If you’re enjoying watching Community for the first time, the anomaly of the fourth season might be a little bewildering. Where the rest of the show is witty, enjoyable and well-versed in pop culture without being obnoxious about it, season four is almost like an exaggeration of what came before, and yet if you can get through it, it becomes great again in season five.

For those of us more acclimatised to the volatile behind-the-scenes situation on the NBC show, you might remember that there was a season there where series creator and showrunner Dan Harmon was fired, only to be re-hired the following year in an unprecedented turnaround by the network.

With Harmon reinstated, season four looks even more like a blip. In universe, the whole season is referred to as “the gas leak year,” but in retrospect, is it totally indefensible as anything other than that? Did showrunners David Gurascio and Moses Port really do such a horrible job?

Harmon clearly didn’t have a very positive outlook when he finally watched the season himself, and the ensuing rant on his Harmontown podcast was extensively transcribed and quoted out of context in the online press. He has since apologized for the outburst, saying that it probably sounded very “un-Community” to the fans who had continued to support the show through to its fifth season. Still, there was one observation that rings true when you watch season four.