The world of university is a strange place where people from very different generations and walks of life can form quasi-familial groups before going their separate ways, never to meet again. Only in hindsight do you realize how extraordinary this experience is, at least if you experienced it as an 18-year-old suddenly thrown into the pool that is adulthood and desperately trying to keep your head above water. Dan Harmon's “Community” isn't the most realistic college sitcom on the surface — in fact, the further it went, the more casual and cartoonish it became — but it's one of the most honest. It knows what it's like to be in this world, and the mix of loving pop culture parodies, satirical attacks on community college politics, and honest character work served to capture the experience of aspirations to maturity as a person in an environment where stunted growth abounds.
15 years after the series debuted on NBC on September 17, 2009, “Community” has carved out a lasting legacy thanks to people who either revisit it or watch it for the first time in syndication and streaming. However, in its initial phase, the series had great difficulty staying afloat. It was constantly on the verge of collapsing due to low ratings before Sword of Damocles truly went down after Season 5, exclusively for Yahoo! Screen (who? Don't worry, we'll get to that soon) to revive the series for a sixth and final installment. Therein lies the contradiction at the heart of “Community”: the incredible specificity of its nerdy homages and observations of human nature give the show a degree of universal appeal, and yet its esoteric sensibilities (itself a reflection of Harmon, a renowned if undeniably problematic writer) have also prevented it from achieving something more than a cult success in his lifetime.
In short? “Community” was ultimately canceled because it no longer made business sense to keep it going, the show's cast and crew said.
More communities, more problems
As crazy as it sounds now, Chevy Chase was certainly the most famous name on the “Community” cast when the show premiered. However, by the time he left after Season 4, all of his main characters had become major players. Bypassing the behind-the-scenes drama that led to the actor's departure (which is a conversation in itself), Chase's absence combined with Harmon's return as showrunner after being fired at the end of season three actually turned out to be a creative boon for the show. Unfortunately, that didn't happen when Chase's other student, Donald Glover, also left midway through season five, nor when Yvette Nicole Brown truly graduated at the end of that season.
Still, with an ensemble that included Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Alison Brie, Danny Pudi, Jim Rash and Ken Jeong (plus new members Keith David and Paget Brewster), “Community” had plenty of stars in Season 6… which also was a problem. I talk to Tygodnik Metro after the program ended in 2015, McHale explained that it would simply be impossible to continue the antics at Greendale Community College (something Harmon and his writers were clearly aware of – hence the Season 6 finale playing out like a series finale):
“All our contracts expired after six years. All of the show's actors, almost without exception, have seen their stock skyrocket and the stakes are beyond what they can afford to be on the show. So you're not going to be able to give Alison Brie or Gillian Jacobs a normal TV salary anymore. There is simply not enough money to pay for the program.”
Combine ever-increasing costs with the show's cult following, and it's no surprise that “Community” was the reason for Yahoo!'s downfall. The screen instead of his savior. While the media hosting service had ambitions to become the next big thing by producing Season 6 of “Community,” it instead took a whopping $42 million write-down on this and other projects in 2015 (via Variety) before dissolving completely four years later. What about whether “Community” will ever live up to the promise of “Six Seasons and a Movie” (a rallying cry that arose from a one-off joke in season two)? At this point, unlikely comebacks are largely the domain of the Greendale research group, and they are closer than ever to creating another one.
