Why Community Really Is All About Dan Harmon
By Kyle Fowle
On Thursday, fans of Community will be that much closer to getting their beloved six seasons and a movie. Anticipation for the fifth season of the cult show couldn't be higher. Coming off a lackluster fourth season — a season that was a shell of the former show after the firing of its creator Dan Harmon — that devolved into a mess of self-parody and two-dimensional characters, the fifth season boasts the return of demented genius Harmon. There was speculation about Harmon's inability to work within NBC's schedule, and there was the fact of the show's continually uninspiring ratings. But, as evidenced by the sloppy fourth season, Harmon was clearly the unique voice driving the show. Something just felt off without him, and perhaps that's because the show, in many ways, mirrors Harmon's relationship not only with NBC, but also with Community itself.
Community may be known to many as no more than that goofy, "meta" show that used to run alongside The Office and 30 Rock, the one with the running gags and the breaking of the fourth wall that contribute to its status as a comedy gold mine among pop-culture obsessives. While the show certainly boasts a strong relationship with film and television geekery, including jokes that only pay off if you're neck-deep in podcasts and Hollywood films while binge-watching season after season of classic television on Netflix, it's also a show with a much deeper emotional core. Arguably, much of the dedicated Community fan base continues to return to the show for the meaningful and wonderfully written character relationships. After all, this is a show about communities. It's about how everyone, from outsiders and weirdos to cool kids and football players, is connected by very human flaws. Each character has built a wall around themselves in order to deflect emotional pain. Whether through religion, a reliance on pop culture, or a cool distance supported by a bloated ego, each character indulges in their own delusions in order to avoid dealing with the mammoth, crushing pressure of capital-L "Life." At the heart of each of these characters is Harmon; and Community, heading in to its fifth season, continues to provide insights into the mind of its creator.
Harmon has said in the past that when he was writing and filming the first two seasons of the show, he imagined that his on-screen equivalent was ex-lawyer Jeff Winger (Joel McHale). He was the guy who had built up a handful of defense mechanisms to avoid making emotional connections with real people — a truth that has likely led to his tumultuous partnership with NBC. But as the third season began filming, he realized that he was more like Abed (Danny Pudi), a guy who was capable of deep empathy, but only as filtered through pop-culture references. It's this kind of insight into the motivations of characters that makes Community such a well-loved and expertly crafted show, and speaks to Harmon's important role.
As the fifth season gets under way, with Jeff returning to Greendale as a teacher and the study group facing a slew of new adversities — the first three episodes of the season are wonderfully dark with plenty of flashes of the Community of old, establishing that each character may not be happy with their post-Greendale lives — the show is once again a symbolic exploration of Harmon's own relationship with art, television, and NBC. Community has always commented on its own fraught affiliation with the network that has both abused and supported it, whether through lampooning its low budget or having Abed lament the fact that one of his favorite shows,Cougar Town, has been moved to mid-season and is therefore on the fast track to cancellation. More than ever, though, the early episodes of season five feel like an extended examination of what art means to its creators, its fans, and the networks that financially back it. There's a great gag in the first episode that turns Zach Braff's exodus from Scrubs in its ninth season into an inside joke about Donald Glover leaving Community (he'll appear in five episodes this season before departing). It's a bit that airs the show's dirty laundry while also raising important questions about the obligations that actors, writers, and audiences have to a show they love: Does Harmon have a right to be mad at Glover? What does an actor owe the role that gave him a big break? The questions may be unanswerable, but that doesn't stop the show from exploring the implications.
More than inside jokes, though, the show continues to be the scrappy underdog that just won't give up. It remains a show about the power of connecting to people in a world that's seemingly structured to keep us apart. It's about how art can not only speak to us on an emotional level, but also teach us empathy and humility and help us realize the importance of shared connections and human relationships built upon trust and understanding. It's about how even when faced with adversity (or cancellation, or an unpredictable Chevy Chase), a small community of people who truly understand you will get you through. In many ways, then, it's about Dan Harmon and the people who love his show. And it's good to have him back.
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