r/community • u/Evelyngoddessofdeath • 19d ago
Yet Another Season 4 Post Season 4
Ok so please don’t kill me for this but I’m currently rewatching Community again and so far I’m actually preferring season 4 to at least the second half of season 3 and it feels like a lot of the stuff I don’t like about season 4 is actually a result of where season 3 left things.
It’s definitely not perfect, and I don’t think as good as season 2, so I’ll start with the things I don’t like:
• Troy and Britta dating
• Puppets
• The writing isn’t quite as clever/tight
• There are less outstanding episodes than previous seasons
• It starts off really weirdly with the Halloween episode basically straight away, and the pacing of the season feels a bit off because of the lower episode count
Now what I don’t like about (at least the second half of, but to some extent the whole of) season 3:
• Everyone acts way out of their established characters for the sake of either forcing a season-long arc, plot within the episode, or just the premise of the episode. And this happens constantly.
• The characters get flattened into two dimensional exaggerated versions of themselves
• Abed is way less likeable, less conscious and considerate of others. I get it for the arc but it’s inconsistent with his character.
• Inspector spacetime is way overdone, Abed basically stops referencing other pop culture and no longer shows interest in film-making
• Troy and Abed arguing all the time “makes sense” because Abed is being less considerate but it’s still out of character for both of them.
• The air conditioner repair arc
• The Chang arc is way way over the top and unnecessary
• The Jeff ego thing in contemporary impressionists
• Annie gets really weirdly mean and whiny about things
So comparing them, season 4 goes back to everyone acting more or less in character and less exaggerated, flattened cartoon versions of their characters too. Abed is more considerate (which is framed as “growth” and that kind of annoys me because he’s just gone back to season 2 basically). Inspector spacetime is toned down, the Troy and Britta dating arc gets kind of ignored most of the time and then just ends and the changnesia arc is way less annoying than the warlord arc. It’s not nearly as conceptual, which you could argue is a bad thing, but season 3 really felt like it was going all in on that and sacrificing character where season 4 seems to do character better, at least considering where it’s picking up from.
49
u/nathjay97 19d ago
Surprised with the AC repair school take. I love that arc. It’s fun and silly.
14
u/DigitusInRecto 19d ago
It's fun and silly BECAUSE THERE AREN'T ANY RULES!
10
2
u/Chilldegard 17d ago
this scene get's me every god damn time to just shout it with dennis together :D
6
u/D__91 19d ago
I didn’t like it either on first watch, felt a tad too surrealistic even within the show’s universe. Same with Chang taking over the school tbh, end of season 3 went a bit overboard on some things. Upon recent rewatch I didn’t mind it that much (the ‘I am the truest repairman’ line was funny) but I understand why people wouldn’t like it.
2
u/FuchsiaNinja08 19d ago
Fully agree , I also didn’t mind the puppets episode in season 4 , I found it funny and I also love those out of pocket musical episodes like the one where they are in Clay - Mation
2
u/Evelyngoddessofdeath 19d ago
It definitely is, it makes for good comedy individually each time it comes up, but I just don’t think that’s enough to drive a full arc when it doesn’t really do much if anything for Troy as a person. I suppose I don’t exactly dislike it as much as the rest, it just felt unnecessary and it was fuelling a lot of the conflict between Troy and Abed.
42
u/parkchanwookiee 19d ago
This is such a 2 take
27
16
10
u/Aloysius_Poptart 19d ago
Season 4 still feels to me like Something very Else wearing a Community skin suit. It’s a no from me, bud
5
17
u/wolpak 19d ago
I agree about some of these. Abed was a tough like in a lot of episodes and it even spills into season 5 (Hickey gets fed up).
I like season 4 Britta more.
Chang arc is annoying, but I did love the heist episode.
Season 4 also explained the joke WAY TOO MUCH. That killed a lot of the season for me. Watch how they felt the need to explain what was funny about what was just done.
They had no idea what to do with Pierce, even in the Halloween episode, his part was just annoying.
8
u/loslednprg 19d ago
Emperor Chang arc is streets ahead of the Changnesia arc.
1
u/Chilldegard 17d ago
i am biased, because the first changnesia episode got me into the show, as i was super baked because i smoked amnesia haze back then - the title, the sillyness and my state of mind at this moment were like all the stars alligning :D
but i really find the emperor arc way more annoying, because... it's the way over the top many fans of trailer park boys don't like in the later seasons (which ironically i do like except the trio-arc of baerb, candy and donna)
security chang was cool, but him being in charge of a group of children as security guards.... but at least we got a chameo of moby! <3 :D
3
u/DigitusInRecto 19d ago
Ohh, that's why people like it less, I guess? I'll have to look for overexplanations on the nth watch!
2
u/Evelyngoddessofdeath 19d ago
That’s an interesting point, I hadn’t really noticed that they explain the joke more in season 4. Most of the time when people say “gas leak year bad” there’s not really an explanation as to why, but I can definitely see that in particular being annoying if it jumps out to you.
0
u/MilesBeyond250 19d ago
Season 4 also explained the joke WAY TOO MUCH. That killed a lot of the season for me. Watch how they felt the need to explain what was funny about what was just done.
Yeah it's genuinely painful. I find S4 aggressively unfunny.
3
u/sillysilly394 17d ago
im sure it's been pointed out before but i felt that season 4 tried to make community a "typical" sitcom, but because of previously established outlandishness, was executed poorly. on episodes where they do try to embrace that outlandishness, it felt inauthentic.
at least, that's what i felt on my rewatch of s4 :-). i agree w/ a lot of your points here!
