Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Community is back, at long last.


I feel fantastic. The past couple of weeks have been some of the best in a long time. God has recently blessed me with just one thing that I have asked for, the return of Community. The last time that you caught up with me I was in the throes of sadness as Community was literally ripped from NBC’s Thursday night schedule and put on “hiatus.” With almost no warning, myself and thousands of others lost what brings them so much joy from week to week. If that wasn’t bad enough, we weren’t even given a firm date as to when we could expect it’s return. There were even rumors that it would even be canceled outright. With two (and a half) seasons and a movie to go until its goal, Community was definitely in a dire situation.

And yet, we survived. More importantly we prevailed. We lived our Community-less lives enduring painful and sometimes humorless blocks of Must See TV. We cursed Whitney and its proprietors. Why couldn’t she have gotten the ax? But most of all, those cherished box sets of the first two seasons found new life as our only connection to what we love.

After the pain lessened and a scab had formed, the time had come to let our voices be heard. Just cause our show was gone didn’t mean we had to shut up about it. We filled forums with our rants, speculations and pleading. Todd VanDerWerff, of the A.V. Club even posted the address of the most useful NBC associate to send a letter of protest to, if so inclined. But mostly this down time gave us time to regroup, as fans, and encourage others to check out the show, to proselytize, if you will. I did more than my part, to a few of my friend’s detriment. Hopefully we convinced a few people how enriching Community can be. What I know now is that our community (pun very much intended) is stronger than ever.

Perhaps they’re bringing it back just to keep us quiet (their error, this is just going to make us louder than before) or perhaps we convinced someone, or someones to give in and give us what we want. Whatever the reason, we are getting it back and how happy this makes me. At the time of this writing, there are only 21 hours, 26 Minutes and a handful of seconds to wait until we can laugh again. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready.