Ratings debate: Will NBC’s ‘Community’ score a much-deserved season 6?

“Community” has long been the cool, cool, cool engine that could. It has never been a breakout hit, but even in spite of that, it has withstood heavy competition, time changes, premiering at midseason, going off of the schedule, losing Dan Harmon, Chevy Chase leaving, gaining Dan Harmon back, and losing Donald Glover. Yet, through it all it’s still here, and the end of season 5 was still amazing.

But, can there really be a season 6 with the numbers still dropping? Are we going to be unable to pop, pop open the champagne? That’s what we will investigate in our latest Ratings Debate piece.

The case for renewal – First of all, fan satisfaction. That really means something. Do you really want to incite some sort of fan revolt? It will not be pretty if you cancel the show right before the “six seasons” part of the “six seasons and a movie” happens.

Also, we know the show performs well with young men (a tough demographic for most network TV these days), is critically acclaimed (also a tough thing for network TV), and it’s not like many other comedies are going to do a whole lot better against “The Big Bang Theory.”

The case for cancellation – The numbers are not good, and with “About a Boy” and “Growing Up Fisher” faring decently on Tuesday nights now (even if they have a good lead-in), there may not be the demand for more “Community” that there once was just to have returning comedies on the network. You also have the issue that this is a Sony TV show, and networks will always prefer in-house projects to ones that come from outside studios.

Verdict – Given that this is probably our favorite comedy of the past five years, we admit that there is a tingle of bias in this article. At the same time, though, we genuinely believe that a season 6 will happen. It’s not a sure thing, but given NBC’s woes on Thursday nights, and the occasional need for midseason shows, we still feel like they will satisfy fans and order a 13-episode final season (which will and probably should be billed as such). The show at this point, like another favorite in “Chuck,” deserves to go out with with gravitas … and hopefully some incredible, post-Apocalyptic episode with blanket forts and paintball guns.

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Photo: NBC