Donald Glover has picked his music career with Childish Gambino over a fifth full season at Glendale Community College. The comedian has reportedly worked out a deal that will mean he’ll only do five episodes of Community in its upcoming season.
Vulture first broke the news on Monday, confirming that Glover and Sony Pictures TV, which produces the cult NBC comedy, reached a compromise for Community’s fifth season. Glover will only play Troy Barnes in five of the season’s thirteen episodes. Even if NBC ends up ordering more shows, that’s all he will do.
The site had speculated back in June that Glover wasn’t interested in doing a full season, even with creator Dan Harmon officially returning.
Community is beloved by fans, but always been on shaky ground since it gets poor ratings. NBC and Sony tried to reverse that with new showrunners for season four, but it didn’t work and Harmon was rehired after the show surprisingly got an order for season five. While Harmon is back, Chevy Chase is also gone. With Glover taking a smaller role, that whittles the main cast down to Joel McHale, Danny Pudi, Yvette Nicole Brown, Alison Brie and Gillian Jacobs.
Community fans will definitely miss ‘Troy & Abed in the Morning,’ but it will be interesting to see where Harmon takes the show if he gets a bigger budget with a smaller cast.
image: NBC