So, no, I don’t necessarily see “Documentary...

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So, no, I don’t necessarily see “Documentary Filmmaking: Redux” as the key that’s going to unlock a bright new future for the series. But I do look at it as yet another inspiring, hilarious, moving, example of why I’m so glad Team “Community” is out there, pushing the outer edge of the sitcom envelope, finding new and strange and brilliant ways to tell stories about this very diverse (minus Hispanics, alas) group of people who came together through a cosmic quirk of fate and now can’t live without each other. Beyond whatever financial concessions Sony makes in renewal negotiations, I can’t come up with a legitimate business reason for NBC to bring the show back next year. But I can think of a million artistic ones. This is the kind of show any TV executive who actually cares about the medium should be proud to be associated with, whether that’s for another half season, for another year to let Jeff get his bachelor’s degree or, heaven help us, beyond that (again, see the absurd impossibility that is “Chuck” season 5).

-Alan Sepinwall’s review of tonight’s “Community.”

Tonight’s episode was all of what Community is: It’s smarter than you, it’s hilarious, it’s poignant, and above all it’s a show that respects storytelling. After all of the Community scheduling brouhaha is over, and after all of the NBC executives have put the axe in it in favor of another soon-to-fail experiment because it might get more eyeballs, we’ll still have the stories.

We’ll have a TV show that was impecably ambitious for basic TV, a show that was never brainless enough for the CBS-loving mass market, and a show that scoffed at the setup-punchline-laughtrack simplicity of other sitcoms.

Community is a show that respects the art of storytelling, respects its audience, and respects the core humanity beneath our hard candy coating. I’d be happy to see it go on for Six Seasons and a Movie, but I’m grateful I get to see at least three.

team eesen