Community is Back -- Really Back

When a show begins to fizzle and lose the magic, it's hard to recapture it.  Community season 4 seemed to be the beginning of the inevitable decline, with the creator Dan Harmon being fired and the on-set drama between Harmon, Chevy Chase, and pretty much everyone else.  Season 4 was by far the worst season, with forgettable and mostly laugh-less episodes. There were a few gems, but it mostly missed the point of everything that made Community great and was instead a cheap imitation trying to live up to something it just couldn't pull off.

By some weird miracle, the show still managed a season 5 pick-up.  I didn't have high hopes for it, even after it was announced that Dan Harmon would be returning.  Chevy Chase was gone, Donald Glover was announced to be leaving shortly. How could it possibly return to its former glory with all odds against it?

Well, I'm here to say I was wrong. Last night's episodes cleverly entitled "Repilot" and "Introduction to Teaching" proved it is possible to reclaim the road with the right driver at the wheel.  There's no doubt in my mind that Dan Harmon's kind of a jerk, but absolutely brilliant.  He fixed and excused season four by subtly writing dialogue that mentioned that last year there was "a gas leak in the school."  He reminded us why we love these characters, and how those one-liners are gold, and simultaneously moved the characters forward into new roles and conflicts.  I laughed so hard I cried, just like the good ole days with the Greendale Human Beings, those lovable losers we missed dearly.

Still, we haven't seen episodes without Troy yet and it's too early to tell if they can hold up this quality without both him and Pierce, who I'll also miss despite my distaste for Chevy. Meanwhile, the season 5 premiere had record low ratings though I blame that on whoever decided to schedule it on January 2nd against new episodes of ratings-hog The Big Bang Theory.  It is also possible that even a number of loyal fans skipped out because of the rough season 4 and were waiting to see what critics would have to say before they invested their time into it.  Community has never been a ratings winner though, so I'm gonna just thank the tv gods that have allowed it to run this long.

Can't wait to see the rest of this season!