Community Season 4: Better than you Think

Fans of Community agree, season four is the worst one. Many fans even pretend it doesn't exist, calling it the "Gas Leak Season". The failure is usually attributed to the departure of the shows creator, Dan Harmon. Community was Harmon's passion project and with him gone, there was a clear void left. But the seasons reputation of being terrible has superseded its actual quality.

The underlying flaw with season four was the new writing team. They misunderstood why Community worked. They chose to lean heavily into movie homages and TV tropes. But these gimmicks were never why Community was beloved. The core of the show was the character dynamics and the emotional growth. Too many season four episodes prioritized the plot and left the characters in the dust.

Let's compare a season two episode with a season four episode. The episode from season two: "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas", was entirely in claymation. The episode from season four: "Intro to Felt Surrogacy", was done with puppets. Both of these episodes have an obvious gimmick but had much different receptions.

Dan Harmon has said when he wrote scripts it was never about "let's do a claymation episode this week". The message and the character arcs always came first. "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" was fundamentally a Christmas special about Abed and his mother. The claymation style came secondary as a natural progression.

It's blatant that "Intro to Felt Surrogacy" started with the conversation "let's do a puppet episode this week". The rest of the plot is painfully contrived around justifying the puppets. And at the end of the episode, it's still confusing why the story matters at all. The characters don't go through any meaningful growth and they aren't faced with any difficult decisions.

This is the magic that Dan Harmon brought to the table. He created a writing tool called "The Story Circle" (like The Heroes Journey) that he used for every episode. The Story Circle ensured Community kept to its familiar formula. The formula usually involved a character making a choice, paying the price, and accepting the consequences. Without Harmon, the season four writing team couldn't replicate the process.

This plotting issue is very subtle, but feels distinctly un-Community. This sounds like me admitting that season four is terrible, but as Señor Chang would say, let me finish.

The season is funny. The quips and banter are still as clever as the first three seasons. Genuinely it was surprising how funny it is. Even the worst episodes have the iconic lightning-fast back and forth the show is known for. The actors play a large role in this. Donald Glover is going to elevate any material he's given. Everyone does a fantastic job and nobody phones it in.

For all the contrived episodes, there are more great grounded episodes. "Herstory of Dance" is a simple story about Britta defying the groups expectations. "Intro to Knots" is a classic Community bottle episode that is 100% dialogue driven. And "Basic Human Anatomy" has great emotional growth with Troy and Britta's breakup. Episodes like these successfully capture vintage Community.

Nearly every season four episode is good television. All the visuals are the classic characters and settings you'd expect. Everything you hear is clever dialogue and funny jokes. But the heart is missing. There's an itchy, scratchy feeling that something isn't quite the same. In a vacuum, this misstep would be forgivable. The season has much higher peaks than its valleys and even its valleys aren't disgraceful.

However, in the context of the behemoth that Harmon left behind, the fans were outraged. Part of the outrage was fans feeling an obligation to stand beside Harmon and defend his vision. The contrived episodes were crucified and the fantastic episodes were ignored. The drama snowballed, and now season four can't breathe without being dogpiled with hatred.

This narrative of hatred is the issue. If you tell someone they're gonna hate something before they try it, they're probably gonna hate it. Instead of approaching it with an open mind, they will have a critical lens. They'll be searching for reasons to hate it. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And when people watch season four, they focus on the negative instead of the positive.

Next time you watch Community, don't expect it to be bad, hope for it to be good. You might find yourself enjoying it.