Community: The Worst Episode From Every Season

NBC’s Community ran for six full seasons from 2009 to 2015. Written by Dan Harmon, the show gained many adoring fans for the memorable characters, ridiculous plot lines, and hilarious dialogue.

As with every sitcom, there are fan favourite episodes, such as Remedial Chaos Theory, or any of the yearly paintball battles. However, alongside the great episodes, Community was also cursed with a few not so great ones. Season 4, in fact, is generally hated by a lot of fans due to the change in writers.

Despite season 4 being arguably the low point of the show, the other five seasons weren’t short of dull episodes. While seasons 2 and 3 are often hailed as the sitcom’s highest points, even they had a few episodes that didn’t quite work. Admittedly, not necessarily the worst episodes of all time, but definitely the ones that get skipped most during full season rewatches.

Here is the worst episode from each season of Community.

Community's first episode opens with a nice introduction to each character while the Dean describes the kind of person who'd attend Greendale Community College. We meet Jeff and Abed, get some context as to why Jeff is there, and we see the college at work. Past that, Community's Pilot episode is fairly lacking.

It's in no way bad, obviously. It started the show off wonderfully, but looking back, it's not so great. It becomes clear that as the show went on, the writers got to know the characters better, with them each feeling more unique and built up than they were before. As such, going back to watch the very first gathering of the study group is quite jarring. None of the characters act in the way they should, and not just because they'd never met.

Jeff is a little too sleazy. Britta's not 'Britta' enough. Shirley's a bit too harsh. Troy is barely himself. The whole episode works as an excellent start to a show, but after some time it's become seemingly little more than a skeleton of what Community went on to be.