It’s been a wild nine months for Community fans. Perhaps one of the strongest cult TV shows on air, the series recently suffered through the exile of it creator Dan Harmon, leaving many fans in a state of panic and fear for the life of the show. Two new show-runners and thirteen lackluster episodes later, Community finds itself at another crossroads as the prodigal show-runner Dan Harmon returns to his throne to bring the study group out of the darkest timeline, but can Harmon bring harmony back to his brainchild?
Without a doubt, Harmon’s biggest challenge will be to play cleanup. Any Community fan that’s worth their salt knows the fourth season was a huge letdown. It simply wasn’t the same show. From a boring trip to an Inspector Spacetime convention to a painful Thanksgiving celebration with Shirley’s family, Community drifted into the abyss of forgettable TV tropes. Even the high notes of the series, like Annie running through a glass screen door while hopped up on pills as well as the subsequent coining of the ever popular phrase “POP POP!” couldn’t disguise how dull the show became. What created such a passionate fan-base in the first place was that Community wasn’t like the generic TV sitcom shows networks go through each year, but the fourth season ended up being, to many a fan’s dismay, very sitcom-y. So that leaves us with the question of whether or not Dan Harmon can clean up the mess that’s been left behind.
In attempting to answer this question, two opposing sides spring up: those who leap with joy at the thought of Harmon returning to helm the series and those who can’t help but feel it will lead back to older problems from before he left. Generally speaking, the latter of the two is the staggering minority, however those notions deserve to be addressed. Some would point to the well publicized fallout between Harmon and Chevy Chase during the show’s third season, leading many to accuse Harmon of handling his employees poorly. While it may be the case that Harmon is a difficult person to work for, and it is entirely likely more conflicts may arise in the future as a result, the pros to Harmon returning outweigh the cons. Simply put, Community isn’t Community without Dan Harmon. Some would point to writers complaints of Harmon’s overpowering control over every aspect of the show as reason to be less than thrilled about his return, but one must also remember how brilliantly funny the show was when he was exerting such control, and contrast that with how genuinely unfunny most of season four was.
To put it simply, writers and actors and everyone else involved with putting Community together will have to work under a guy who is a bit of a jerk sometimes. That’s just show business. In fact, that’s life. And to be honest, Harmon will need their full cooperation to see Community rebound from the fourth season. Having to pick up where someone else left off, Harmon is faced with possibly the most difficult challenge of his career in attempting to build off something that is not his own and make it fit into his ideal scenario. Will he be able to do this? It’s too early to say, but any Community with Harmon is bound to be better than a Community without.
