To misquote Abed on season four: “I remember when this show was about community college and didn’t suck.” Sure, it improved as it went along, but it never managed to shake that Community-tribute-act vibe. It was like the writers were performing a “Best Of,” but hadn’t actually heard the original songs. Or learnt to play their instruments. All the half-assed call-backs to paintball and the darkest timeline seemed to scream: “The fans will remember this! You know, from when it was good.”

Even the characters felt like bad lookalikes this seasons. Look at Abed, surely one of the most interesting comedy characters of recent years. This season saw him reduced to making increasingly lazy references and forced homages. Meanwhile, Jeff’s speeches have become so utterly mawkish and wet that he might as well just walk around wearing a t-shirt saying “I LOVE MY FRIENDS” and save us a lot of wasted time. As for Chang, he’s just one of the worst characters ever.

Worst of all, this season just wasn’t funny. This is meant to be a comedy, so where were the jokes? They seem to have been replaced with more and more contrived high-concepts. Let’s do a puppet episode, let’s do a superhero origins episode, let’s do a fate episode — and yes, two of those were the same one; it was literally conceptually confused. The feeling that this was a show trying to be Community permeated every unfunny second of season four.

But that’s because it was trying to be Community. Call me a stuck record, but with no Dan Harmon, you have no Community. Trying to write Community without him is a thankless task. It’s not the writers’ fault, they were doing their best in an impossible situation. It’s NBC’s fault, for firing the man who created Community and exercised such auteurist control over every aspect of the show. Community without Dan Harmon is like Seinfeld without Seinfeld, or How I Met Your Mother without the casual sexism.

Now, there are reports that Dan Harmon may return for season five, which seems highly unlikely given the hugely unfair way in which he was sacked — the Commutiny, as I call it. But I sincerely hope he does return, because that would be the only way to save this limping ghoul of a show. Otherwise, I beg that NBC have a change of heart and axe this show that I once so desperately longed to continue. #6seasonsandamovie? More like #4seasonsandanapology.

If you run over an animal with your car and it only just survives, screaming in agony, it is only right that you put it out of its misery. That’s what NBC has done to Community; they have all but killed it, leaving it floundering in pain. They therefore have something of a moral duty to finish it off, out of mercy. And I hope that someone somewhere in the world of television learns a valuable lesson about messing around with an artist’s creative vision. But they won’t.

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The answer to that last question is: probably not.

I know there are a lot of die-hard Community fans out there who believe their beloved show can do no wrong. We have a few at CliqueClack HQ, in fact; I’ve seen the sub-Reddit dedicated to the show too. The fact of the matter is, this season sucked — at least in comparison to previous seasons — and unless it decides to make a significant shift in its writing style, I’m out next season.

What happened to stand-out episodes like the first Halloween episodes? The first paintball episode? Advanced Dungeons and Dragons? The blanket/pillow fort war? What do these all have in common? They didn’t happen in season four. Can you name any that even come close to these gems from season four? I didn’t think so.

Sure, great shows can’t always turn it on all the time. This is different — something … changed. I tried to put my finger on just what it was this season that was missing from the others, and it didn’t take me long to figure it out. Yes, there’s the missing element of Dan Harmon, but more specifically it was the addition of something I just never needed in my Community: moments of morality. There was this sudden shift where, for example, Jeff had a conscience and started to care about the people he’d been going to Greendale with for over three years. We were supposed to start caring about Pierce. Episodes started ending with Modern Family-like life lesson moments. The recent episode with Chang deciding to mail the letter for the dean? Absurd! Episode-ending morals have worked for shows like Modern Family — and, hell, even South Park — but not Community.

The moment I had what should have been the last straw was this past season’s puppet episode. I had very high hopes for it, and I sincerely thought we’d finally get a laugh-out-loud episode to make up for what had been a depressingly dull season. Unfortunately, it turned out to be pretty awful. What should have — or, at least, could have — been filled with songs containing lyrics on-par with the likes of Community‘s hysterical musical holiday episode turned out to be awash with lovey Sesame Street-esque numbers that, while cute and all, were not at all funny. When the episode ended, I was actually angry I’d wasted my time and faith in it, and embarrassed I’d told friends they needed to be sure to watch it.

The question now is, will Community simply stick to its current formula, since it seemed to work enough to get them a fifth season? Possibly the new feel-good mentality of the show has gained it new viewers, but I have to figure it’s lost some as well. Community used to be a show you could easily talk about, laugh about and reference for days, weeks or months after you saw an episode, and that’s completely disappeared. I want my absurd, over-the-top, laugh-out-loud Community back. It doesn’t have to be Dan Harmon, but, please, someone stand up to the plate.

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Julia: I’m not sure what I expected from Community, but all the months of waiting and drama I feel like I wanted more than what I got from that first episode back. Is it just me?

