Last week we ran a post called Why Nobody’s Talking About Community Anymore, which came to certain conclusions about the quality of the series this year and raised a bit of a ruckus. In keeping with our equal time policy – which just started today, but hey – we’re pleased us, um, punch to present another point of view:
by Pilot Viruet
The sixth season of Community should have been its biggest and most celebrated. Long before it existed, before it was even a real possibility, it was already the subject of a joking-but-not-really-joking hashtag that began in Season 2’s “Paradigms of Human Memory,” with Abed’s passing reference to The Cape. “Six seasons and a movie” was the rallying cry of fans who believed, accurately, that Community was good enough to run for several more years, despite what NBC (and the ratings) said. And against all odds — Dan Harmon’s firing and subsequent rehiring, a gas-leak season, and even a cancellation — that sixth season did happen and is currently airing. But the fanfare around the series seems to have died down.
It’s a curious development, albeit one that is easy to explain. There is, of course, the fact that Community now airs on a streaming site, Yahoo Screen (which is difficult to navigate and features a less-than-stellar video player), rather than on a broadcast network. But Community has always been fueled by the Internet — I can’t imagine it would have lasted five seasons on NBC, let alone been rescued by Yahoo, if not for the intensity of its fans on social media, who delighted in hashtags and quoted every line and took over A.V. Club comment sections. So it should be just as equipped as any other show to thrive online.