie are almost certainly looking for a 4-year degree; I can't remember what Troy is aiming at, but I think it is something that would require a 4-year degree. Shirley is working on some kind of buissness degree to get her baking buissiness going - this probably could be some kind of A.S. I have no idea what Abed is doing, and he may not be a degree student at all. Jeff clearly needs a 4 year degree, given the set-up of his character; I can not imagine any scenario under which a person would have all of the upper division hours they need for a bachelors degree but still lack two years (much less four years) worth of lower division credits (all community college credits are lower division). Until now I have kept these quibbles to myself, and I don't really think they undermine the show in any significant way - (no more than incongruities between "Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and the mechancis of running a real bar would be for that show) but I don't think you can argue that it would be unrealistic to have the gang in school together for six seasons, but realistic to have them in school together for four seasons, without at least giving some rationale for why each of them needed four years to get through CC. > > -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
