You know when a script is good but you don't have any knowledge how visually it is going to look. When this [Happy Valley] came out and I saw the first episode and thought it was terrific.
Every so often, it's time to make a change with a showrunner. You evaluate the creative and how the show is run and how the writing staff works, and sometimes you want to freshen the show. We just decided that it was time to do that on Community, and no disrespect to anyone.
That's a big important deal, the way people see you from the stage. Once in a while, I'd ask people, 'How did you enjoy the show?' 'Hey, you looked great.' But how did I sound? That visual look is very important to people.
It's difficult sometimes to go and see a show and enjoy it and not go and see a show and critique it.
You can only go with the excesses to a certain point; it wasn't always the Jack Daniels bottle. We weren't just a bunch of sloppy musicians on stage drinking; we would critique every show.
I have a rule that I don't review shows from photographs or from video. I certainly might go back and look at photographs and look at video to remind myself of something or for personal information. But I never review from that.
If the show sucks, I ain't happy. If the show is damn good, I'm very happy.
Look, there is nothing you can say about this show that I don't already know
Every so often, it's time to make a change with a showrunner; you evaluate the creative and how the show is run, how the writing staff works.
I knew, the second I read 'Humans,' that no matter how successful the show was, the script was superb and like nothing else I'd ever seen.
A show can be artistically successful; a show can be financially successful; a show can be successful by the transformative experience the audience is having; a show can be successful from the point of view of what is experienced by the cast and the company on a daily basis.
My main qualm about TV criticism has been when people review TV the way they review movies. They watch the pilot, and write a definitive review of the show. The obvious analogy is that you don't read the first eight pages of a book and then talk about whether the book works or not. People want so desperately in this day and age to declare something thumbs-up or thumbs-down that they declare it immediately.
