A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

IT'S MORE LIKE TIMELINE #3: As you've almost assuredly heard, unless you live under a rock, Dan Harmon, who created and steered Community through its first three seasons, will not be returning for the fourth (and presumptively final) season-- Vulture has a good solid and fairly even-handed report with background, Harmon's issued a statement/rant, and Dan and Alan both have analysis.  A few things I wanted to note, though:

• "Dan Harmon is incredibly talented and creative" and "Dan Harmon is kind of an ass" are not mutually exclusive ideas here.  By his own admission, Harmon is not the easiest person to work with and for, and wants things done his way.  Admittedly, when "his way" works, we get some great television, but Community is a power swinger--always aiming for the homer, and hitting a bunch, but also striking out with more regularity than you'd hope.
• When these stirrings first were heard, I was hopeful that Hilary Winston, who wrote the finales of the first two seasons, and who moved on to Happy Endings, might take over.  (She had a pilot which didn't get picked up, and apparently has a deal with Sony.)  However, we're getting David Gurascio and Moses Port, who created Aliens in America, ran Just Shoot Me for a number of years, and were on staff at Happy Endings this year.  Actually, they're a pretty good choice--Aliens and Happy Endings both started as pretty conventional sitcoms, but quickly got weird.  I don't think they're going to wholesale turn the show into a traditional sitcom. 
• I think the pickup of Community had less to do with NBC wanting to be in the Community business than keeping certain talent happy--NBC and Universal both want to be in business with McHale, Brie, and Glover in particular for the foreseeable future.  However, I'll be interested to see if this actually backfires on those aims--in interviews, the cast generally seems resolutely pro-Harmon.
• Harmon's statement makes plain that he has basically zero interest in staying on at Community without total control.  I hope he'll reconsider.  Harmon's a great, great, idea guy, but (by his own admission) terrible at other things.  Ideally, he'd be allowed to continue coming up with funny/strange ideas, while Gurascio/Port focus on the nut and bolt side of the business.  I think that could be helpful for the show.