‘Community’ Creator Dan Harmon Calls Fourth Season ‘Unflattering’
Just one week after being officially reinstated as showrunner on Community, creator Dan Harmon revealed his less than favorable opinion of the show’s fourth season and its studio, Sony, on a recent episode of his podcast “Harmontown,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“It’s not somebody doing what they do and trying really hard to make people happy,” Harmon said of the show’s most recent season, which was helmed by Moses Port and David Guarascio. “It is very much an impression, an unflattering one.”
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Harmon went on to say he believed he and a handful of writers were “flushed” before Season Four because they would have commanded too much leverage, power and salary. Harmon was fired from Community following a particular rocky third season that included a public feud with former cast member Chevy Chase.
While not necessarily a fan of Port and Guarascio’s work, Harmon nevertheless noted they were faced with a tough uphill battle and they did their best to give Community‘s rabid cult following the show they wanted: “They tried their best, and I think that’s the best idea – well, not the best idea it turns out – but the most admirable impulse . . . ‘If there’s anything else we do, let’s not let [the fans] down.'”
When asked if he believed he could return Community to its former glory, Harmon admitted, “I don’t feel confident in my ability to slam-dunk anything. I’ll measure slam-dunking by my own standards, so the basket’s always going to be one inch higher than what I can jump.”
Harmon also criticized Community‘s studio, Sony Pictures Television, for pitting writers against writers, saying that’s “the fucking American dream in the eyes of Sony.” He added: “They want creative people rewriting each other. They want creative people replacing each other. They want us interchangeable. They want to think about writing the way they think about the guy on assembly line 24 that puts the final screw on the fucking Playstation. They want to think about us all that way, and I shouldn’t even say ‘they,’ ’cause it’s an it. It’s a fucking machine.”