Inspector Spacetime Webseries?

If you are not doing so already, you really should be watching Community. If not for the ensemble cast of strange oddities and of course Annie’s Boobs (that’s the name of the monkey – who doesn’t like Annie’s Boobs?), the show is simply packed with clever writing and an unprecedented amount of geek culture.

The real gem of the show is Abed Nadir played by Danny Pudi. He is the aspiring film student who lives his life like he is in a tv show. He often calls upon standard TV Tropes to steer the plot of Community. That’s so meta.

Abed obsesses over the TV Show Cougartown, even mentioning that in the summer break he was an extra (and he actually makes an appearance on the show in the background) But when Cougartown goes off the air, Abed’s hetero life mate Troy (Donald Glover) introduces him to Inspector Spacetime – an obvious spoof/homage to Doctor Who.

And now, Travis Richey who plays Inspector Spacetime in the clips shown on the program is making a webseries based on the character. Word has it the first episode will feature the Inspector and his companion Constable Reginald facing the Blorgons on Second New Old Earth 7.

io9 shares:

Dan Harmon, Community, NBC and Sony have nothing to do with this web series. I pitched it to them after my first episode of Community, but never heard back from them one way or another. So I’m going to do it myself, with the help of fans

Now this presents a legal quandary of Timelord proportions.

Who owns the rights to Inspector Spacetime?

If the character is a spoof, it follows copyright laws of fair use to parody the character. But the spoof itself was created by the Community writers. Does the name and specific title of Inspector Spacetime belong to NBC and Sony? Can the specifics of a parody be copyright?

I would love to see an Inspector Spacetime series, but I think a simple Kickstarter will just be the first step in a complicated journey. Perhaps, if the Kickstarter shows some promise NBC will actually pay attention to Travis Richey’s desire to create this spinoff webseries.