In case you missed it over the weekend, as predicted, NBC officially cancelled Community and basically dismantled Must See TV on Thursdays. Though the cast and Harmon took to Twitter to express their thanks after the announcement on Friday, Harmon spoke about the cancellation out in public for the first time on his podcast this weekend.
“We all know what happened yesterday, we all got drunk,” Harmon said the day after the Community cancellation. “I was in a place of grief … It’ll take weeks to sink in.”
He was flying to Portland for the taping of the podcast when he got the news. Via Deadline:
“I was on my way to LAX and somebody from Sony called me,” Harmon said. “The fans of that show have more reason to be upset than I do. I can try to make another show and also I got paid for every minute I cared about that show. The people that are most devastated are people who put unpaid labor into the show [aka fans]. They didn’t get compensated for it. They loved the show.”
Deadline also reports mostly based on hearsay that Community will not be resurrected in a new home, like Hulu (which would have the rights). It’s not a bad prediction, either. The cast — based on the tweets — really seemed like they were moving on, and Dan Harmon is very busy with Rick & Morty, which at this point gets nearly as high ratings on Adult Swim in the 18-49 demo than Community got on NBC. It also frees, potentially, Joel McHale to take over for Craig Ferguson (although, that seems unlikely). Donald Glover is gone. Chevy Chase is gone. Dan Harmon has another project, and Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, and Alison Brie won’t have any problems finding new gigs, either in feature films or in television. I am a little concerned for Danny Pudi and Yvette Nicole Brown, but they’ll be all right, I suspect. Just keep them away from Nick & Nite.
It’s time to let it go, I think, although it remains to be seen if Community becomes the next Arrested Development and questions about a movie follow the cast around for years to come.
Updated: Dan Harmon took to his tumblr to kind of reiterate the same suggestion, which is basically that he’s not that wild about uncancelling Community, but he won’t stand in the way, either.
Let’s start with that, the idea that I don’t want this to continue. I don’t think I’m the guy that gets to say what happens at the more effective levels — my career would have a different shape if I were that guy … I will confess, however, that when Sony called me on Friday with the news, there was brief discussion at the end of the call about the concept of the show living elsewhere, and I was definitely in the “eh” column. For a million reasons, some selfish, some creative, one logistic, five sexual, three racist (in a good way) and, oddly, nine isometric …
I’m scared to tell you how little a difference I think my enthusiasm will make. I know fandom, when it gets this deep for this long, becomes almost religious, including the urge to stone the less than faithful. But there are lots of reasons a Community resurrection could be difficult. So be prepared for that.
He went on to basically say that one of the reasons he’s not incredibly enthusiastic about bringing Community back is because, essentially, he doesn’t want to pressure the fan community anymore, and doesn’t want us to feel like we owe it to him to fight for the resurrection of Community. It may or may not happen, but we should all relax, enjoy our lives, and let the people who make these decisions make these decisions.
So, maybe it’s not the end, but it would be difficult to bring it back, so it’s probably the end?
Source: Deadline and Dan Harmon’s Tumblr
