Community‘s long fought for #sixseasonsandamovie great resurrection, long heralded, ballyhooed and celebrated, is about to be make its hilariously offbeat presence felt.
Debuting on March 17, 2015 on its new home Yahoo Screen! – Yahoo! swept in as a white knight when NBC finally cancelled the show after prevaricating for almost Community‘s entire low-rating but nonetheless passionately followed run – the show returns with the triumphant tag line and ambiguous dig at its cancellation, “Class uncancelled.”
While the Avengers: Age of Ultron-spoofing trailer is, as you would expect, a montage of out-of-context images, it does suggest that Community retains its quirky flavour and penchant for the over-the-top ridiculous and that the show we know and love is very much in one laugh-inducing piece, save of course for the departure of Yvette Nicole Brown who played Shirley, who joins Chevy Chase (Pierce Hawthorne) and Donald Glover (Troy Barnes) on the roster of ex-castmates.
However, to fill that earnestly vivacious spot on Community‘s lineup, creator Dan Harmon, who remains at the helm of the show he created at its new home, has tapped Paget Brewster to play Francesca “Frankie” Dart, a consultant hired to makeover Greendale College, and Keith David as Elroy Patashnik, who as a retired scientist, and curmudgeon in the vein of the characters played by Chevy Chase and Jonathan Banks, is looking to reinvent themselves.
They, of course, become part of the study group/Save Greendale committee/study group again as does it appears the Dean who seems to be spending a whole lot more time in the library – all the better to be close to Jeff (Joel McHale) no doubt – than he did before.
And as Hypable notes, whatever has changed, a great deal remains the same:
“Garrett [Erik Charles Nielson] is still freaking out over everything (FRISSSSBEEEEEES!!!!), Abed [Danny Pudi] is still way too immersed in TV references (BAZINGA!) and Dean Pelton [Jim Rash] will still do whatever Jeff Winger says.”
The only dark cloud on all this joyous unveiling of trailers and posters, is that Yahoo! hasn’t made it clear how available Community will be worldwide.
The trailer debuted on a slew of US-based entertainment sites and, rather perversely, the globe-spanning Facebook with a geoblock quite firmly attached to its use, and no attempt, to date at least, by Yahoo! to make it more widely available.
This serious promo misstep has left the show’s army of non-US fans, of which there are a considerable number, unhappy and worried about whether they will easily be able to view the show they love.
You can only hope that Yahoo!, which has announced its intent to be a serious rival once again to the likes of Google, which does realise people outside the US use the internet and watch TV, will realise we are all Greendale Human Beings and deserve equal success to Community‘s wonderfully surreal sense of humour.
Community returns on March 17 on Yahoo! Screen with new episodes released each Tuesday.