This week, my absolute favorite show of all time, Community is hitting DVD with its sixth and (final?) season, one year after it originally debuted on Yahoo’s streaming service Yahoo Screen. Community has had a long rough history of its survival, having receiving abysmal ratings, yet critically acclaimed, Community was always on the verge of cancellation, and each season was treated as its last. The dedicated driven fan base behind Community helped the brilliant show stay afloat for five years on the air on NBC, but in 2014, NBC canned the show and cancelled it. The rallying dream of achieving #SixSeasonsAndAMovie was dead in the water until Yahoo, then introducing its’ new streaming service, called Yahoo Screen, swooped in and bought the rights to produce the show. The result were thirteen absolutely brilliant episodes that ended the show on a wonderfully perfect note.
One year later, Sony Home Entertainment is releasing all-thirteen episodes on a two-disc DVD. If I’m being perfectly honest, this release is worth every penny for how absolutely perfect this season is. Having seen every season more times than I’d like to admit to, I can safely say season six is one of the strongest in the series. It’s a bit better focused than the previous few seasons, but still has that brilliant craziness that the show is known for.
At face value, Community season six acts much like a giant love letter to the longtime fans who stuck out the show all this time, though things have come very far since the unlikely study group met way back in season one. Despite the core characters are no longer a study group, and the show shedding cast members with each passing year, the show works some of those flaws to its advantage, causing for some great character development and plots. The departure of Troy and Shirley have left a toll on the group and the show plays advantage to those changes through Abed, who usually acts as the window to the viewer and the show, as many of the characters “spin-off” into their own lives and “series”.
The great thing about Community is that it doesn’t brush off these changes. It’s acknowledges it, accepts it and eventually moves on from them. Additionally, when it comes down to the series(?) finale about the group splitting up once again to depart on their own ways, it’s a nice little message to the fans that just like much of the cast of the show, eventually it’s time to move on and say goodbye.
There’s also a handful of bonus features to be found on these discs, but it’s not much. My favorite is a twenty minute feature Six Seasons and A Finale, about the amazing journey and the crew discussing writing the finale and their goodbye to the show and to the fans. The crew discusses the fact the open ended finale leaving room for more story to come, but at the probable fact that this is the very last time that we’ll be seeing The Spanish Study Group/Save Greendale Committee, or whatever’s left of it at this point. It’s a sad heartfelt look at the even more heartfelt finale, and it’s informative and insightful and a giant love letter to the fans that kept this show alive for six long seasons.
The core cast of Community. Well…..whatever’s left of it.
There’s also Gag Reels and a mere few Deleted Scenes, which aren’t anything particularly exciting, to be honest. The last noteworthy feature is Community Trivia, which is the cast and crew playing along to some Community trivia throughout the series, which I scored incredibly well on. It’s a fun twenty minute long feature as well and worth a watch, but there’s a major lack of great potential bonus features on this release.
As a mega fan of this niche show, it’s super awesome to have a proper release for the final season and a proper send-off for a show that’s been so absolutely perfect throughout. Community was the show that wasn’t afraid to push the boundaries of TV and their genre. It was the only show that could be a western action flick and a musical the next week. It was a Star Wars parody, a mockumentary, a Muppet movie, and a film noir and nearly everything inbetween. Yet it always stayed funny, hilarious and true to its source. I don’t know if a show has ever been more relevant or meant so much to me before, so it’s sad to see it come to an end, but it’s a finale that even Abed would praise and I couldn’t be more thrilled to see it end on a high note. For much of this reason, Community: The Final Season on DVD is of my highest recommendation.
Mitchell Stein is the owner and operator of the popular Disney-based website The Mickey Mindset, the one-stop destination for articles, opinions and reviews for any Disney fan. Be sure to check out the site and follow the site on Facebook and Twitter.
This scene still has me in tears.
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