Community may be yet to return for its long-prophesied movie, but the cult-hit sitcom did fulfill its promise of six seasons. Originally airing on NBC before moving to Yahoo! Screen for the final season, the series was no stranger to drama. The show faced cancellations, on-set disputes with series regular Chevy Chase and a temporary change of showrunner. That last change, which saw series creator Dan Harmon fired by NBC prior to Season 4, led to what is widely regarded as Community's worst season.
Harmon would eventually return for the show's fifth and sixth seasons, but only after it became clear things weren't the same without him. With Harmon back at the helm, the show didn't shy away from poking fun at the much-maligned Season 4, explaining away the off-kilter year at Greendale Community College as the result of a gas leak. While Season 4 had its high points, such as the Freaky Friday-inspired "Basic Human Anatomy," written by Dean Pelton actor Jim Rash, a look at just a few of the season's forays into Community traditions reveals why it fell so short of expectations.
Community's meta sensibilities opened the series up to all kinds of genre-hopping escapades. The show often indulged in parody or, as Abed would have it, an homage to various film and TV genres, from action movies to documentaries. At times, the series even moved away from conventional live-action, using episodes like Season 2's stop-motion "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas."
Season 4 followed suit with "Intro to Felt Surrogacy," which homaged The Muppets as the study group recounted a traumatic experience via puppet therapy. Unlike other genre-bending episodes though, this homage felt unwarranted and more like indulgence in a gimmick than a story-driven change. Whereas episodes like "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" or the later "G.I. Jeff" drew their genre shit from their title characters' genuine internal struggles, "Intro to Felt Surrogacy" treats the characters' trauma as a simplistic plot device. The episode feels light on plot, too -- the group start off uneasy with one another following a recent misadventure in the woods, reveal they had each shared an uncomfortable secret and believed the others were judging them as a result, only to realize the judgment was all in their heads. There's no real conflict to be resolved and no sense of the character growth that was a staple of Harmon's high-concept episodes.
The following episode, "Intro to Knots," is perhaps one of Community's lowest moments. While this Christmas special commits to a promising concept by playing out in real-time, just about every member of the study group feels reduced to a one-note character description here. Annie excitedly espouses exposition to get the plot moving; Britta's limited dialogue only serves to reaffirm she's now the group's airhead; and Jeff veers wildly from "too cool for school" to "warm, fuzzy leading man." Perhaps worst of all, Abed, arguably the heart of the show, is reduced to a cold and removed spectator with no investment in the story whatsoever. Sadly, it comes across as a deeply insensitive caricature, which veers away from everything that makes Abed an enjoyable character.
The season finale, "Advanced Introduction to Finality," offers an odd reinterpretation of one of Community's most popular traditions -- paintball. Ever since Season 1's "Modern Warfare" first saw Greendale's campus transformed into a full-on, paintball-driven action movie, these high-concept episodes have been among fans' favorites. After Season 2's two-part finale, Season 3 saw Abed come to the revelation "we definitely never need to do another paintball." That was probably an epiphany that should have been paid more heed in Season 4.
The finale starts to feel off when characters from the show's "Darkest Timeline," an alternate reality of Abed's imagining, start appearing at Greendale. This interdimensional storyline, seemingly moving Community out of homage and into genuine science fiction, feels like a "jump the shark" moment. The eventual revelation that it's only occurring in Jeff's mind may do some damage control, but ultimately, this cliché resolution only further cheapens the finale. The dimension-hopping paintball guns the "dark" study group introduce feel like an attempt to shoehorn a paintball episode -- and unnecessary "final fight" sequence -- into Season 4. There are a few nods to films like The Terminator and The Matrix, but the overall product is a muddled affair that lacks the grounding Jeff's graduation deserved.
Ultimately, as conceptual and experimental Community could be, it was always a character-driven show. The series' high-concept episodes were grounded in powerful characterization, and it was its intensely heartfelt humanity that allowed it to connect so effectively with so many fans. Season 4 lost sight of this, and without Harmon's creative insight, each character seemed to lose a part of themselves. Consequently, the more conceptual episodes felt like an obligation to a trend rather than sincere storytelling. It's easy to see why the season failed to impress, but maybe that's too harsh -- after all, it was the year of the gas leak.
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