'Community' Season Five Teaser: The Return Of Mr. Winger

Can series creator Dan Harmon put the shine back on Community? Ousted for the show's fourth season, he's back for the fifth, which premieres on January 2. This teaser suggests that Harmon has done a lot of course correcting — while I couldn't get through much of the fourth season, this teaser has me ready to check out the fifth. In fact, I'm now eager to see this season, and I would never have guessed I'd feel that way after struggling through the first third of season four before giving up.

In fact, interviews see star Joel McHale saying that Harmon is "basically calling it a re-pilot of the show, where he's re-establishing all the characters and grounding (them)." And there's a lot of work to do: Chevy Chase left the cast, Donald Glover is leaving partway through season five, and John Oliver is returning.

But this little bit of footage suggests that Harmon might have been able to (re)ground the characters without losing the zany, unpredictable aspects of the show. Check it out below. 

Speaking to USA Today, John Oliver talks a bit about his return:

Professor Duncan has such a vibrant relationship with alcohol that it's entirely possible he simply blacked out two seasons ago, and doesn't realize that he's missed anything. The truth is that there's actually a fantastic explanation for his absence that makes simultaneously complete sense, as well as no sense whatsoever.