After NBC passed on making more of the extremely low rating, but critically praised comedy, Yahoo Screen (yeah apparently it’s a thing now!) have taken the reigns of the future of Community. After a few seasons of mishaps, Season 5 finally started to show us what we loved and treasured about this once innovative and brilliant comedy. Creator Dan Harmon has come back on board for this season and with a new cable (ish) home, we should see Community restored to its former glory. So can it live up to its name ? Or will it finally crash and burn after a highly overstayed welcome? Join Alaisdair & Tegan as they take turns covering season 6 of Community.

Episode 1 – Ladders

The first episode back swiftly reminds us that our cast have been drastically cut down, now in the main players we have Jeff, Britta, Abhed and Annie. Fortunately it seems that Senor Chang has been upgraded to a main character and we are introduced to Frankie Dart who is the new admin assistant (And as the Dean puts it “The new Shirley) basically the episode is Frankie going through all of the problems and gaps with the college and what needs to be updated, so things like banning alcohol, Britta taking over the sandwich shop and burning everything.

To be completely honest, not much else happens, as far as season opener’s go, this is by far the worst of any season. It is droll and boring without a real sense of direction or purpose, rather than to introduce Frankie and show who the main players are.

The acting is ok, the story is droll and a bad introduction to Community for the new network. Hopefully episode 2 is an improvement.

Episode 2 – Lawnmower Maintenance & Postnatal Care

In keeping with Community tradition, the gimmicky episode comes early this season, this time around the Dean purchases a virtual reality prototype and enters the third “deanmension” (yes that is an actual line from the ep.) The Dean blows $5000 on the machine and gets sucked into the virtual world. Jeff and Frankie do their best to reel the Dean back in, however they need to track down the creator Elroy (played by guest star Keith David) Meanwhile Abhed and Annie let Britta move in with them and they reveal that they have been going to Britta’s parents behind her back for money, furniture, family dinners and to fill them in on their daughter’s life.

The episode is a massive improvement on the first, and brings the laughs hard and fast, also the references to the Portuguese version of Gremlins (make sure you stick around for the hilarious trailer after the credits!) Putting this show on a relatively unknown service is a risky move, but it is one that could pay off in the future.

This is the perfect paintball, puppet, animated episode that follows in the fine tradition that Community has set for odd meta style themes. It was also an oddly interesting reflection on the current video game industry about to introduce new style VR devices, so this episode feels current. It was also a great resolve for Britta’s character and her parent issues after six seasons.

If you are like us and stuck in Australia with no work around, the only place to watch the new episodes are on streaming service Stan. The good news is that the episodes are delivered at the same time as the USA AND there are no ads! If you want to sign up for Stan follow the link here