Dear Hulu: Please Don't Resurrect 'Community'

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Wednesday evening, Deadline reported that Hulu was "in talks" with Sony Pictures TV to bring Community back from the dead for a post-cancellation season on the streaming service. We respectfully ask Hulu to not do that. 

Hulu was the front-runner to become Community's post-NBC home pretty much the moment the show was cancelled, but a revival at all was seen as a long shot, for a number of reasons. And now, according to Deadline, "Sources stress that conversations are preliminary and it is unclear whether they would lead to a deal, but I hear there is will on both sides." So this should probably be considered a tenuous prospect at best. All the better, then, to nip this in the bud now.

Community doesn't need to be revived. This isn't a Freaks and Geeks situation – Community had five seasons on air, more than most cult shows, and it isn't as if the show was only now hitting its prime. Sure, it's one short of its six season hashtag, but that's no more reason to bring it back than any other Twitter joke. The show left very few story lines unwrapped at the end of the fifth season. There's no cliffhanger to resolve. This wasn't a premature death. A sixth season on Hulu would be nothing but pandering fan service.

And moreover, Community shouldn't be revived. Just because this is the Internet and we can do that now doesn't mean every show that gets cancelled while people are still marginally interested in it needs to find a new home online. Season four proved decidedly that Dan Harmon is the critical creative drive behind the show, and the show-runner admitted after Community's cancellation that he was "definitely in the 'eh' column" for a sixth season. Sure, he won't "be the guy that recancels cancelled Community," but anything but rabid rage-against-the-network fury from Harmon leaves us highly skeptical of any potential quality of a new season. And that's the problem with these post-cancellation revivals, isn't it? How often do they live up to the hype (see: Arrested Development)? Giving fans exactly what they want is the surest way to make nobody care about a sixth season of Community. 

So please, Hulu, snuff out this talk right now. Let Community rest. It had a good run, it was on a decline, it ended when it should have, and no hashtag can convince us otherwise. At its best, Community was the most creative and interesting show on television. It won't be the same on Hulu. The fans have been through enough, certainly. We don't need endless revival speculation. And besides – we'll always have our DVDs. 

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.