‘Doctor Who’ Parody on NBC’s ‘Community’ Gets a Web Series

Good news for Community fans this month! Not only did Community announce that it’s coming back  on March 15th, but the show’s Doctor Who-inspired parody, Inspector Spacetime, is being turned into a web series.

In case you’re not a Community connoisseur,  this season’s first episode followed a story line of  Britta (Gillian Jacobs) trying to cheer up Abed (Danny Pudi) by introducing him to new television shows. In a last desperate attempt, Britta shows him “a long-running British Scif-Fi show that’s been on the air  since 1962.” Like a true geek, Abed declares the show as the best thing he’s seen in his life and becomes obsessed. Later in the season, Community closed an episode with Abed and Troy (Donald Glover) debating over the show’s “science” and dressing up like Inspector Spacetime and the Constable. Like many of Troy and Abed’s skits and pranks, Inspector Spacetime quickly became a favorite with fans.

Before the community of Community fans goes crazy (and starts flooding Dan Harmon’s twitter account with questions), there are a few points to clarify

about the series. First, Dan Harmon, NBC, and Sony currently have no involvement with the web series. Second, Donald Glover and Danny Pudi will not be playing the roles of Inspector and Constable Reginald Wigglesworth. The series will focus on the show within the show. Travis Richey (the spoof Inspector) is producing Inspector Spacetime and has launched a Kickstarter campaign for the web series.

Now that the facts are clear, let’s go back to celebrating! As a fan of both Community and Doctor Who, I am very excited to see how this parody-homage will expand into a full series. While the series had a panel at Gallifrey One (that’s the name of the big Doctor Who convention for all those in the room that don’t know what the TARDIS is), there are still several questions Community viewers want to know. To paraphrase the Inspector, the important question isn’t where but when will the series air? Fans will have to wait and see!