NBC finally got around to canceling the TV sitcom Community after five seasons, which seems like a pretty decent run for an expensive oddball show with terrible ratings. But just try telling that to the aggrieved fans on Reddit's Community subforum, who are determined to bring it back at all costs, one annoyed Netflix employee at a time!

The fandom believes they're entitled to "six seasons and a movie," the millennial version of forty acres and a mule, because Abed said that once, and everyone knows that when a TV character says something, it becomes law. It's an obscure provision in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, look it up.

To achieve this quixotic goal, /r/Community is currently focusing most of its efforts on persuading Netflix to produce new episodes. Why Netflix? Well, they brought back Arrested Development for one season, so now they're considered a charity for orphaned TV shows. Forget the fact that rival video service Hulu already has the streaming rights, probably helped keep the show alive for five years, and has been producing original programming since 2011; apparently it's Netflix or nothing.

To do this, they've basically been harassing Netflix's consumer service representatives, who have been responding with, essentially, "Boy you guys are really coordinated! Haha, well, I'll pass your recommendations to the content department, have a nice day (:" Some reps even appear to be stringing the Community community along by promising them a secret surprise. Hooray for false hope!

Netflix has received literally millions of these requests if this chatlog is accurate (the main coordinator repeatedly insists it's not a Photoshop, which should be enough evidence, right?). One wonders where this unprecedented demand was when the show was actually on.

Should their Netflix lobbying efforts prove unsuccessful, r/Community has a number of fallback strategies:

  • Asking NBC really nicely. It's so ingeniously simple, I can't believe it's never been tried before!

  • Boycotting NBC. This won't have any effect on Community, of course, but it just feels right. What has this human-garbage network ever done for the show? Other than give it numerous chances and millions of dollars?

  • Hanging up a bunch of posters at school. Gotta spread awareness. Maybe a network executive will walk by and see them. You never know!

  • Making videos about what Community means to them. Yeah, not sure that's going to sway the bean counters in the finance department.

  • Haggling down their demands to just one more episode, because apparently the series finale didn't give enough closure. The new and improved Community coda needs to be the characters just crying for an hour, for the feels.

Depsite a number of inspirational pep talks urging people to stay positive and keep up the good fight, paranoia has already gripped the subreddit. It's slowly beginning to dawn on them that consumer service reps tell you what you want to hear. People wonder if the cast and crew are betraying them by not spamming their hashtags on Twitter. How dare they move on! They've even been told to relax by the show's creator. Relax??? During the darkest timeline??? Where's my Xanax???

If all else fails, there's always fanfiction. "Remember that weird limbo period when we were writing entire episodes on here?" asks DoctorBritta. Hey, nobody said Season 6 actually had to be filmed...

– Adam "rubber cat" Jameson (@robbercat)

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