It's still hard to believe that Community's rallying cry/slogan, "six seasons and a movie," has become a reality. Fans of the quirky and inventive sitcom know that Community's entire run was fairly turbulent. The series was frequently shuffled around on NBC's schedule during its original run due to its low ratings. However, despite never catching on with the broader television-watching public, Community found a hardcore audience that deeply resonated with the show's innovative approach to the sitcom.
Although there were enough aspects of Community that helped it remain ground in the conventional sitcom approach, the series frequently broke new ground with wildly experimental, one-off episodes. From the hilarious paintball episode—that plays like a parody of 90s action films— to the D&D episode, Community has always tinkered with the sitcom format. However, Dan Harmon has been pretty clear that fans of the series shouldn't expect the elements from the aforementioned episodes to find their way into the upcoming Community movie.
On Friday's episode of "Six Seasons and a Podcast," Harmon pulled back the curtain on what to expect in the "Community" movie that will release on Peacock.
"It's a lot easier for me to rule stuff out than tell you what we're pursuing," he told the hosts. "For instance, we go, 'Do we really think it'd be a good idea to be a paintball episode?' It's one of the first things to rule out because it's the first thing off the top of your head, and that's an issue with the 'Community' movie concept. We did a lot of episodes where you are joyfully locked into a construct that isn't a traditional sitcom narrative, but is rather through the lens of David Fincher or Martin Scorsese. There were a lot of special episodes that were kind of like genre homages. The paintball thing was one of them. We tried to do a bunch more paintballs, and they were all perfectly wonderful things to do, but would anything ever capture the joy of the original paintball episode?"
