5. Hold Onto Its Guest Stars
NBCOne of the great things about season five was the way it used its supporting cast. John Oliver finally returned after a long absence to play the role of Professor Duncan, the pompous British psychology teacher at Greendale who mainly uses his Freudian insight to try and pick up female students (
and is a pretty good rapper to boot). At first Duncan seemed like he'd be a principal character, an old friend of Jeff's who would help him navigate the perils of community college, before disappearing completely from the third and fourth seasons. Here's hoping Oliver returns for season six; although, considering how brilliant his HBO series Last Week Tonight is, we wouldn't begrudge him if he didn't. What we do need to hold onto is somebody who can fill the void left by the death of Pierce Hawthorne. The crotchety, offensive and objectionable older member of the study group was seemingly not a great stretch for Chevy Chase, widely regarded as being one of the absolute worst human beings still working in the entertainment industry. Still, as an ongoing antagonist and eventual friend to the study group, he played the role perfectly, and gave an outsider's perspective on all the craziness going on. In the fifth season, after Chase left (he was never actually a big fan of the show) the part his character played in the ensemble's dynamic was ably taken over by Breaking Bad's Mike Ehrmantraut, Jonathan Banks. As ex-cop and criminology professor Buzz Hickey Banks was not quite an enemy to the study group but still gave some grown up levity and wisdom to proceedings. Sadly It looks like Banks will be busy with Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul when Community season six is filming; so, hopefully, either a new or existing character can be slotted into the role of elder statesman. Is this the moment Leonard has been waiting for?