It's officially official. Dan Harmon is coming back to Community. The comedy's creator actually confirmed that news last week, but now NBC has made that network-official, announcing that Dan Harmon would be returning as showrunner and executive producer of Community, and adding that Chris McKenna was also set to return as executive producer. The figurative band is getting back together.
NBC's official announcement was about as short and sweet as a tweet:
Dan Harmon is returning as executive producer/showrunner for the NBC comedy “Community.” Chris McKenna is also returning as executive producer.In May, NBC ordered a fifth season of the Sony Pictures Television-produced “Community.” No debut date for the new season has been announced.
It confirms that not only is Harmon back on the show, but he's also returning as showrunner, which means hopefully we can expect great things from the series when it returns for Season 5.
Harmon was ousted as showrunner in May of last year, having been demoted to consulting producer, which would have left him with very little (if any) creative control over the show. Unsurprisingly, he left the series to pursue other endeavors. Chris McKenna also left. While the series' fourth season certainly had its moments and the humor felt very much in the spirit of what we'd seen in the first three seasons, many fans weren't happy with the Harmon-less version of the series, so it's definitely good news to hear that Harmon will be back on board and running things again. It's also going to be interesting to see if NBC puts Community back on the fall line-up or if we'll be waiting until midseason for the series to return as we did last year.
