- Community season 4, known as the "gas leak year," suffered a significant drop in quality and became the worst season of the series.
- The decision to replace showrunner Dan Harmon after season 3 led to behind-the-scenes drama and a decline in ratings for Community.
- While season 4 was widely criticized, it ultimately helped breathe new life into the show, with the return of Harmon and an uptick in quality in seasons 5 and 6.
The Community gas leak year resulted in season 4, which is regarded by most as the weakest of its 2009-2015 run. So notable was the dip in quality that in season 5 Community decided to blame all the fourth season on a gas leak — though there was a different explanation behind the scenes. Much of the show's success is attributed to Community creator Dan Harmon, who was fired after season 3. With Community getting lower ratings with every season and behind-the-scenes drama, it made sense that Sony would want to try and shake things up, and decided a new creative lead could be the change that Community needed.
Unfortunately, in Dan Harmon's absence, season 4 had such a massive drop in quality and earned a reputation as the worst season for the series, eventually becoming known as the Community gas leak year. It was bad enough that, in an attempt to excuse how bad season 4 was, the season 5 premiere had the cast attribute their behavior in season 4 to an in-universe gas leak – hence the "Community gas leak year" moniker. After that, Community season 4 would become a punching bag both in and out of the show, continuing the sitcom's trend of meta-commentary.
Community is available to stream on Hulu and Netflix.
Related: Community: Cast & Character Guide
Why NBC Fired Dan Harmon
The Decision That Led To The Community Gas Leak Year Explained
Both before and during Community, Harmon had a reputation for being incredibly hard to work with, with him constantly causing problems with his drinking, tardiness, and perfectionism. Also, Harmon would constantly go over the show's budget, which further exacerbated the problems between him and Sony Pictures Television. By the time season 3 ended, it was clear that Sony and NBC were looking for a change, so Harmon was fired as showrunner of Community and replaced with Aliens in America creators David Guarascio and Moses Port — the creative duo behind the Community gas leak year.
Community season 4 was an attempt to make production easier than it was with Dan Harmon, who would also co-create Rick and Morty, but unfortunately, the overall quality suffered immensely for it. When Harmon was fired, many noteworthy writers and directors for the show also decided to leave such as Chris McKenna, Dino Stamatopoulos, and the Russo Brothers, and this showed itself in the writing of the Community gas leak year. The personalities and motivations of the cast were wildly inconsistent with previous seasons, the humor was much broader and less vicious, and the show's innovation had eroded into stale gimmickry that lacked the wit and charm of earlier years.
Why The Gas Leak Season Is Considered So Bad
The Problems With Community Season 4 Explained
The gimmicky nature of Community season 4 was best shown in two areas: episode 8, "Intro to Felt Surrogacy", and the return of Community's Darkest Timeline gag. "Intro to Felt Surrogacy" was an episode revolving around the study group trying to work through the trauma of a hot air balloon ride gone wrong with the dual gimmicks of being a musical and having everyone be puppets. However, unlike themed episodes during Harmon's run on the show, the puppet episode was less organic and more like a show that was trying to be Community.
By comparison, season 2's "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" made the same basic idea work by providing actual reasons for being a stop-motion musical. As for the Darkest Timeline, the joke was originally connected solely to Danny Pudi's Abed's character arc in season 3, but in season 4, it's not tied to anyone's development in a meaningful way. Moreover, it was only used to set up a finale that had action just for the sake of action, as opposed to working as a parody or a vehicle for character growth.
Community season 4 fell apart because of an evident inability to replicate what made the previous seasons work. There were some honest attempts at doing so, but they all went too hard and often made the Community gas leak year come off as a parody of the prior 3 seasons led by Dan Harmon. All of this led to season 4 being regarded as the "gas leak year" in-universe and out, a reputation it's unlikely to lose any time soon.
How The "Gas Leak" Year Gave Community New Life
Community Season 4 Helped The Show Reinvent Itself
As bad as Community season 4 was, the gas leak year ironically helped to breathe new life into the show. Dan Harmon and Chris McKenna both returned for Community season 5 and Community season 6. This was an immediate sign of good faith from Sony, as they realized and acknowledged the role of the creative team in making Community a hit in the first place. More importantly, following the Community gas leak year, seasons 5 and 6 went on to be praised for bringing back a lot of the wit and charm of the first three seasons.
