After presumably walking out to Señor Chang’s “I Never Die” rap from back in season one, Dan Harmon regaled a crowd of Comic-Con attendees with fabulous stories about the return of Community and how it will single-handedly dismantle traditional television broadcast models. OK, so he didn’t really say that, but Joel McHale did say “fuck you, network television,” which is pretty close. That comes from Variety’s write-up of Community’s Comic-Con panel, which was treated as a celebration of the show’s newfound rebirth as a part of Yahoo Screen.
Variety also reports that Harmon says he wasn’t sure about continuing Community at first, but after he talked with Yahoo’s people and determined that they “seemed really smart and cool,” he jumped on the deal. Don’t expect the show to drastically change, though, now that it’s on the Internet and free from network television’s archaic hangups about swearing and nudity. Harmon says he intends “to make the same show and let the lack of boundaries make themselves felt,” and that he doesn’t want to “make the episode 49 minutes long and say the F word the entire time” just because he can.
Also, Harmon hasn’t started writing the new season yet—which should hardly surprise anyone who is familiar with his creative process through the Harmontown podcast—but it sounds like Jonathan Banks’ character will not return. It’s “contractually possible” for John Oliver’s Professor Duncan to come back, but it will depend on his HBO show’s schedule. There’s also a chance Donald Glover will come back, but it sounds like Harmon is saving a momentous occasion like that for the “and a movie” part of #SixSeasonsAndAMovie.
According to Deadline, Yahoo won’t be dumping the entire season online like Netflix does, choosing instead to put each episode up weekly like on regular TV. As for when that will happen, the only word we have is that it “won’t come before Christmas 2014.” In other words, look for Community season six to premiere on December 26 of this year. If not, it’s riot time.