The best case scenario is that Dan Harmon returns – and I like to believe it’s not terribly unlikely, even if it’s unprecedented. The second best case scenario would be for this poor show to end, just so that it doesn’t desecrate the amazing first three seasons. But this isn’t going to happen, because apparently enough people liked it even without Harmon. That’s the curse of the show.

Ultimately, we have to accept that there have always been two kinds of people watching Community. People of the first kind watched it because we felt that the jokes were cleverer than what you usually see in a sitcom. We watched it because we liked the complicated plot threads that were waived in every episode in ever more unexpected ways. And, most importantly perhaps, we were drawn to the fact that beneath the gags and the pop culture references and all the silliness, there was a darkness underlining almost everything that took place in the lives of the Greendale Seven. Naturally, all these things vanished when Dan Harmon left. People of the second kind watched the same series for entirely different reasons. For them, Community was about references and “special” episodes. They watched just to see what that weirdo Abed will do next. They wanted to see whether Jeff and Annie end up together. They watched because they wanted to see another tale of the power of friendship and another speech by the handsome de facto leader of the group about how they’ve grown. This is where the fourth season focused – and necessarily so, because a creator’s touch is usually irreplaceable, especially in such a complex medium.

In the end, if the renewal is anything to go by, it seems that the already small audience of Community was split even more and we, the people who watched Community for what Dan Harmon brought into the equation, are a very small minority.