Fans of the hit sitcom Community were pretty bummed out when the show was canceled recently after five seasons, significantly damaging hope for “six seasons and a movie.”

But these days being canceled isn’t necessarily a death sentence. With the rise of streaming media, other options exist. The hope that a company like Netflix or Hulu or Amazon will resurrect a dead series for their streaming service means faithful fans always have a little spark of hope.

For Community, that hope is now a reality. The comedy is indeed getting a season six after all, but its savior might not be who you were expecting.

It looks like the doors of Greendale Community College are closing forever.

Today any hope for intelligent, innovative comedy finding a home at NBC was almost permanently nuked like a microwaved gremlin as the network has announced the long-dreaded yet tragically inevitable cancellation of the cult favorite comedy series Community only a few weeks after the conclusion of its fifth season.

The Way, Way Back
Director(s): Nat Faxon, Jim Rash
Screenwriter(s): Nat Faxon, Jim Rash
Cast: Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Allison Janney, AnnaSophia Robb, Sam Rockwell, Maya Rudolph, Rob Corddry
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Rated R | 103 Minutes
Release Date: July 19, 2013

Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, Academy Award winners for their screenplay of Alexander Payne’s The Descendants, have written, produced, and directed a delightful coming-of-age film with The Way, Way Back.

The film stars Liam James as Duncan, a 14-year-old introvert who goes on summer vacation with his mother Pam (Toni Collette), her new boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell), and his daughter Steph (Zoe Levin).

When we first meet Duncan, he’s riding in the “way back” of a vintage station wagon driven by Trent, who is sizing him up in the rearview mirror. Trent asks Duncan how he rates himself on a scale of one to ten. When Duncan answers six, Trent tells him he’s a three. He expects Duncan to use his time at the beach house this summer to “get that score up.” What a jerk.

Good news for fans of the hit NBC sitcom Community, as the entire cast has been confirmed to be returning when the show goes into production on season 4.

Returning cast includes Joel McHale, Alison Brie, Donald Glover, Yvette Nicole Brown, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Jim Rash, Ken Jeong, and Chevy Chase.

All but Glover, Chase, Rash, and Jeong are set to appear at Comic-Con next month.

The second of the three Community animated shorts has been released. You can watch “Abed’s Master Key Part 2” here below.

Other than a couple of nice running gags involving Super Soakers and Danny Glover, I didn’t get much laughs out of this cartoon. I understand that the purpose of these shorts is to help increase awareness of Community before the show returns next week, but shoddy Flash animation is hardly the way to go. Despite having the participation of the show’s cast there’s just not much life or even hilarity to be found here. Plus they’re too damn brief; each short runs less than two minutes and that’s not including the intros and outros. I would have preferred live-action webisodes with sharper writing. Maybe the final part of “Abed’s Master Key” will make it all worthwhile.