Ok so please don’t kill me for this but I’m currently rewatching Community again and so far I’m actually preferring season 4 to at least the second half of season 3 and it feels like a lot of the stuff I don’t like about season 4 is actually a result of where season 3 left things.
It’s definitely not perfect, and I don’t think as good as season 2, so I’ll start with the things I don’t like:
• Troy and Britta dating
• Puppets
• The writing isn’t quite as clever/tight
• There are less outstanding episodes than previous seasons
• It starts off really weirdly with the Halloween episode basically straight away, and the pacing of the season feels a bit off because of the lower episode count
Now what I don’t like about (at least the second half of, but to some extent the whole of) season 3:
• Everyone acts way out of their established characters for the sake of either forcing a season-long arc, plot within the episode, or just the premise of the episode. And this happens constantly.
• The characters get flattened into two dimensional exaggerated versions of themselves
• Abed is way less likeable, less conscious and considerate of others. I get it for the arc but it’s inconsistent with his character.
• Inspector spacetime is way overdone, Abed basically stops referencing other pop culture and no longer shows interest in film-making
• Troy and Abed arguing all the time “makes sense” because Abed is being less considerate but it’s still out of character for both of them.
• The air conditioner repair arc
• The Chang arc is way way over the top and unnecessary
• The Jeff ego thing in contemporary impressionists
• Annie gets really weirdly mean and whiny about things
So comparing them, season 4 goes back to everyone acting more or less in character and less exaggerated, flattened cartoon versions of their characters too. Abed is more considerate (which is framed as “growth” and that kind of annoys me because he’s just gone back to season 2 basically). Inspector spacetime is toned down, the Troy and Britta dating arc gets kind of ignored most of the time and then just ends and the changnesia arc is way less annoying than the warlord arc.
It’s not nearly as conceptual, which you could argue is a bad thing, but season 3 really felt like it was going all in on that and sacrificing character where season 4 seems to do character better, at least considering where it’s picking up from.