As any Human Being knows, the ever-brilliant and hilarious Community recently returned to NBC on Thursday night, after being benched initially when the network unveiled their midseason schedule.

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A couple months ago, I visited the set of Community as the cast worked on the last few weeks of production on Season 3 . I'll have more material from this visit down the line, since there were several things occurring that I can't go into detail on yet.Set visit interviews are typically on the short side, as the cast are usually in the middle of filming and sometimes only available for a few minutes, due to production needs. But I was lucky enough to get a much longer conversation than is the norm on these occasions with Gillian Jacobs and Alison Brie We were still a couple of weeks from learning Community's return date at this point, but Jacobs and Brie spoke about how much the fan support during their hiatus meant, what it's like seeing various groups of "shippers" react to the show and much more, while giving a few hints about what's to come – even as they both laughed about the fact that they were having trouble recalling everything they'd shot through the season. Oh, and you'll see a reference to them wearing "crazy costumes" while we spoke, but what those costumes were has to remain quiet for the time being, I'm afraid!Obviously it was disappointing to be pulled from the schedule, but I had kind of willfully forgotten about the fact that 30 Rock had to come back. So once they made the announcement I was like, "Oh, yeah." Something was going to happen along those lines because there were one too many shows for Thursday. So it was disappointing, but I really think it was encouraging to us that they didn't reduce our episode order.And then the fans, they're everything that we always hoped and dreamed they would be. They're the best. They are so resourceful and organized and creative. They're not just sending things to NBC. They're tweeting our advertisers that aired during our final episodes [in 2011] and saying, "I saw your ad for Yoplait, and I really enjoyed it during Community. Thank you so much for supporting Community." And they're having flash mobs in New York and LA and around the country. They're just the best. The number of "Save Community" Twitter accounts that have sprung up in the last couple months, it's really incredible. It makes you want to keep fighting when you see how hard they're fighting to keep the show on the air.I feel like it actually gave us a great boost, morale-wise, seeing the way the fans have stuck by the show and taken up… what am I trying to say?The mantle!Yes! With their flash mobs and their support online. I'm almost never felt prouder to be on the show because we're suddenly so able to see the impact the show has had on people and how much they enjoy it and missed it being on. It's really special.It'll be the equivalent to when you miss a show and you don't catch it from the beginning so you rent it on DVD and watch them all in a row.But that's such a good one!I know!People seem to continue to discover our show. I feel like even though we're a third-season show, I get tweets all the time that are like, "I just discovered your show!" And I feel like for those people, they're able to catch up and then have a whole half-season of new episodes.It's been a nice time for people to catch up.Yeah, and having everything on Hulu, too, gives people access to the whole show.Absolutely. There is an episode we shot where Danny [Pudi ] and I are paired up the whole episode.I forgot about that episode!I know, I did too! It actually just made me think of it when you mentioned the timeline episode, because it's a very conceptual episode. But really, it's delving into the fundamentals of their relationship and who Abed is and what makes him tick. I think we delve into Abed's character a lot because he's hard to figure out, you know? But it's always kind of cool to see how he relates to different people now that Annie's living with Abed and Troy and to kind of to re-explore that relationship and see why they're so close or where they differ and how they don't get along. That stuff is woven into these more conceptual episodes. It's what gives them weight. We never do conceptual episodes just for the sake of doing it, even with this stuff. Like you said, the stakes have never been higher for the group. We're all in crazy costumes this week, but it means something to the group in a way that it never has before.

Continue to Page 2 , as Alison and Gillian discuss "shippers" and Community getting meta.