#CommunityLivesOn
That’s the inspirational hashtag being used by the Plucky Sitcom That Could’s new home at Yahoo Screen, who stepped in to keep the show alive after NBC cancelled it at the end of it’s fifth season and other would-be saviours/suitors like Hulu passed on taking the show onto their schedule.
The exciting part of the deal with Yahoo!, apart from the fact the show will now get a chance to bring it’s rallying hashtag #sixseasonsandamovie to fruition, is that the show’s creator and showrunner Dan Harmon, who triumphantly returned for the much-improved most recent season, and the entire cast, as well as fellow executive producers Chris McKenna, Russ Krasnoff and Gary Foster are all along for the ride.
To remind that this wonderful turn of events isn’t just a dream, Yahoo! have released a teaser trailer for season 6, which has not yet been written or filmed, using footage from seasons 1 through 5, and a very ’70s Six Million Dollar Man theme, evoking too, it must be said a Charlie’s Angels / Starsky and Hutch vibe.
It’s certainly channelling the same gutsy, humour-laden can do attitude we’ve come to expect from Community, which is expected to debut the first episode of season six online, possibly as early as Christmas.
The interesting thing is that it won’t be modelling the release of the new episodes on the Netflix model, which makes an entire season available at one time for download, opting instead to release an episode a week as per the existing broadcast network / cable model.
While the entire-season-at-once model has been criticised in part for diminishing the power of a show’s storytelling by allowing viewers to rush through the episodes, it is the standard for streaming services like Netflix and Amazon and it will be interesting to see how Community fares sticking to what many may consider an outmoded distribution concept.
That is likely not a concern of diehard Community fans who will take the show any way they can get it, happy that it has not gone to the great TV channel in the sky and will be around, freed from the tyranny of ratings, for hopefully some time to come yet.
And here’s the appearance of the show’s cast and crew at this year’s San Diego Comic Con …