Community Development

When I heard back in March 2014 that Dan Harmon (Community) and Mitch Hurwitz (Arrested Development) were planning a project together, I immediately knew what I wanted it to be. Read the title of this post. It should be obvious what I’m getting at.


Community will soon be entering its sixth season, with a movie likely to happen, and Hurwitz has stated his plans for an Arrested Development movie. Why shouldn’t these two movies be one movie? And why shouldn't that movie be Community Development?

Synopsis: When the Greendale campus is demolished, Dean Pelton packs up and starts a new community college in the failed California housing development Sudden Valley, owned by the Bluth family. Greendale’s study group, displaced and disillusioned, relocates to join the Dean in his efforts. It’s a brave new world for the study group... and also a Bluth new world.

Okay, so I struggled to incorporate the Bluth family into that synopsis. I don’t really remember what the hell happened in the last season of Arrested Development, except that it ended with the cliffhanger of Lucille Austero’s murder. I suppose that would be incorporated into the movie’s plot somehow.

As for Community’s characters, the last season ended with Greendale being bought out by Subway after the study group spent the whole year trying to save the school. My guess is that season six will see the study group reclaim the campus, but that would be awfully boring and redundant. I’d rather see the characters finally move on – preferably to Sudden Valley.

Both shows have become a bit worn-out in later seasons. What better shot in the arm for Harmon and Hurwitz than to unashamedly jump the shark with a feature film crossover? 

Of course, there is the small matter of Arrested Development stars Tony Hale and David Cross having already played characters on Community. But that can easily be explained away by, um... hmm... the fact I put less effort into thinking this concept through than I did into making that fake logo.

Community Development. Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo. Fall 2016. You heard it here first. Probably heard it here last, too.