Since NBC announced it was parting ways with series-creator Dan Harmon and airing Community in the Friday deadzone, fans of the college-set sitcom have been braced for disaster. That disaster appeared to arrive this week, with the news that the channel had decided to delay the start of the fourth series indefinitely.

Such postponements are rarely good news – just ask fans of Cougar Town, another interesting sitcom unfairly treated by its network (in this case ABC), which was saved only by the intervention of cable channel TNT.

During the furore over Cougar Town I interviewed Bill Lawrence, the show's creator, who said: "Had we not been left off the schedule we would have been fine. It was a death blow."

So is there any hope for Community?

In its favor is the fact that NBC's new sitcom slate is not especially strong – and in the case of Animal Practice, downright horrible. This means that a new slot could open up earlier than expected. It's also true that the shortened final run of 30 Rock will mean that there will be space, later in the year, in what was Community's old slot.

Yet its also the case that any show, even one with a fervent (if small) fanbase, such as Community, will struggle to build momentum if viewers can never be sure when it is going to air. In the UK, critically acclaimed shows like Breaking Bad and Oz failed to find wider audiences because they were shuffled around the schedules. Mention "BBC2" to a British Seinfeld fan and the chances are they'll mutter darkly about midnight airings and seasons out of sync.

It's also true that ahead of this season, Community had more column inches lavished upon it than usual – it is a show that garners a lot of column inches in proportion to its ratings. Whereas Whitney fans (presuming such people exist) could rightly claim that their show has also been yanked from the schedules while being pretty much ignored, the US media, in print and online, has been full of interviews with Community's new show runners, Moses Port and David Guarascio, as they outline their plans for a brave new Harmon-less world.

Such press makes it seem doubly strange that NBC would pull Community now.

There are also those who worry that even when the show does come back, it won't be the same. Community fans are a committed bunch, delighting in the show's parodies and in-jokes and enjoying the fact that this is a show which can reference everything from Doctor Who to My Dinner With Andre, often in the same episode.

For those fans, and I'll admit I'm one, the fear is that a large part of the show's anarchic appeal will be lost as the new writers reshape it into something with a broader appeal. And while Port and Guarascio are brave to agree to take on a comedy with such a singular voice – both noted in interviews that they originally turned the offer down – the plot lines outlined by them in interviews raise more than a sliver of concern.

There was a lot of talk about relationships and change and character growth, all sitcom staples but which feel a little weird when applied to Community, a show which has never been afraid to play around with and even completely ignore traditional tropes.

That said, it's unfair to dismiss a show before an episode has aired. Harmon might have gone but he left behind a strong writing room including the brilliant Megan Ganz. Furthermore, Happy Endings, the relationship sitcom on which Port and Guarascio previously worked, was both cleverer and more quirky than it initially appeared.