You may recall jumping for joy on Monday at the news that there would be an Inspector Spacetime web series. Since then, it’s come to light that not only are no Community actors involved in the project, no one from NBC or Community has anything to do with it. Instead, Travis Richey, the actor who played Inspector Spacetime (he’s made brief appearances in two episodes of Community, with his voice used in a third) has taken it upon himself to produce, write and star in a six-part web series.
Richey’s Kickstarter page asks fans to fund him up to $20,000 to film the series, written by him and writing partner Eric Loya. He says in his project video (above), “I did at first try to pitch the series to NBC and the people at Community. That’s not really how Hollywood works, though. You can’t just give someone something and have it made.” Sure. But you also can’t just take something that isn’t your intellectual property and make it yourself, right?
Richey insists that he won’t be profiting from fan donations, that their money will be used “for equipment only” and that he is simply doing this because “fans need this series to happen.” Of course, as others have pointed out, that 20 grand worth of equipment would remain his property after this project. Not too shabby.
Luckily, now that the complete lack of authorization behind Richey’s plan has been revealed, he probably won’t reach that lofty fundraising goal. If he does, though, NBC would surely shut this thing down faster than you can say “the question isn’t where, Constable…but when?”
