Movies - TV
Community's Dan Harmon Says One Episode Theme Felt ‘Cursed’
By MICHAEL BOYLE
"Community" season 2 episode 17, "Intro to Political Science," was among its silliest episodes. Everything that happened in the episode seemed to have no relevance to the plot.
In 2011, showrunner Dan Harmon shed light on how the episode became tepid in a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread. If Harmon is to be believed, it's a miracle the episode ever aired.
It turns out that their first attempt at the episode was in season 1, but Harmon said “the table read for the script was so s***ty that we threw the entire thing out.”
A season later, the writers tried again. “If you were there for the process leading up to it, you would say, ‘Holy crap, this story does not want to be told’,” Harmon added.
When “Intro to Political Science” finally aired, it proved meaningless. Harmon admitted, “We basically bailed, filled [the episode] with jokes, and ran for our damn lives.”
"Intro to Political Science" might have been a little cursed, and it's definitely not as focused as the show's best episodes, but there's still a lot that makes it worth watching.