This week’s post-mortem with Dan Harmon on the latest episode of Community, “Advanced Safety Features,” really didn’t have much to do with the episode itself. Mostly, Dan Harmon spoke about the mixed feelings he has to still be doing Community and the future of the series (if there even is one). From the way it sounds, I wouldn’t get your hopes up for another season.

Harmon told Yahoo that he sees this season of Community as a kind of purgatory — “Am I being punished, or am I being rewarded? Is this heaven or hell?” — and that he doesn’t know if he’s “supposed to be here or not anymore.” Harmon basically sees Greendale and the show as a place for him to “work his sh*t out,” mostly through Jeff Winger.

Harmon is not the only one who’s deeply ambivalent about continuing, however. While Joel McHale would definitely stick around for another season (“if there’s money to be made… he’s happy to do it”), Harmon is not so sure about the rest the cast. Alison Brie, he says, is a movie star who “could be out there doing God knows what,” while Ken Jeong is developing his own sitcom. Harmon does think he could “trick” Gillian Jacobs into staying, while Danny Pudi’s situation is up in the air (he has a pilot in the works).

The way Harmon sees it, if there were to be another season of Community, “I feel like Joel and Gillian and Jim… maybe you could trick them into staying,” but that seems to be about it.

As much as I like this season of Community, I don’t think the show survives another major character loss. While I’m sure that Yahoo would be happy to bring the show back for another season, I don’t know that Dan Harmon’s heart would be in it. He already takes self-reflexive potshots at both himself and the show in practically every episode. With all the meta-commentary on the series already, you have to imagine that — if it stuck around another season — it would just start eating itself.

Source: Yahoo