Joel McHale tweeted a picture of the cover page for the first script of Community’s fourth season a few weeks back. It was titled “History 101,” indicating, as you might have guessed, that Greendale’s most ragtag study group would be taking a history class this semester. But who will teach said class? Well, that would be veteran actor Malcolm McDowell.
McDowell will be playing Professor Cornwallis, appearing in a guest arc of at least two episodes.
Most recently, McDowell’s been seen in Franklin & Bash; he’ll be joining Little Britain‘s Matt Lucas as a guest actor at Greendale this season.
McDowell is also well-known for having played Alex in Stanley Kubrick‘s 1971 film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange. At Comic-Con this year, Matt Smith mentioned that he “would love to” guest star on Community, to which McHale made a Clockwork Orange reference.
It’s because of this that we’re hoarding some hope this is some sort of secret clue the writers are sending out that Smith will be making a surprise appearance at Greendale this year. But considering that this would send us wheezing with glee all the way to the fangirl hospital (there really should be such a thing), and considering that McDowell and his glare are a force to be reckoned with all on their own, we’ll be fine even if it really is McDowell all on his lonesome.
In other Community news, McHale stepped in and soothed our ravaged nerves a little bit recently when he let the world know how impressed he’s been with the writing so far this season on the show. David Guarascio and Moses Port have taken over the reins formerly held by beloved sitcom auteur Dan Harmon, and McHale insists they’re actually doing a pretty good job:
“We read the first script [recently] and the script was great. We were all very curious to see what it would be like. It’s really good, and so everyone was really happy.”
“I know David Guarascio and Moses Port. I did a pilot with them, and they’re great guys, so I knew that they were funny and in that sense I wasn’t worried about it. I knew that these guys could deliver, and a lot of the same writers came back. So in that sense I was confident with the writers, definitely, and then it just kind of came down to what the table read was going to be like. It went really well, and so that was really great.”
We have to say, out of all the casts in television, the Community cast may be the one we trust the most not to just feed us the standard line of PR bullcrap. Between that and the fact that the new executive producers seemed to win over the crowd at Comic-Con this year–perhaps the hardest room to win over, especially considering how much many people still love Harmon–we’re willing to take the “cautiously optimistic” stance, at least for now.
No one may ever be able to match the incredible uniqueness of Harmon’s Community. But if our time with the Greendale Seven has to go one (and we’re certainly not ready to say goodbye), we’re glad it’s in the hands of a group of writers and actors who seem to genuinely love it as much as we do.
(via THR, Digital Spy) (Image via SF Gate)
Published: Aug 19, 2012 12:35 pm