'Community's Creator Is Really Bummed

Being an ousted showrunner is probably tough. Who do you go to for support? There are family and friends, but who really gets it, you know? Do you go for brunch with Glen Mazzara and cry into your bellinis together? It's a complicated time, basically, and Community 's once-fired showrunner Dan Harmon is a unique example in that the network regretted firing him so much that they brought him back for Season 5. But now that Harmon's back in the creative chair, he really (really, really) wishes people would stop blaming the show's fourth season on what he set up in Season 3.

Dan Harmon likes to engage his fans and his detractors alike, and he also likes to let us know how he's feeling emotionally about certain things. These two urges led him to "Unpopular Opinions About the "Unpopular Opinions About Community" thread on Reddit, which seems like one of the most unhealthy and upsetting places for a showrunner to lurk, but whatever. What he witnessed there led him to post this: "If I see one more pseudo scientific observation that season 4 was season 3's fault I'm going to make every episode of season 5 about the teenagers from season 2."

Basically, he's unhappy about people who blame the quality of the season he was fired for on the quality of the seasons he was... not fired for. Which makes sense; many showrunners who have departed from their shows (either voluntarily or not) have expressed publicly the torture of watching the seasons they were not around to run. Considering Community's Season 4 did not get very good reviews, it's probably all the worse for Harmon when people blame its quality on him.

He elaborated:

Saying season 3 sucked is like punching my brother. I wish it wouldn’t happen but my brother probably deserved it, he’s kind of nuts. But I love him, you know? I don’t talk to him, but he’s my brother.

Saying season 4 sucked is like punching…let’s say Jeffrey Dahmer. He’s from my home town, but I didn’t know him and he ate 17 people.

Saying season 3 sucked so bad that it made season 4 suck is like feeding my brother to Jeffrey Dahmer. I have no idea if he deserves it, it doesn’t matter if he does, it bums me out, there’s nothing I can do, but definitely no need to argue about it.

Explaining why season 4 is season 3′s fault and how it’s important to state your opinion and I should really calm down is like feeding my brother to Dahmer really slowly, while wearing Harry Potter glasses that you keep pushing up on the bridge of your nose.

Saying anything about community sucked is like punching. It would be great if it never happened but so would having a gumdrop-exhaust-powered jet pack.

And then he elaborated again:

It makes me feel bad when people blame season 4 on season 3. It bums me out. It’s a bummer that a result of the political and creative disruption of the show should have to be people saying it’s bad, and then people arguing with those people, not by saying it’s good, but by saying more of it was bad. It’s a bummer. It feels like bad guys that don’t even watch the show are somewhere laughing about how they broke us. It’s a bummer. It is important to be able to say that.

It's okay, Harmon! Cheer up! Only a half a handful of people on Reddit actually have that opinion you're upset about anyway. You're back on the show and people are genuinely excited to watch again! Aside from the whole Donald Glover leaving thing, which is still majorly bumming us out.

Image: NBC