The new season of Community is kind of a bummer. It’s not because Dan Harmon — the creator of the show who was fired for season four — has returned for its fifth and likely final season.
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After the mediocre fourth season, it’s clear that Harmon’s scatterbrained genius has always been what makes Community’s gleeful meta-references and genre bending sing; it’s definitely not because the new season has been bad. Harmon’s return has lifted it back up to, if not past, its previous levels of excellence.
The real problem with Community is that it’s setting has become its focus.
Community takes place at Greendale Community College — an institution plagued with indifferent management, apathetic teachers, and terrible cafeteria food. The characters/students in Community have always complained about their campus, lacklustre teachers, and student debt, which made them relatable to college students in real life.
But lingering beneath the complaints was hope for the future: Abed dreamt of being a filmmaker, Annie wanted to be a hospital administrator, and Jeff was going to be a lawyer again after leaving the profession in shame. The hope that its characters had for their future gave the show a layer of positivity that jived well with its other components, like its genre homages and meta-comedy.
Now in season five, Community has returned with the genre homages and meta-comedy toned down in order to focus on the current state of student life. The first episode begins with the study group, led by Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) post-graduation and struggling to find jobs because they were not adequately prepared for the workforce by their Alma Mater.
Abed, for example fails to follow his dream of being a filmmaker and concocts a get rich quick scheme with Troy involving the creation of a social network. The hardworking Annie doesn’t find a job in hospital administration, despite her perfect GPA, and pushes prescription drugs, instead. Finally, Winger finds the economy has not been kind to the legal profession. After briefly contemplating filing a class-action lawsuit against Greendale — cognitive estrangement at its finest — the gang decides to come back to the institution that failed them.
Bringing the study group together for one more go of it before a likely cancellation would normally seem like a desperate move by a television show in the twilight of its run. But it’s actually made the show more challenging. Truth be told, it has been awkward watching the harsh realities of student life unfold in comedy form. Community — with its paintball exploits and epic film plot lines jammed into 23-minute episodes — used to be an escape from the anxieties of student life. But now after shifting its focus, it has begun to feel a little too familiar.
