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Jess, I liked Parks and Recreation as well, and I think it can only get better. It's a great time to be making a show about governance and government. The fact that Parks is about small, silly government, far from D.C., should serve it well, allowing it to be current (Are they going to have budget cuts or get some infrastructure dollars over in Pawnee?) without being too inside baseball or Obama-philic.
I'm also intrigued by the ways it's not like The Office, which, granted, are very few. The Office, set in a dying paper business in a dying town (Scranton), has always been about how regular people cope with this—being a part of a dying business in a dying town—while simultaneously contending with all the other jokers wasting away their lives in the cubicle next door. The American version of The Office has done much to mute the essential soul-crushing, dreariness of this premise, fully explored in the wondrously brutal British series. (Liesl Schillinger wrote a great piece a few years ago comparing different nations' versions of The Office that speaks to the why of this watering down).
Given the relative positivity of the American Office, it's no surprise that when the guys who softened it up were tasked with making a whole new show, they came up with something a lot less inherently depressing. Despite all the ways that Parks is like The Office, it's not about dead end jobs in a dead end place—it's about everyday jobs in an everyday place (where people even have their own offices, like, with doors and stuff). In other words, compared to The Office's Michael Scott, Poehler's Knopes doesn't even rate on the loser scale. She may share Michael's linguistic ticks and social awkwardness, but, in just one episode, by dedicating herself to building a park, she's already done something 100 times more worthwhile than Michael ever has. The fact that Parks is about relatively dedicated, successful people may make it far less indelible, and a lot more standard sitcom, than The Office—or it might just make it that much more insightful in the long term.
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I did not have high hopes for the Amy Poehler mockumentary sitcom Parks and Recreation, which premiered last night, largely due to tepid previews from Nikki Finke and Slate's Troy Patterson among others. In part because my expectations were so low, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the show. In the style of the Office, the show follows a semi-inept manager of an Indiana town's parks department, this one played by the always-adorable Amy Poehler, whose considerable charm could carry even a (more) mediocre show. But Parks and Recreation is even better than mediocre, thanks to its supporting cast of Rashida Jones and Paul Schneider. I have been a fan of the low-key Schneider's since he starred in the sleepy Southern indie All the Real Girls. He is crushworthy as the object of Poehler's affection—he makes you believe that he has a soft spot in his heart for Poehler's yipping "labradoodle" of a bureaucrat (as Troy calls her). But, the show certainly has a lot of room to improve. The pacing was jerky and a few of the jokes went over like a lead balloon. I think the Rashida Jones character described Poehler and the show best when she said, "she's really nice…but doofy." Did anyone else catch the premiere? What did you think?
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