I’ve tried to watch the fourth season of Community with an open mind. I promise I have. I wanted the privilege of cheering it on as it defied the cliché of the TV series that falters after the departure of its creator. I wanted to witness a strong group collaboration surviving the loss of a single participant, no matter how integral he was. I wanted to see a show continue defying convention and seeking eccentric storytelling methods within the corporate IP context. I wanted more of the same Community whose first three seasons had repeatedly surprised and outsmarted me.

Perhaps I wanted too much. Perhaps I wanted all the wrong things. All I know for sure is that I didn’t want an ordinary sitcom. With each passing week the evidence keeps pointing in that disappointing direction, no matter how hard I wish for the opposite.

My list of trivial grievances ill befitting a show of this caliber:

* Mandatory romantic coupling. Though we’ve seen more-than-friend relationships between Our Heroes come and go in seasons past, this season’s attempts have borne little fruit. Troy/Britta work well within the group but have zero chemistry as a lone pair (and in the last two episodes seem to have forgotten they’re dating); Jeff/Annie was previously declared null and void, but briefly hinted at once again; and now even Abed has been given a perfunctory True Love, apparently because viewers can’t live without romance and sex in all their shows, sometimes in that order. Once upon a time Community had been that rare show that had more interesting. less overexamined themes on its mind.

* Plots we’ve seen before. Another Abed documentary? Another squabble with a snotty evil clique? A show this relatively young shouldn’t be resorting to retreads this soon. When this was technically done with the paintball sequel, it was a sequel on purpose and escalated accordingly (and with a grandiose flair).

* Premise fallen by the wayside. Remember when their common bond was a shared college class? And they had a teacher, not just a dean? Good times, way back when.

* Concepts that should’ve remained unseen. Two of the wickedest sitcom characters ever were Maris Crane and Vera Peterson, precisely because the descriptions of their outrageous behaviors were funny and imaginative enough even without appearing onscreen. The season-two episode in which Jeff doesn’t meet his estranged father was dozens of times more satisfying than this season’s guest-starring James Brolin as Winger the Elder in the flesh. Likewise, any one of us could’ve imagined the interior of Pierce’s mansion as a monument to decadence and racism, but our first peek during the four-months-late Halloween episode was uninspired and sparsely decorated. We don’t need to have every person, place, or thing ever mentioned suddenly show up for real, one by one in rote checklist style.

* My previous objections about the Inspector SpaceTime episode. Noted again for the record, emphasizing in sum that I can accept an antagonist mocking geeks, but (a) an existing character shouldn’t have to be reshaped to become the necessary mouthpiece; and (b) their barbs should be less than forty years old.

* Sincere musical guests and numbers. The formerly for-geeks-by-geeks show is now evincing non-geek middle-of-the-road musical tastes. Last week the cast stood enraptured and unironic while special guest, former Top-40 singer Sophie B. Hawkins, gently performed snippets from her two 1990s hits. This week, we had a non-singing appearance from Sara Bareilles (who has a new single coming soon!), along with puppets singing in the mode of those occasional performances on The Muppet Show in which the week’s host would sing a straight-faced, serious song and my attention would drift away until they shut up.

* Catchphrases in lieu of punchlines. This hasn’t become a major issue yet, but I’ve seen it happen in so many shows that I’m adding this as a preemptive peeve. It’s already happening with Annie and Shirley’s always “Awwww!”-ing in unison, which now makes me wince every time. If the revamped show impresses NBC executives so much that it survives beyond the four remaining episodes, I can already imagine Abed’s “Cool-cool-cool!” being brought back in full force and becoming the new “DY-NO-MITE!” Wouldn’t it fit just swell on a T-shirt from the NBC Universal Store?

* Puppets. Period. Yes, the puppet versions of the cast were cute. “Cute” is not a synonym for “funny”. I’m a massive fan of Crow, Gypsy, and Tom Servo, but it’s not because they look wacky — it’s because of their performances, what’s done with them. With the exception of one sight gag (Chang’s puppet having its own puppet), the puppets were a largely superfluous novelty. I’ve read online comparisons to the Muppets, but I was reminded more of Wayland Flowers and Madame, the one guy from Soap, or some of the Nick Jr. shows I was forced to endure with my son when he was a toddler. Puppets can be used for entertaining purposes, but they are not, in and of themselves, an innovative TV concept. I’ve been a fan of the Muppets for over three decades. These, sir, were no Muppets.

Blame the high standards set by past greatest hits — the first paintball episode; the Dungeons & Dragons episode; the chaos theory episode; the Claymation Christmas special (which did put its unusual medium to unique satirical use); Troy’s recurring reverse-homage to Good Will Hunting; and so on. Under creator Dan Harmon, the show rarely had to settle for the level of an ordinary sitcom. I’m not really interested in ordinary sitcoms. I’m not required by law or peer pressure to watch them. If NBC finds greater ratings success in appealing to the Nielsen commoners instead of the show’s original fans, I’ll concede that’s their call to make from a business perspective.

With only four episodes remaining, I still plan to see it through to the end for old time’s sake, but I’m having a hard time holding out hope for a return to form in that brief time frame. I’m sad to say that under the current circumstances, I’m no longer demanding two more seasons or a movie.