Community returns next week, for its much-anticipated Season 5. When I visited the set of the show this fall, I spoke to Alison Brie about a big season that sees the return of series creator Dan Harmon and the introduction of Breaking Bad’s Jonathan Banks in a notable new recurring role as a Greendale professor, while Donald Glover makes his exit from the show. We also spoke about some of the show’s guest stars this season and how Annie Edison is doing this year.

Alison Brie as Annie Edison in Community: Season 5.

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It's incredible! It's been really incredible. The material this year I think is better than any other season. Everything's just super sharp. Dan's back, we're only doing 13 [episodes], and I think he had a year off, and now he has so much work to do and feels like there's so little time to do it, so every week we're getting these great episodes. That's not to say they're all huge, thematic episodes, but just good, just hitting all the angles. Obviously we've had a lot to deal with story-wise in terms of Pierce not being around and Troy leaving and things like that. So we're getting all that stuff done in really cool ways.You know, it's fine. We've all learned that working on Community means constant change all the time. So I think now, this year, it's offset by us being so excited to have Dan back, and the material is so great. So there's not really time to wallow in like, "Oh, not everyone's here!" We've gotten all these great people here, like Jonathan Banks, who's doing so many episodes this season, and he's incredible. We've had so many cool guest stars coming in. I mean, Nathan Fillion pops by, Tim and Eric are here this week. Also, John Oliver is doing a lot of episodes. You'll find that the Dean and Chang are much more involved. So the group is just sort of... "Chang'd." [Laughs]But it's cool to see this kind of evolution in a show. It's the fifth season, and instead of things getting a little dry and worn out, it's sort of like everything's been shaken up, and it keeps us all on our toes just having all these new people here. I think we're all on our best behavior. We're reinvigorated, just even in our own characters, because we're working with all these different people and seeing how they interact with new characters, which is always fun.It's been a really cool year for her. Annie's matured a bit since we've seen her. I tweeted a photo with Joel and Nathan Fillion, and people responded, they were like, "Annie's in pants!?" I'm like, "That's right, folks. Annie's in pants this year! It's a big deal. It's a lot of Annie's in pants." But it's funny how something small like that -- because it actually does signify a big change for the character. There's been a little time since we saw them last in Season 4, and she has matured a bit. So it's kind of back to that great gung-ho Annie that I really love, who's busting people's balls and trying to get s**t done. I love that. I have a great episode with Jonathan Banks, where we kind of go toe to toe, trying to work on something together. She's very challenging to Jeff's character again. It's, like, all these things that I think were starting to get a little lost with Annie's character over the years. She just sort of became like an "Aww!" machine. So now she's back to that gung-ho-ness, and I'm really enjoying it.

Continue to Page 2 as Brie talks about Jonathan Banks joining Community and guest stars like Nathan Fillion and Walton Goggins.