Dan Harmon's Gone... Does That Mean "Community's" Dead?

Word broke on Friday night that Community creator/showrunner/writer/God Dan Harmon would not be brought back by Sony (which owns the show) as showrunner. While NBC head Bob Greenblatt had casually mentioned earlier in the week that Harmon's contract had not been renewed & that shows often go through multiple showrunners the news still came as a shock seeing as the show likely only has 13 episodes left, & Harmon is truly the heart & soul of it.



The reasons for Sony's decision are best described in the Vulture piece that broke the story, but the basics seem to be that Harmon is difficult to work with (something he himself has readily admitted in the past), not a great manager, & his creative vision has always differed from Sony's & NBC's as they would have preferred a more broadly appealing show then the often bizarre, if brilliant, one Harmon created. Those first two are reasonable, but the latter seems, as James Poniewozik explains, like an odd reason to can Harmon as the show is more likely to lose part of its devoted fan base because of his absence than it is to gain them by making a broader, less original, show.


What makes the whole thing worse is that no one at Sony or NBC apparently felt the need to call Harmon & give him the news. As Harmon made clear in his hilarious, even under the circumstances, blog post on the situation Sony never even tried to negotiate with him & he was never told he was being let go, let alone the reasons why. While a lack of judgement on Greenblatt's part may not be surprising considering he once greenlit this, I'd have still thought he, or someone at either organization would have had the class to give Harmon the heads up. That they didn't is simply pathetic.


All of this has, understandably, caused many a Human Being to declare this the end. They point out that executive producers Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan have already left to help run the promising looking Ben and Kate on ABC, & the lone writer remaining from season 1, Chris McKenna, is also departing. The former is important, as they would have been the natural choice to take over, though they may have refused anyway out of respect to Harmon, but the latter (as good a writer as he is) is not. It bears repeating that McKenna was the ONLY writer from the first season remaining & yet this last season remained brilliant. Though this also just points to the importance of Harmon in maintaining the shows consistency.


Harmon was obsessive about the show & it undoubtedly benefited from that single mindedness. In his piece on Harmon's departure Alan Sepinwall lists a number of shows that had a similarly important showrunners, & how they fared after their departure. What his examples demonstrate is that while a show can continue on, & be quite good, it never maintains that unique brilliance it previously had.


So no, we'll probably never get anything as brilliantly weird as "Virtual Systems Analysis," but I disagree with the "it's all over," darkest timeline, stance. The new showrunners (who were last seen producing the hilarious Happy Endings) are by all accounts fully capable, at least some of the writers will be back, &, heartbroken though they may be, the brilliant cast will be back. Community may never be quite the same, but considering how good it's been the last 3 years it can drop off & still be one of the best shows on TV.  That's why I'm definitely sticking around for the next 13, & I hope you do too. After all if by some miracle we get 2 more seasons God knows there is only one man who can write the movie.