by Katt Jurado, Guest Reporter

After Dan Harmon (Series Creator/Showrunner) had a shocking exit from the show at the end of the Third Season of Community, fans were left wondering if we had truly seen the last of our favorite Community College. NBC surprised us all when they announced that Community would be returning for a Fourth Season, which would probably act as the show’s final hurrah. Now you can rewatch the students at Greendale Community College as they try to navigate this brave new “Harmon-less” world in Community: The Complete Fourth Season, now available to own on DVD.

Episodes:

Themed Community episodes have always been the most exciting. Past episodes involving paint-ball, documentaries, Dungeons and Dragons, and Law and Order have consistently provided some of the most hilarious moments from the series, thus setting our expectations very high when we are told that more themed episodes will be coming. Holiday episodes are also at the top of that list, and this Halloween episode (“Paranormal Parenting”) crashed and burned.  The group is on their way to a party when Pierce calls and says he locked himself in his panic room and forgot the code.  The study group must then go through his haunted mansion to retrieve the code.  Granted they were going for a Scooby-Doo feel (which is the only excuse for all the loose ends being wrapped up in the last couple minutes with a simple monologue) but they didn’t go far enough with the rest.  The biggest nod to Scooby-Doo is the bit that plays during the credits with Troy and Abed.  The episode dragged with run-down story lines like the Jeff-Pierce tension, Jeff having daddy issues and Pierce feeling left out.  The only parts worth chuckling for are when you realize that Troy and Abed are dressed as Calvin and Hobbes, and when Troy finds Pierce’s kinky dungeon.

“Intro to Felt Surrogacy” could’ve been really great. The study group feels awkward and Dean Pelton brings in puppets in order to help them talk about what happened.  The idea for puppets was a great one and I’m sure everyone meant well but even with Jason Alexander as a guest star, the episode flopped.  There was a collaboration with Sara Bareiliss for the music (she guest starred as well) but whenever the puppets started a song, you really just wanted it to end.  The episode relied too strongly on the puppets.  The writing seemed to be thrown by the wayside.  The best part of the episode, again, was when the credits roll.  The puppets sing a layered version of the song Abed hums in Season 3’s Halloween episode, “Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps.”

Community: The Complete Fourth Season wasn’t all bad though.  There were some nice moments and a few decent episodes, which serve as a reminder of when the show was really great.

“Advanced Documentary Filmmaking” was another great Abed documentary in the guise of studying “Changnesia”.  In the beginning, Dean Pelton lists off how he knows “Kevin” and you instantly remember all of Chang’s roles throughout the series: First as a teacher, secondly a student, next a security guard, then an evil dictator and now, Kevin.  (It was also one of the only episodes in which we get to ignore Troy and Britta’s relationship.)  Things were much more back to normal as far as the characters go: Jeff was conniving, Annie was over-achieving, Troy was flirting with Abed through the camera, Pierce was racist, Britta was “Britta-ing,” Shirley was caring, Abed was aloof and it ended with personal growth.

“Heroic Origins” (as the name suggests) is about how the group came together for better and for worse.  It’s a fun look back, not only on who the characters were when they came to Greendale, but also, who they were before Greendale which had always been hinted at but never shown.  It’s the same kind of joy of getting to know the characters even more as “Remedial Chaos Theory” (also known as “the timelines episode.”)  There’s even great minor origins such as where “Pop, pop” came from as well as “Annie’s Boobs.”  This episode was heart-warming and sincere.  It should’ve been the finale.

“I remember when this show was about a community college.” –Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi)

Special Features:

Just as Abed remembers when this show was about a community college, as do I.  I also remember when the show was really great and I watched it in real time instead of being apathetic about new episodes showing up on my DVR.  Unfortunately, the DVD extras leave as much to be desired as the Fourth Season did.

The deleted scenes and extended scenes would’ve been more appropriately used for snippets at the end of the show.  However, there are some extended, classic Winger speeches that were better left cut.  There aren’t many deleted scenes or extended scenes to have to sit through. The commentary is also very bland.  It didn’t give you insight on things you might not have noticed or discuss much of the process of the show.  It was mostly actors and crew talking about how they’d never seen the episode they were commenting on.

After all this, at least the outtakes should be good, right?  Wrong.  The first part of the outtakes takes place under Allison Brie rapping (from an outtake) and as impressive as it is because she’s not a rapper and was free-styling, it’s still a bit awkward. Donald Glover’s outtakes were the most entertaining but even he couldn’t save this extra feature.

“Inspector Spacetime: Inspection” is taking a deeper look into the pulling-off of a fake convention from the 3rd episode, “Conventions of Space and Time.”  What it really turns out to be are different technicians explaining all the different prop houses they went to, about how they didn’t need to have any direction, and that the background actors dressed themselves- also not needing direction, and all the while trying not to say, “Doctor Who knock-off.”  The interesting bit about this behind-the-scenes segment is when the actors talk about having gone to Comic-Con.  They discuss the chaos and give a shout-out and thanks to the fans and fandom for having them back every year.

Overall:

As an avid fan of this series, I wanted to have a copy of Community: The Complete Fourth Season in order to keep my collection of the series consistent… but if enjoying Community is something you merely dabble in, pass on the Dan Harmon-less season. The good news is that Dan Harmon is back on board for the upcoming Fifth Season of Community, so it will only be a matter of time before this show gets back on track.

Rating:
ComicsOnline gives Community: The Complete Fourth Season on DVD – 2 out of 5 savings graces thanks to Donald Glover.