Trentsketch, I think the absence of Chase is a minor factor at best in this decision - it probably made it easier for Sony and NBC to ask Harmon back, but I highly doubt it was a decisive factor. I also highly doubt that Joel McHale, who by all accounts is a really nice guy, did anything to make the workplace hostile for Chase. (Chase does a great job making things hostile himself.)
Basically, the fact is that this coming season will bring
Community up to 97 episodes, which is close enough to 100 to work for syndication purposes, and Sony just wants those syndication dollars in the future while investing as little money as possible now. The three small factors that probably nudged the decision over the top:
a) The cast apparently rebelled at the quality of last season's scripts and asked for Harmon back
b) I imagine Harmon doesn't want to be known as someone who's too unruly to be hired, and so played nice
c) Sony would not be averse to having the show get its cultural cachet back (again, future syndication dollars)
And so we got the result we got. Which will hopefully turn out to be a great thing. (At the very least it'll turn out to be an
interesting thing, which is more than I can say for most of last season.)
Updated On: 6/1/13 at 10:09 PM