Remedial Chaos Theory: Meet the New Show Runners of \'Community\'

By DAVE ITZKOFF

LOS ANGELES - Depending on your perspective, David Guarascio and Moses Port may have the best job in television or the worst. In May, these two longtime comedy-writing collaborators, who have previously worked on  “Mad About You,” “Just Shoot Me” and “Happy Endings,” were named the new show runners of “Community,” NBC's passionately adored â€" if not widely watched â€" comedy about a study group of misfit students.

There was just one problem: Mr. Guarascio and Mr. Port were replacing Dan Harmon, the “Community” creator, who had been pushed out of that role by Sony Pictures Television, the studio that produces the show. Before they could write a single script or bad Ben Chang pun, they had been vilified by a portion of the vocal “Community” fan base and mocked with a fake Twitter account in their names.

Mr. Port and Mr. Guarascio, who count themselves as admirers of “Community,” know they hav e their work cut out for them â€" not only in retaining the show's viewers but also in keeping it alive when it returns (the season premiere was originally scheduled for Oct. 19, but NBC said on Monday evening that it had been postponed to an as-yet undetermined date). On the Paramount studio lot where “Community” is produced, they spoke recently about their hopes and apprehensions as they continue to work on this difficult assignment. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.

What were you working on when you were offered your new positions at “Community”?

David Guarascio We've had an overall deal at Sony, so we've been consulting on “Happy Endings” for the past two years while we developed other shows. We've shot pilots and the pilots just didn't go. When the last pilot didn't go, that's when Sony approached us and said, Do you have any interest in  running “Community”?

Given the circumstances, did you have any hesitation about ta king it?

Guarascio Yeah, massive hesitation.
Moses Port We each said no, twice. We're huge fans of the show and always have been. There was some awareness of, What is the situation you're stepping into? It's also the fourth year of a show, which is tricky, in and of itself. We had a good other gig.

Guarascio What was scary about it was also what was enticing about it. It's the ultimate sandbox, as a writer-producer, to start playing around in. All the work that went in before, we benefit from. The crazy rules that have been established for this universe, Dan really set down, and everyone else has put their blood, sweat and tears into the show. In that sense, that hard part had been done. At the same time, there was an expectation to live up to. Fandom has that thing â€" people are very protective and you want to do right by them, and we were two of those fans. It's like, “Who are these new guys who are coming in?” Wait , we're the new guys.
Port The reality of what we've stepped into is, we could not be prepared for. The rabid fans, you don't know how rabid they are until you step into it.

Did you have any contact with Dan Harmon after you decided to accept?

Guarascio We just exchanged some emails in the beginning, that were all friendly and supportive. Us saying to him, “You've created something great, we hope we don't wreck it.” And him saying, “Look, go get ‘em and I'm wishing you all the best.” That part was easy, because we didn't have a relationship, previously, to have it be difficult. But it's certainly out of the ordinary.

Were there any initial conversations with Sony or NBC about what they expected from you on the show?

Guarascio A little bit. Mostly, it was thank you for doing this. When we started to pitch our stories, they had that first [reaction]: Well, maybe now that we're in a new place, it could it be more like this instead of tha t. So we did have to dig in a little bit and say, look, we didn't come on to make that into this. We came on to keep doing this. We did have to draw a couple lines in the sand.

There's a passionate online conversation that has grown up around “Community” â€" is this anything that you've tried to listen in on, even before starting work?

Guarascio We haven't listened as directly. There's other people that already have established relationships with a lot of those fans and we rely on that more. Right now, there's not as much to listen to. People are excited, there's a little bit of anxiety. Honestly, it's only seeing the episodes when they will breathe a sigh of relief or get extremely angry. [laughs]
Port You always want to attract new viewers, but with this show, more than any, you want to make sure that the fan base is taken care of and you're writing towards them, first and foremost.
Guarascio Especially with a show that's been on the bubble and i s on a new night and time, in a funky time slot, our No. 1 priority has always been our returning fans more than anybody else. If some new people want to come on board, great. We're not going to shift anything to try and attract anybody. It's a fool's errand.

Do your new episodes make reference to this behind-the-scenes transition?

Guarascio Oftentimes, what you'll see is reflecting what's going on with the show in the real world, and I think we all knew for the first episode, we wanted that to be thematically part of what was going on.

How so?

Guarascio Just that â€" the notion of change. And it matches up with the school year, too. Things being different and how nervous it can make us. It is something to be scared of, but it's something that can lead to good things. That's deeply baked into the DNA of the first episode. That part was easy, in a way. For the returning writers to know that we wanted to approach it that way, also, because that's the way they wanted to approach, it was like, “Ahhh. [exhales] We can all be in this together.”

Were there ever times in the past where you thought the show had gotten too free-form?

Guarascio We've certainly heard that criticism of the show. It's not one that we shared. Particularly because it's a show about people at college, which everyone knows has a definitive timeline to it, and an ending point, it has been an engine to this year. We can't act like they're going to be sitting around the study-room table forever. That would not be an honest way to treat the characters. Because they are growing. The fourth year of the show â€" and I think this would have been the case, no matter who's running it â€" has to acknowledge that there's an evolution happening.

What do you think are the key character dynamics on the show?

Guarascio Abed [played by Danny Pudi] is the person who put this study group together, in the pilot, and we definitely think of him as being someone who's created something that's bigger than he is now. Jeff, being the reluctant leader of this group â€" as he tries to pull away from the group at times, he also pulls each of the other characters in the group forward. Jeff [Joel McHale] and Britta [Gillian Jacobs], as a couple, seemed a thing. Meanwhile, Troy [Donald Glover] has come into his own as a person, which allows him to become a romantic possibility for Britta. There have been a lot of characters on the show that have been haunted by the ghosts of their parents. For several different characters, we're dealing with that this year, building to Jeff meeting his dad and what that really means for him. And then there's a ripple effect: O.K., now that's Jeff shifted slightly that way, how that will affect Britta, or Troy or Annie [Alison Brie]?

Chevy Chase made no secret of his dissatisfaction with your predecessor. Did you have to make any extra effort to win him over and assure him this would be a smooth transition?

Guarascio Honestly, no more than anybody else. I think the whole cast certainly had some degree of their own anxiety and apprehension about the change. We've been reassuring all of them, we want this to continue to be our little magic garden and please help us cultivate the fruit from the trees that have been planted over the last three years. Chevy's been very easy for us. [knocks on the wooden table]

So this doesn't feel like a caretaker role to you? Do you feel like you have more of a mission here than that?

Guarascio Yes and no. Our mission is to keep the show what it was. If that's caretaking then the answer is yes. That doesn't mean that show doesn't evolve and change. In a perfect universe, we catch fire, we get more episodes and we're talking about Season 5. The reason why I guess we do think of ourselves more as caretakers is that we're not trying to redefine the franchise.
Port In terms of punching in, and keeping it a float, that's not the case. Even if you're the most apathetic people, if you walk into that building and you're on that set, you can't be in that state of mind. People are too passionate about this thing. Everybody on that stage cares so much. [whispers] Don't tell Sony that they'd do it for almost no money.
Guarascio If this does turn out to be the end and the last 13, everyone really wants them to be great. You just don't want to go out with a whimper.