Dan Harmon Recording DVD Commentary On A TV Season He Had Nothing To Do With Just MIGHT Be A Bad Idea?

It's one thing for Sony, the studio that produces NBC's Community, to invite Dan Harmon back to run the show he created despite the fact that the reasons he was allegedly fired (constant late script deliveries; being generally impossible to work with (by his own "It has to be like this or I quit" estimation); feuding with one of his stars) were all very sound. ...Okay, the last one won't be an issue anymore, Chevy Chase having left the show. But Harmon probably hasn't had much incentive to work on his other professional deficits in the year he's gotten to spend doing whatever he feels like. "Ugh, gross, this bologna's gone off and smells awful! Well, let's put it back in the fridge and see if it's better tomorrow." - Sony. But whatever: if your goal is to make enough episodes of Community to get it into syndication by whatever means necessary, then I guess you might as well bring back the guy whose self-indulgence started running it into the ground in Season 2 even though one of the projects he's worked on lately is an even bigger monument to his self-indulgence, with even fewer checks on same. But getting him to record the Season 4 DVD commentaries is maybe not the greatest idea Sony's ever had.

It's not because having Harmon comment on the season he quite famously has not worked on will make Sony look bad. I mean, it will make Sony look bad, by highlighting what the show's fans must regard as a tactical error on the studio's part (firing Harmon and proceeding without him). But it's hard to hold a grudge against a studio, and only the most crazed fans even know what company produces Community.

Here's the problem. Harmon claims he hasn't watched this latest season of Community. So if his first exposure to it is when he's being required to register his objections directly, in real time, and for posterity, there's no way he can't shit on it. And if his shitting has a performative function, it'll be the most intense, sustained, bowel-blasting shit in history. Think of the last time you went to the zoo and saw an elephant voiding its bowels: that'll give you an idea. The center of the Venn diagram of those who bought the Season 4 DVDs because they legitimately enjoyed the season, and those who are interested in hearing what Dan Harmon thinks of it, probably doesn't encompass that many people, but there must be some, and those commentaries are sure to make them feel like prize assholes. Alienating your customers seems like a weird way to drum up business for Season 5.

On the other hand, Harmon is probably going to be watching Season 4 in any case, if only to make sure he doesn't start pitching ideas and hearing his replacements already used them. And the effect of his watching Season 4 is almost certainly going to be to make him even more bitter about his year off. We already know from his own public behaviour and online activity that Harmon doesn't place much importance on being dignified about his exit from the show, and having an excuse to roll around in Season 4 is not going to make him belatedly learn how to be gracious in defeat. So, commentary or no, given his professional predilections, Harmon's Season 5 is probably going to be made up of 50% or more textual or subtextual complaints about what happened on the show in his absence....

...in which case, maybe letting Harmon get some of that out of his system, like a therapeutic bloodletting, could help him to keep that percentage low when the time comes for him to write new episodes? I mean, not lower than 50% -- that's a baseline. But it could keep him from letting it creep up into the eighties.

In reality, Sony probably doesn't have to worry that much about anything Harmon does now. The fans already ascribe all of Season 4's problems to Harmon's absence, and at least some of them must have already decided, on a conscious level or not, to love everything he does in Season 5. And the popularity of the Harmontown podcast proves that he can barf up any old stuff -- while drunk, often -- and people will hail him as a genius. So on second thought, what the hell, let him record the Season 4 commentaries if it means his fans buy the DVDs if they otherwise wouldn't. At least that will give his girlfriend a few hours off from fighting with him in public.