With production on “Community” season 6 beginning next week, the comedy is adding two actors to the cast: Paget Brewster and Keith David.
The series was already without original regulars Donald Glover and Chevy Chase by the end of last season, and Yvette Nicole Brown had to leave to care for her ill father. Plus, Jonathan Banks and John Oliver, who were significant parts of season 5, are busy with other jobs (“Better Call Saul” and “Last Week Tonight,” respectively) and aren’t likely to be back. Even with the return of Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Alison Brie, Jim Rash and Ken Jeong, the world of Greendale was getting awfully under-populated.
Now the show’s added two comedy veterans – one of whom has already been on the show in another role.
Brewster (who, before her stint on “Criminal Minds,” was a regular on a whole bunch of sitcoms, albeit most of them short-lived) appeared briefly in season 5’s “Analysis of Cork-Based Networking” as Greendale’s IT chief. Now she’ll have a new role – though I’m assuming Abed will notice the resemblance to the previous one – as Francesca “Frankie” Dart, a consultant hired to help shape up the school. David – late of the great “Enlisted,” which new “Community” home Yahoo briefly explored picking up (“Enlisted” creator Kevin Biegel, is consulting on this season) – will play Elroy Patashnik, a retired scientist who comes to Greendale to reinvent himself. (UPDATE: Forgot to mention that David also narrated the Ken Burns parody in “Pillows and Blankets.”)
Though at one point there was talk of this sixth season premiering sometime in the fall, production won’t even begin until November 17, and Yahoo now says to expect the 13-episode season sometime in early 2015.
What does everybody else think? Does “Community” need some new blood at this late date? Or are you worried that something’s been lost with only four members of the original study group remaining?