As I write these words, the ink has only been dry on the official press release from NBC for less than seven hours. Though I may not be able to articulate my thoughts as well right now as I would like, here goes.

Even though, being a reality-accepting fan of Community, I expected in the back of my mind for it to be cancelled, that didn’t make it any easier when I just found out. I first discovered Community the day the pilot aired, (yes I remember the date) September 25th, 2009. That was in that beautiful three week period when it aired at 9:30 after the Office on Thursdays, before NBC prematurely signed its death warrant by making it go head-to-head with The Big Bang Theory, and a promo for it aired during what was the sixth season premier of the Office that night (the parkour episode, anyone?). It was the end of Jeff’s now famous “look left” speech, that ended something to this degree:

“You’ve just stopped being a study group. You have become something unstoppable. I hereby pronounce you… a community.”

For the life of me I couldn’t tell you what it was drew me to the show based on that quote. But I watched the Pilot, and loved it. And then I started watching Community. And my love for the show came before the seminal first Paintball episode. My love for the show came before naked pool. My love for the show came before Jack Black.

There was something about this show. It wasn’t just the irreverent, fast-paced, pop culture referencing humor. Arrested Development had that, and I didn’t love AD nearly as much as I loved this show (though I did and continue to love it greatly). It wasn’t just the snarky, sarcastic lead male character stuck in a crappy situation that he used his ability to wise talk and pick up chicks to make feel smoother, MASH had that. It wasn’t just the ridiculous, over-the-top shenanigans that the students at Greendale would get into week after week, the Office (at least the latter days Office I caught on TV) had that. It was all of those things put together.

Community was (oh great googly moogly do I hate referring to this show in past tense) a show that understood itself. Barring a certain gas leak year that shall not be named, it was always a show that, like my personal favorite character Abed, was intensely, hyperly, insanely self-focused. And because of that, it knew what it had on its hands: a group of lovable misfits who had a lot of stuff they needed to figure out. A group of people who, much like the island in LOST, came to Greendale coming off of situations that made them broken. They didn’t understand what Greendale would do for them, but it would eventually help them. And not by fixing them, but by allowing them to revel in what made them weird.

Most sitcoms- hell, most television shows in general- have a very strange tendency to put the characters who are slightly off beat on the margins. In Scrubs, it was the Janitor. In MASH, it was Radar, then Klinger. Sheldon is incessantly mocked on the Big Bang Theory. All of the characters in How I Met Your Mother seem to be insanely well-adjusted 30-somethings who live in New York and nominally have their lives put together (with the exception of their never-ending romantic woes). Community brought real, broken people to the spotlight. And it did so in a way that celebrated them. It didn’t alienate them- even Abed, the guy with self-diagnosed Asperger’s syndrome who always has to relate to the world through movies and TV- it allowed them to have a home. And by extension, it allowed us to have a home with them.

I loved- I love- Community because it’s a show that so accurately manages to dig into the human condition in a way that’s fun and believable. Even in the midst of their more ridiculous adventures- paintball, zombies, pillow fights, hot lava games- there is always a very human story at the center of it. The central conflict of the first paintball adventure isn’t paintball, it’s the season-long sexual and relational tension between Jeff and Britta. The central conflict of the pillow fight two-parter in season three isn’t a fight between Fluffytown and Blanketsburg (hot dang, how could NBC have ever cancelled this show?), it’s a conflict between Troy and Abed. And the pinnacle, seemingly, of all the concept episodes, Dungeons and Dragons, isn’t an episode about playing D&D- it’s an episode about how badly Pierce wants to be included, and about how the rest of the Greendale 7 is sincerely made up of good people who want to reach out and help a classmate in trouble.

Community has always had the biggest heart of any sitcom on TV. But something else strange happened. Somewhere in the course of its first or second season, something happened to it that by all rights shouldn’t happen to a show unless it reaches premature cancellation first: it became a cult hit. It was a fiercely loved, but not highly watched show, and by the time it reached its infamous mid-season hiatus in season three, it became a bastion for all television geeks that desperately needed vindication, in some cases, and satisfaction in others. “Six seasons and a movie” started as a throwaway joke in a brilliant jewel of an episode (Season 2, episode 21: Paradigms of Human Memory) and turned into a rallying cry that would be the bane of NBC’s existence. It was the geek banner of all geek banners. It was our show.

And it, sadly, has died a premature death. In spite of the firing and subsequent re-hiring of Dan Harmon, the return to form season of Season 5, and the fact that it was only three episodes short of 100 (being a syndication hallmark number- 100 is easier to market), it has been given the ax. In spite of the fact that the season finale we were given, I’m assuming out of hope on the part of Harmon and the rest of the producing team, we don’t have resolution. We didn’t get that sixth season, we didn’t get that movie.

So, tonight, I will put on my fake black goatee. Tonight, I will fully embrace the reality that is the darkest timeline. Community, I loved you, and I will miss you. There was never a show like you, and there will never be a show quite like you again. I was with you from the beginning, and I was with you to the end.

You have lasted six seasons and a movie in my heart.