Community Season 4 Episode 1 Proved The Show Needs Dan Harmon

The glaring difference in quality between Community season 4 episode 1 and previous chapters proved how much Dan Harmon was essential to the show’s success. Quirky NBC sitcom Community is the brainchild of Rick And Morty co-creator Dan Harmon, who acted as showrunner and executive producer for the first three seasons. Based on Harmon’s own experience attending community college, the show centers on a group of misfits who form a study group while enrolled at the fictional Greendale Community College.

While Community was never a huge ratings grabber it was beloved by critics and earned itself a cult fandom. A day after Community’s season 3 finale, however, Dan Harmon learned via text message that NBC and the show’s producing studio Sony Pictures Television had fired him. The reason behind Harmon’s firing has never been specifically addressed but some sources have said his unconventional management style was to blame. Others have stated it was more to do with Harmon’s resistance to NBC and Sony Pictures Television’s plans to give Community more mainstream appeal.

Whatever the reason, the fourth season of Community carried on without Dan Harmon with writers David Guarascio and Moses Port (of Happy Endings and Aliens In America fame) taking over as showrunners. If NBC and Sony thought they could get away with replacing a man who was essentially the heart and soul of the show, then Community season 4 episode 1 proved them gravely wrong. It wasn’t necessarily the case that Community’s season 4 premiere “History 101” was terrible. It had all the ingredients of a great episode with two funny main plots that saw Jeff (Joel McHale) compete in a Hunger Games-inspired contest to nab himself and his study group a place in an overbooked class, while Abed (Danny Pudi) coped with their impending graduation by retreating into an imaginary sitcom.

Yet, as many critics pointed out, a lot of the humor in Community season 4 episode 1 fell flat or stunted as it was missing the one vital ingredient needed to bring it together – Dan Harmon. The rest of season 4 muddled along in much the same way, pumping out episodes that were perfectly fine but felt like a cheap imitation of Community’s magically quirky first three seasons. Consequently, the show’s fourth season got a lukewarm response from critics and fans with the latter branding it not-so-affectionately “the gas leak year.”

With the show floundering in Dan Harmon’s absence NBC and Sony Pictures Television realized their mistake and reinstated him for Community season 5 which marked a return to the quality of the show’s past seasons. While Community season 4 will always be a smudge on an otherwise brilliant show, some good did come of it as Harmon’s year-long hiatus allowed him to concentrate on making Rick And Morty a reality. Every cloud and all that jazz.