TV

It lives! ‘Community’ back in session for Season 5

It’s not often that a TV show’s off-screen intrigue generates more interest than it does viewers.

Meet “Community,” which returns for its fifth season next month after an eight-month layoff. Never a ratings-grabber — more of a critical darling like similarly low-rated NBC stablemate “Parks and Recreation,” and this close to cancellation several times — “Community” generated industry headlines for the epic battles between series creator Dan Harmon and co-star Chevy Chase, who insulted each other in print and on Twitter over so-called “artistic differences.”

(Chase, a onetime Harmon favorite, played the wealthy, pompous Pierce Hawthorne in the series, which revolves around a group of self-centered students of different ages at a community college in Colorado.)

Chase and Harmon’s dislike for each other — and Harmon’s snipes at NBC, which he felt wasn’t supporting him or the show — eventually grew so intense that Harmon left before last season.

But with Chase now literally out of the picture — he exited “Community” near the end of last season — Harmon returned as the sitcom’s show runner. While this should be welcomed by the loyal “Community” fans, and is immediately apparent in the crisp writing and pop-culture references in the first two episodes of Season 5 — traits that have defined the show — it’s unlikely to win “Community” a new legion of fans.

The Jan. 2 opener, entitled “Re-pilot,” finds the old gang reunited at Greendale Community College (minus Chase’s Pierce — who does appear, albeit briefly). Although Winger (Joel McHale), Britta (Gillian Jacobs), Abed (Danny Pudi), Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown), Annie (Alison Brie), Troy (Donald Glover) and Chang (Ken Jeong) left Greendale at the end of last season, they find themselves back on campus with Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) for all the wrong reasons (don’t ask).

All you need to know is that Winger somehow lands a teaching gig at Greendale courtesy of the admiring Dean Pelton — and, more importantly, that a new character, Buzz Hickey, is introduced in the second episode. I mention this because Hickey is played by Jonathan Banks, who was so good as laconic, world-weary killer Mike Ehrmantraut on “Breaking Bad,” which earned him an Emmy nomination. Banks’ Hickey plays like a comic take on Mike — who knew Banks could do funny? — and I couldn’t help but think of the slightly condescending way in which Mike addressed Walt (Bryan Cranston) on “Breaking Bad” while Hickey is schooling Winger in the secret world of teachers (i.e. how giving a student a “minus” grade, as in an “A-,” is a form of revenge)

The show’s stock-in-trade pop-culture references abound throughout — mentions of “Scrubs,” “Mythbusters,” Clive Owen, “Bones,” “Time Bandits,” Nicolas Cage and Eli Roth, among many others — so much so that you start to wonder if the writers, and Harmon, are taking the easy way out of writing a half-hour sitcom.

But, hey, it’s worked for them up to this point. I just don’t know if the new powers-that-be at NBC will tolerate another season of low ratings ratings and little buzz.

Paging Chevy Chase (?)