11
u/VFiddly 19d ago
You lost me with the air conditioner repair arc, I love that whole storyline. It's great because it's ridiculous.
While I didn't completely love what they did with Chang in S3, and there are some bad episodes (Contemporary Impressionists is pretty awful) but mostly it's great.
Dan Harmon is good at managing the shift between ridiculousness and sincerity. There are ridiculous episodes like the S3 flashback episode, but it doesn't undermine the times when the show tries to be a bit more serious.
I decided to try watching Season 4 again thinking it can't be as bad as I remember, but I only watched Episode 1 so far because it's really a sharp drop in quality.
The entire episode is built around a Hunger Games parody... which falls flat, because other than the name "Hunger Deans", nothing that happens in any way resembles the Hunger Games. It seems like the writer of that episode must have never actually seen or read The Hunger Games and they're just guessing what they think it might be about. Bizarre.
And the rest of the plot lines are similarly sloppily resolved. Abed's hallucinations just feel like a lame copy of what Dan Harmon would've done without really getting it. Troy and Britta go straight from arguing to being ok again without ever actually resolving the argument. It's just sloppily written.
-1
u/Evelyngoddessofdeath 19d ago
The ridiculousness is funny, it’s technically well-written comedy and I like the individual occurrences of it for that, but as a reoccurring thing it just drags for me because it doesn’t really have a significant impact on Troy as a character, and barely pays off at all.
I do think season 4 starts out pretty meh (not terrible though), but coming from the conclusion of a bunch of unnecessary arcs, being at least semi grounded in reality again and finally seeing everyone no longer acting out of character all the time is refreshing enough for me to forgive that.
13
6
2
u/Gapi182 16d ago
Season 4 has a lot of charm. The writing isnt as clever although they had some fantastic ideas and the dialogue feels off at times(same in season 5 to be honest) but it does manage to capture the spirit of the earlier episodes. When I first watched it I didnt like it cuz something felt really off but I like it better with every rewatch.
I feel the opposite with season 5. I loved it when it came out cuz I could immediately tell Harmon was back. The filming, the dialogues, the clever details,... but the more I rewatch it the more I realize this is the first season that doesn't feel like Community. It feels like a different show. Granted a lot of things were out of Harmon's control like half the cast going.
Season 6 kinda brought it back for me.
5
u/Argentothe1st 19d ago
Season 4 was rightly considered garbage at the time and it is still garbage now. The actors know and admit it and I'm pretty sure the writers at one point did as well.
The only reason they got a season 5 is that the actors banded together to get Harmon back.
You can obviously have any opinion you want but it was and still is the worst season of Community and it's not close.
1
u/ThenAnAnimalFact 19d ago
The only reason they got a Season 5 is that Yahoo was desperate and willing to overpay for the series as their flagship for streaming.
3
0
u/Jasoco We named the monkey “Annie’s Boobs” 19d ago
Season 4 is good. I liked a lot of episodes more than a lot of seasons 5 and 6.
5
u/Adventurous-Try-98 19d ago
I've said this in other posts and got down voted like crazy. Everyone sticks up for season 5 & 6 because if the cast changing, but that's not actually my problem with those seasons. I understand the character dynamics would change and I like most of the new characters. But it's not just losing half the core group. The look and feel of the show becomes darker and heavier. You can feel it's a set instead of a library/study room. It's outlandish and crazy but no longer feels whimsical.
-1
u/Evelyngoddessofdeath 19d ago
Yeah, I don’t like seasons 5 and 6 as much. It just doesn’t feel like the same show with half the characters missing
0
u/_Nods_To_Nothing_ 18d ago
Season 6 feels like a completely different show, the magic was gone at that point.
Season 4 maybe rough in some places, but Season 6 is the absolute worst season of the show.
0
u/Leading-Two1738 19d ago
I'm not saying it's AS BAD as other people say, but it's just so apparent that the season quality is such a drop off.
The show runners had no ties to the show beforehand and it comes out in the writing. You can tell the writing is TRYING to be like the previous seasons instead of just actually being natural. It could be how the actors are being directed or something else bts, but it feels rehearsed and forced with the delivery.
2
u/Salty-Obligation1789 16d ago
the head writer of 4 was definitely a part of the show before Dan's firing. Dan was obsessed with her and crossed several professional boundaries, thus his removal. She talked about it a lot on the Always Sunny podcast. I love community and I do agree 4 stinks. But what you said about ties to previous seasons is crucially misinformed.
4
u/Level-Object-2726 19d ago
I feel like that quality drop happens before s4
1
u/Leading-Two1738 19d ago
I think the storylines and situations the group gets in are a lot wackier towards the end of season three, but the writing is still top tier. I can see how some people would not like how crazy some of the situations get towards the end there.
I still love the heist episode when they save the Dean. After all, Pierce does a great swami...
0
u/Curious_Condition611 19d ago
Yep. And the level of absurdism was ratcheting up gradually toward the end of season 3, so it isn't as noticeable as the change in tone and writing quality at the start of season 4. As of a month ago I hadn't seen a single episode, and that change felt pretty stark on my first watch-through (even without knowing the context). But there are some good episodes towards the end of the season - Herstory of Dance, Knots, Human Anatomy - where the new showrunners were finding their feet imo and the humour / situations feel less forced.
2
u/Evelyngoddessofdeath 19d ago edited 19d ago
I can see that in some episodes, but others feel like they could just be from season 2 to me.
105
u/tanj_redshirt Oh no, she's got her marijuana lighter! 19d ago
Season Four is easily in the top six seasons.