Katie: About two days before the show aired, I started getting nervous that it really was going to be bad. So I had actually mentally prepared myself to be disappointed. Thanks to being a pessimist, I was mostly OK with the episode … even though there were some missteps.

Julia: See, I’m an optimist, so that could be my problem. I just felt like it was a little bit of a directionless episode, like there were some good ideas but not a lot of cohesion.

Katie: I agree. There were a lot of funny jokes (“Why does this feel good?” made me laugh on the way to work the next day) and I appreciated how they wrote Jeff to really care about his friends — that he’s at the point where his loyalty to them is a given. But it did feel like too many storylines and not enough of them together.

That being said … Community Muppet Babies? Amazing.

Julia: Troy and Britta in the fountain was good, though the Muppet Babies bit was lost on me, because I didn’t have cable young enough to watch that. I liked them taking potshots at laugh track sitcoms in general – specifically The Big Bang Theory, which has been on my shit list forever. But I’m used to Community taking a more subtle approach to meta, and this was a clunky, like they were trying very hard to make a point but lacked the old, dare I say Dan Harmon-ian finesse to do it with.

Katie: The snark during the Big Bang potshots were palpable. i think the Harmon-ian finesse really comes down to the lack of cohesian. I will say that I read an interview with Andy Bobrow where he admitted there were some issues with the first episode and it was pretty much what we’ve been saying — too many storylines, not enough bringing the group together, maybe a little too much of the meta-“we’re going to be OK” thing. I guess at this point I’m thinking that most of the missteps can be avoided going forward.

The only two things that I thought were actual mistakes were 1). having Troy and Britta go canon and 2). having the Dean move next to Jeff. I love the Troy and Britta dynamic, but for me they work better as friends attracted to each other. And the Dean … I mean, they spent the whole episode telling us that they weren’t going to become the cliched wacky sitcom and then they end with the nutty Dean moving next to the guy he has a crush on.

Julia: Yes! I hate Troy and Britta together romantically. It just makes no sense to me for them as characters, not to mention it clears the way for Annie/Jeff, which I unreservedly loathe as a pairing. (They bring out the worst in each other! I will repeat this going into my grave.) And I think more than anything this episode just convinced me those pairs didn’t work together more than that they did? Which may have been the point, I’m not sure.

I feel like the Dean is a tricky character to critique on traditional sitcom grounds, though, because he is so firmly in a traditional whacky sitcom role. What makes him good is how much farther they’re willing to take the character than most sitcoms would, so I hold off reservations or judgment on the neighbor Dean development until I see where it gets taken.

Katie: I don’t agree with some other critics that are saying the premiere was bad and the show is ruined, etc. For me it had a rough start, but the characters were still themselves and there were really just a few tweaks that could have made the episode better.

Julia: I’d definitely say that the calls of a ruined show are premature. There were plenty of good character moments and humor (the Hunger Games montage was delightful) we don’t get from anywhere else. A bad Community is still a good episode of any other show.

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(All times below are Eastern, because we’re up earlier than all the rest of you!)

11:00AM – 3:20PM

• Clash of the Titans [Blu-ray] – $3.96
• Unknown – $1.96
• Inception – $4.96
• The Last of the Mohicans: Director’s Definitive Cut [Blu-ray] – $3.96
• Community: The Complete Second Season – $9.96
• Scrubs: The Complete Collection – $84.99

3:20PM – 7:20PM

• Horrible Bosses (+ UltraViolet Digital Copy) [Blu-ray] – $7.96
• 21 Jump Street (+ UltraViolet Digital Copy) [Blu-ray] – $7.96
• Starsky & Hutch (Widescreen Edition) – $0.96
• American Wedding – Unrated (Widescreen Collector’s Edition) – $1.96
• 21 Jump Street (+ UltraViolet Digital Copy) – $8.96
• Pirates of the Caribbean Four-Movie Collection (Blu-ray + Digital Copy) – $84.99

7:20PM – 11:20PM

• RVBX: Ten Years of Red vs. Blue Box Set [Blu-ray] – $61.99
• Robotech: The Complete Original Series – $23.99
• Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns (Includes The Tenth Inning) – $30.99
• Ken Burns: Prohibition – $12.99
• Digimon: Digital Monsters – The Official First Season – $25.99
• UFC: Ultimate Fight Collection 2012 – $67.49

Other deals and stuff:

• Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax – $3.99
• Planet of the Apes: 5 Film Collection [Blu-ray] – $22.99 (54% off)
• Homeland: The Complete First Season – $19.99 ($24.99 on Blu-ray)
• Once Upon A Time: The Complete First Season – $19.99 ($24.99 on Blu-ray)
• Revenge: The Complete First Season – $19.99

Check back here for more Black Friday deals and other discoveries we’re on the lookout for!