Alas, it appears that Community will fall short of its “Six Seasons and a Movie” battle cry.  TV Line confirms that NBC has finally cancelled the ratings-challenged sitcom, which went through its fair share of behind-the-scenes drama as well; it's really almost a miracle it lasted this long.  Though the life of the series was cut short, we can be thankful for five four seasons worth of weirdness that ranged from broad comedy to dark drama.  The show at times verged on being too strange, even for Community, but it was never dull under the guidance of creator/showrunner/mad genius Dan Harmon.  He’s truly one of a kind. Hit the jump for more.

Though Community has been a bubble show before, this season there were rumblings that NBC was mulling over a 13-episode final season and even talk of a feature film heating up.  Alas, those reports were either premature or false altogether.  That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if another entity like Netflix or Hulu snatches up the show, assuming Sony (which owns Community) is willing to produce more episodes.  Unlike other beloved, ratings-challenged series, Community genuinely tapped into the zeitgeist.  Most people don’t know what Almost Human was, let alone that it aired on TV every week this season, but many are at least familiar with the idea of Community.  It’s a brand, and that can certainly be lucrative.

But for now, Community's run on NBC is officially over.  As Danny Pudi’s Abed so directly informed us in the season finale, we’re all to now believe that a giant asteroid destroyed the Earth’s entire population.  It is canon, says Abed, so maybe a sixth season on Netflix could take place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

While I wasn't crazy about every episode of the show, I always admired its ambition.  The fact that a show this weird and this ballsy ran for five seasons on network television is kind of amazing, and it will no doubt be a cornerstone for many shows to come.  If I had to single out a personal favorite of the 97 hours of Community that graced our TV screens, it'd probably be a tie between season three's "Remedial Chaos Theory" and the season one classic "Modern Warfare", though "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" might just be the most impressive of the bunch.

Sound off in the comments with your personal favorite episode of Community.