Six seasons and a movie! It seems somehow appropriate that the rallying cry for Dan Harmon’s eternally oddball NBC sitcom Community would originate from a source as random as The Cape, a short-lived superhero TV show starring Summer Glau and Keith David. Yet there was Abed mimicking that show’s hero in Community‘s second season episode “Paradigms of Human Memory,” parading around campus in a Batman cape and generally annoying the heck out of Jeff Winger:
It was a joke at the cost of a fairly easy target, but Abed’s decree of six seasons and a movie for the then already-canceled The Cape has now become the mantra for Community itself. At this point, they are tantalizingly close to at least getting to the six seasons part, after having unexpectedly returned this year for its fifth season. Sure, the ratings aren’t actually any better, but it has been creatively renewed thanks to Dan Harmon being brought back after a one season hiatus. Plus, it’s not like NBC has anything around to push it off the schedule. They have thus far failed to launch a single new hit comedy in the 2013/2014 TV season which will make it to a second year.
Well, Dan Harmon is fully aware of all of that, and he’s talking like this six seasons and a movie thing might actually happen. He recently told HitFlix:
“If the movie has to be made out of clay and duct tape in my basement, then that’s how the movie will be made, because there has to be closure. The title of the book about the show is not Community, An Interesting Journey into a Show No One Ever Watched. The title of the book is obviously going to be, Six Seasons and a Movie.”
TVGuide now backs him up, citing the standard unnamed insider sources who claim that NBC and Sony are so confident the show will return for a 6th season that they’re starting to consider potential directors for a wrap-up film. The candidates would appear to be those people who’ve directed past episodes but have feature film credits as well, such as Justin Lin (Fast & Furious), The Russo Brothers (Captain America: The Winter Soldier), and Jay Chandrasekhar (Super Troopers). Even if NBC cancels it after the current season, Sony will aggressively shop a sixth and presumably final season to anyone who’ll listen, particularly Hulu since they have the digital rights.
So, what would a 6th season look like? Well, it will at least continue the events of the two-part season 5 finale (airing 4/10 and 4/17) in which Subway attempts to purchase “Greendale Community College and turn it into Subway University. Jeff (Joel McHale) is offered a job by the sandwich conglomerate, while Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) tells Annie (Alison Brie) and Abed about the secret of Greendale’s first dean (guest star Chris Elliott), which could help save the school. Ultimately Jeff and Britta (Gillian Jacobs) make a decision about their future.”
As for a movie, Dan Harmon weighed in on that at Paleyfest yesterday, explaining how they would go with an action/sci-fi motif to try and justify a movie’s existence:
“Our TV show’s not that popular […] If we make a movie, we really have to reinvent the wheel in terms of why someone would watch a movie. My ultimate goal would be for people to watch the movie and to say, ‘I’m one of the 249 billion Americans that have never heard of this show, but holy crap, this movie is crazy and really funny and awesome.’”
Harmon also indicated the obvious, namely that they would all love for Donald “Troy Barnes” Glover to return for any hypothetical 6th season and/or movie.
Meanwhile, while all of that has gone down NBC released a hilarious promo for the next new Community episode which for story line reasons not yet known will be animated in G.J. Joe Fashion. Here’s Britta as Buzzkill trying to teach little kids a lesson, only to be interrupted by Abed’s Fourth Wall:
This G.I. Joe-inspired episode will premiere April 3rd. As for any 6th season or movie, well nothing’s guaranteed. However, keep up the faith Greendale Humans #SixSeasonsAndAMovie
We Minored in Film 