While several actors left Community, like Chevy Chase, Donald Glover, and Yvette Nicole Brown, it did get Jonathan Banks as Hickey in season 5. Paget Brewster and Keith David as Frankie and Elroy also returned in season 6. These additions to the Community cast were praised for the unique styles of comedy they each brought to the show. The biggest benefit of seasons 5 and 6, however, was how the writing seemed to have an uptick in quality. Even before the Community gas leak year, Dan Harmon's Community was criticized for becoming less and less grounded as it went on.
In fact, Community season 3 was heavily criticized for how cartoonish and over-the-top a lot of the stories were. With seasons 5 and 6, however, the writing seemed to make a return to how it was in the first two seasons, in which events would be over the top but still largely grounded in reality. Seasons 5 and 6 have their share of detractors, as well, but there was at least an attempt to course-correct the show with them. Considering how much the show stumbled in Community season 4, the episodes after the gas leak year trying to resolve that was welcomed by viewers.
How Community Made Decanonizing An Art Form
Why The "Gas Leak" Excuse Works
At its core, the idea of a "gas leak year" to excuse sub-par writing is incredibly lazy, but that's part of what made it work so well for a show like Community. When a TV show or movie franchise has some sort of misstep, the writers will usually try and course-correct the story, but the actual problems won't be directly addressed in any meaningful way. Because of that, the gas leak excuse works because it's part of an honest effort to both acknowledge and lampoon the shortcomings of season 4.
More importantly, it was done in a way that's perfectly on brand with Community's style of humor. The idea was even effective enough to reach outside Sony Pictures Television's Community. In the years since season 5 coined the term, it's not unknown that an uncharacteristically bad season of a TV show that then returns to form is referred to as a "gas leak year" when being discussed.
The "gas leak year" that was Community season 4 will always remain the show's lowest point. Everything that was good about the show was tossed aside as it became a pale imitation of itself, and while the show mostly bounced back with its final two seasons, season 4 remains a sticking point. Nevertheless, Community has still managed to maintain a devoted following years after the fact, and with the Community movie coming closer to fruition with every passing year, the show has long been forgiven for its missteps in Community season 4.
What Community's Joel McHale And Jim Rash Say About The Gas Leak Season
How The Stars Of Community Reflect On Season 4
The Community gas leak year was a challenge to shoot without Dan Harmon, whom Jim Rash called "the beating heart of Community." (via Entertainment Weekly) "There are certain shows that need the person that created them to be with the show," said Joel McHale in the same intereview when discussing season 4, "There's very good examples of that, like Breaking Bad, Arrested Development, Vampire Diaries, or even X-Files. And the person creates has the culture in their brain...The season definitely lost that magic part of it."
The Gas Leak Year Led To Absurd Writers Room Ideas
How Community Season 4 Created Creative Freedom For Season 5
Dan Harmon's return to Community in season 5 was the cause for relief and celebration for those who felt season 4 had lost its way. However, Harmon then had the difficult task of dealing with the bizarre storylines of the previous season while allowing season 5 to start fresh and return to basics. As a result, Harmon assembled the writer's room for Community season 5 and spent days coming up with the most absurd ideas to explain what would become known as the gas leak year, but also help them move on. Harmon told Uproxx:
I said we're gonna spend two days exhaustively exploring every single option that we have as fifth season “Community” writers. And we talked about everything no matter how absurd. First of all including Danny Pudi coming out of the cardboard Dreamatorium in his apartment at the beginning of season 5 and shaking it off and saying, “That was weird.” I mean, insane things like just finding out that the Greendale that we had seen for that year was actually some strange underground test facility. We just talked and talked and talked and had lots of fun talking about all these possibilities.
While the gas leak idea is absurd in its own right, it becomes a bit less so within the context of how experimental Harmon and the writers were willing to get with their ideas. Exploring the wilder options available to them allowed the show to re-ground itself, and the decision to blame an entire season on a prolonged gas leak also created a springboard for a few interesting plot ideas in season 5. Blaming sub-par writing on a gas leak may never be viewed as the most clever retconning in television history, but it was a concept that worked surprisingly well for Community.
Community
Release Date 2009-09-17
Cast Chevy Chase, Jim Rash, Yvette Nicole Brown, Danny Pudi, Donald Glover, Alison Brie, Ken Jeong, Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs
Rating TV-PG
Seasons 6
Writers Dan Harmon
Network NBC
Streaming Service Hulu, Netflix
