The fourth season of the television comedy series Community premiered on February 7, 2013 and concluded on May 9, 2013. The season consists of 13 episodes and aired on NBC on Thursdays at 8:00 pm ET as part of the network's "Comedy Night Done Right" programming block. The season marked the departure of showrunner Dan Harmon and overall received mixed reviews from critics. In the series's fifth season, Harmon returned as showrunner, and the fourth season was referred to retroactively as "the gas-leak year."
Jennie Garth as the American Inspector Spacetime's ensign/companion
Episodes
Production
The series was renewed for a fourth season of 13 episodes on May 10, 2012. On May 18, 2012, after returning to California from a cross-country flight, series' creator Dan Harmon received a text message alerting him that he had been relieved of his position as Community showrunner by Sony Pictures Television. Reportedly, Harmon's erratic behavior and leadership style were the reasons that the studio fired him. To replace Harmon, Sony Pictures Television hired writers David Guarascio and Moses Port, the co-creators of the short-lived CW series Aliens in America. Sony Pictures Television claimed that Harmon would serve as a consulting producer, but Harmon affirmed via his Tumblr that he would not return in a position without executive prerogatives. Regardless, Harmon was credited as an "executive consultant" for the season, despite not working on a single episode. The fourth season saw other behind-the-scenes changes, as well. Executive producers Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan, writer/producer Chris McKenna and actor/writer Dino Stamatopoulos all departed following the third season. Frequent episode directors and executive producersAnthony and Joe Russo also left in order to direct . McKenna, Stamatopoulos, and Joe Russo later returned to work on the show's fifth season. Returning writers for fourth season include co-executive producer Andy Bobrow, producer Megan Ganz, and staff writer Tim Saccardo, who had been with the series since season two; and co-executive producer Maggie Bandur, and writing team and executive story editors Steve Basilone and Annie Mebane, who joined the series in season three. New additions to the writing staff in the fourth season include co-executive producer Ben Wexler, co-producers Hunter Covington and Gene Hong, and staff writers Issac Gonzalez and Jack Kukoda. Cast member Jim Rash wrote the eleventh episode of the season. Tristram Shapeero, who directed several episodes during the first three seasons, was promoted to an executive producer and directed the majority of the fourth season's episodes. Filming for the season began shooting in August 2012, and the series was initially scheduled to premiere on October 19, 2012, airing in a new time slot on Fridays at 8:30 pm. In early October 2012, NBC delayed the premiere. NBC.com released a video of the cast of Community in character addressing the delay of the season premiere; this video humorously claimed that October 19 is merely a "state of mind". On October 30, 2012, NBC announced that the fourth season would premiere on February 7, 2013, returning to its original time slot of Thursdays at 8:00 pm.
Chevy Chase's departure
During the filming of "Advanced Documentary Filmmaking", Chevy Chase became angry at the racist direction his character was heading. While venting his frustrations, he used the slur "nigger"; episode director Jay Chandrasekhar argued that Chase's use of the word was "political," and an attempt to point out how racist his character had become. Regardless, the slur upset cast members, and Chase walked off of the set. He later returned to film some additional scenes, but later announced on November 21, 2012 that he had left the show. As a result of timing and the agreement made, Chase's character Pierce is absent for two episodes—he did not appear in tenth episode, "Intro to Knots", or the twelfth episode, "Heroic Origins". He also appeared in a voice-only role in the episode "Intro to Felt Surrogacy", which was the final episode produced for the season, and as part of his agreement to leave the show, Chase was required to record all audio for the scenes where his character, alongside the other characters, appeared as a puppet. The season finale, which was filmed out-of-sequence, as it was the eleventh episode produced, marked the final on-screen appearance of Chase as a regular cast member.
Reception
Rating
The season premiere, "History 101", was seen by 3.88 million viewers and scored a 1.8 in the 18–49 demographic. This meant that its ratings were up when compared not only to the third season finale, but also the aforementioned season's premiere. The premiere's ratings were enough to generate cautiously optimistic speculation that the show would be renewed for a fifth season. However, as the season wore on, the ratings began to dip, which led some to wonder if this would be the show's last season. The season's final episode, "Advanced Introduction to Finality", was viewed by 3.08 million viewers and scored a 1.3 rating in the 18–49 demographic.
Critical reviews
The fourth season received mixed to positive reviews from critics, and is considered to be the weakest season of Community due to Harmon's absence. The fourth season scored 69 out of 100 based on 17 critics on Metacritic based on episode 1 and 3, indicating "generally favorable reviews". On Rotten Tomatoes, it was reported that 65% of critics gave the season a positive review. Verne Gay of Newsday stated, "Still defiantly Community, still good and still uninterested in adding new viewers." On the other hand, Hitfixs Alan Sepinwall stated, "It feels like Port, Guarascio and the other writers decided to reverse-engineer the Harmon version of Community, but couldn't quite manage without the missing ingredient of Harmon himself." Mike Hale of The New York Times has stated that the series "has been dumbed down, its humor broadened past recognition, and the two episodes provided for review...have fewer laughs between them than a single good scene from the old Community." At the end of season 4, The A.V. Club's Emily VanDerWerff confessed, "I never thought I would say this, but I just don't care anymore."
Harmon's response
In an episode of Harmontown — a weekly live-comedy podcast — Harmon initially said that, while the season was an "impression, and an unflattering one," it was merely "not cup of tea." Later in the same interview, however, he likened it to "'flipping through Instagram just watching your girlfriend blow everyone' and seeing a friend 'Like' a photo of your ex-girlfriend with her new boyfriend on Facebook." Harmon also described the season as like "being held down and watching your family get raped on a beach". Later, in a Tumblr blog post, Harmon apologized to fans of the show, its cast and crew and the writers. He apologized for the rape comparison and for using the phrase "durpy durpy dur" in a joke about the season, saying that the phrase is "language used to dehumanize the developmentally disabled". Sony later expressed an interest in having Harmon record commentary tracks for all the fourth-season episodes, although this did not come to pass.
DVD release
The fourth season was released on DVD in region 1 on, in region 2 on, and in region 4 on.
