Community loses writer Megan Ganz, which would be sad if all weren't already lost
Community, that shrieking wraith of a sitcom banished to walk the wind-battered realm between life and death, has lost one of the loudest and most vital voices in its moaning chorus of the damned. Megan Ganz has announced via a letter to Reddit that she's leaving the show after three years of writing some of its standout episodes—including landmarks like "Cooperative Calligraphy" and "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking"—and accepting a job writing for Modern Family. It's a pleasant, bubbly, funny letter full of warm, sentimental feelings masking a pervasive sense of dire finality, and is therefore just like watching the show. Here's an excerpt:
For the last three years, the sum total of my contribution to this planet (in terms of effort, passion, and things I let myself go soft and pimply for) could be described as follows: Community. Recently, I was offered a job writing for Modern Family, and although it's unclear what will happen with Community for the fifth season (or the sixth season, or the movie), I've decided to take this new position. Tomorrow is my first day and I'm excited and scared to start this new... well, everything. I'm sure the coffee will probably be the same.
This isn't the end of me and Greendale. Community was my world for four seasons and my job for three, and has hold of my whole heart like a bad-news high school boyfriend. I'll never really get away. The chemistry is too perfect and the writing room couches aren't really that uncomfortable to sleep on and I just can't stop writing for Britta. Plus I still have to do my editing pass on the finale. I think I left a box in my office, too. Bobrow probably misses me. Better stop by on my way home.
I guess what I'm saying is, it took me a really long time to write this to you guys, and it's not even that good. Pretty sappy, no punchlines, kind of vague about my future with the show, too little excitement about the new gig, etc. Okay, so not my best work. Maybe I'll take it down and not say goodbye just yet. I just need a little more time.
The bright side, as always, is that Community is still scheduled to haunt NBC for 13 more episodes, flickering in and out of the visible astral plane for at least one more time, at some point—and Ganz wrote two of those possibly last episodes ever, "Advanced Introduction To Finality" and "Paranormal Parentage." And for Ganz, by working at Modern Family, she will finally have access to the hot-and-cold-running Emmys that the show enjoys. ("The desk in my office seems a bit wobbly," Ganz will say on her first day. "Here, just shove some Emmys under there," her new co-writers will reply.) But of course, for any Community fan still holding out hope for life beyond the fourth season, this is yet more sad news that you don't even feel anymore. Who feels anymore?
