Party To Parks
Parks And Recreation is getting a lot of credit from critics. Too much. Apparently tired of The Office and 30 Rock, I guess they've moved on from Community and see P&R as the great white hope of NBC on Thursday nights.
It's not a bad show, and has greatly improved from its beginnings. But I wouldn't call it a classic just yet. Much of the shuffling of characters has worked: Leslie pining after Mark in the first season slowed things down, and now he's gone. Andy living with Ann went nowhere, while Andy and April works a lot better.
Secondary characters such as Jerry and Donna have become better defined (even if they're one-note), and of course I've loved Ron Swanson--the government official who hates government--from the start.
In fact, Ben isn't much of a character. He seems to be there mostly as a nice guy who believes in government so Leslie can have someone to love. He has certain comic characteristics, I suppose, but they haven't come to the fore.
It's interesting, because I loved Party Down so much, which starred Adam Scott, and the central relationship there between Scott's Henry Pollard and Lizzy Kaplan's Casey Klein was both funny and believable. They both were ironic types (the opposite of Leslie and Ben) who played it cool, and the feelings underneath sizzled, giving the show a center that everything else could revolve around. Meanwhile, on Parks And Recreation, I couldn't care less if the Leslie and Ben get together, or even if Ben continues to work for Pawnee.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:01 AM
7 Comments:
Ann Perkins!
Any thoughts on the viability of The Office post Michael Scott? I'm just curious, I stopped watching two seasons ago (after the wedding pretty much).
I think I've written on this a while ago. I always had trouble with Michael Scott, since I thought he was both too stupid and (at times--he got nicer as time went on) too selfish to work for long. But the show without him will be missing its rudder. They've developed enough other characters to continue on, I suppose, but they'll have to establish a new center of gravity and I'm not sure how they'll do it.
By the way, it's often a good idea to stop watching a show after the big wedding.
OK I just caught up on On-Demand.
1. Are we now allowed to say "dick" as a pejorative rather than as a descriptive term for a penis. Rashida Jones said something "I was such a dick last night" in the Snake Juice episode. If the censors really are allowing this then society must have apparently divorced the concept of the male sex organ from the concept of being a jerk. Thank you NBC for removing yet another piece of incipient sexism.
2. Leslie looks like Ben's mom in P&R- It probably the Mom polyester pantsuits- the romance is just creepy.
3. April and Annie on Community are destined to be confused.
So much profanity starts as a slang expressio for a sex organ and them moves on.
April and Annie might have some superficial physical similarities (though I'm not even sure about that) but their characters couldn't be more different.
I agree the April and Annie characters are very different they have the same hair and body type and age and I've noticed a lot of physical similarity in sitcoms lately so that I get the characters confused
1. The Skinny crazy ex-wife in late 30s/early 40s(21/2 men, other cancelled sit coms)
2. The blond normal hottie- (the blond mom in Modern Family ands just about every other sitcom- mainly the bad ones being cancelled- Better With You/Mad Love/Perfect Couples/ Happy endings- actually those shows are almost clones of each other. 4 funny jokes per episode surrounded by tedious watchable young people
Every sitcom has pretty girls yes and have for years- these ones however are almost clone-like. I predict from the previous comment you won't agree but it struck me
The trend that sticks out most are fat guys married to hotties. It's often in cartoons, like The Simpsons and Family Guy, but you also get it in The King Of Queens and even maybe the gay couple in Modern Family.
Post a Comment
<< Home