Community Saved From Oblivion By…Yahoo?
I still can’t quite believe this has actually happened, but Yahoo’s bid to be taken seriously in the TV-but-not-TV Netflix/Amazon space has taken a strange, possibly wonderful, possibly terrible turn. Yahoo has donned their shining armor and swooped in to rescue NBC’s apparently not-quite-dead Community, picking it up for that fabled season six.
This is a strange age of TV we live in, so I suppose a search engine saving a beloved cult classic network show isn’t the weirdest thing to ever happen, but it’s pretty damn close. The new season will run 13 episodes and comes with this announcement from Dan Harmon and Joel McHale:
“I am very pleased that ‘Community’ will be returning for its predestined sixth season on Yahoo,” Harmon said in a statement. “I look forward to bringing our beloved NBC sitcom to a larger audience by moving it online. I vow to dominate our new competition. Rest easy, ‘Big Bang Theory.’ Look out, ‘Bang Bus!”
McHale added, “The reports of our cancellation have been greatly exaggerated.” —Mark Twain (The other version of this quote has been wrong for years). # SixSeasonsAndaMovie is real. Thank you Sony. Thank you Yahoo. Thank you Dan Harmon. And thank you to the greatest f%$#ing fans in the history of the human race. It’s the internet. We can swear now.”
And in case you’re wondering if the move would come at the cost of shedding a few more cast members, Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Yvette Nicole Brown, Alison Brie, Danny Pudi, Ken Jeong and Jim Rash are all returning. But Donald Glover is still out, and Jonathan Banks and John Oliver are probably going to be too busy with their own new shows.
So this is…good? Right? I’ve never viewed Community as the holy grail of TV comedy, but it’s certainly a solid show, and better than 90% of everything else on TV. Hopefully the move to the internet will free them up a bit, but even with Dan Harmon’s return, I’m not sure the show has ever really quite returned to form. Still, I’m obviously curious to see how this is going to go, and the pressure’s on for them to deliver. What do you think?
So happy about this. Such a great show.