Park It Here

Just a quick tribute to Parks And Recreation, which had its one-hour finale last night.  The whole final season, set in 2017, was close to a goof as it was, so it was fitting to see all the characters have their dreams come true even further in the future.

P&R stumbled out of the blocks, but eventually recovered and, indeed, kept improving.  In that way I'd compare it to Newhart, another show that was too straight at the beginning, but just kept piling up the eccentricities of its characters--and got rid of the boring ones--and, for that matter, making the people of the town weirder and weirder. Pawnee, Indiana is supposed to be a small town, but whatever sort of odd house or club or restaurant or store was needed for the plot always turned up.

The characters were essentially doing their own little routines, which was fine, but every now and then there was some real chemistry, such as the surprising connection between Andy and April (who started in completely different spheres--Andy, in fact, was Ann's original worthless boyfriend), and, above all, the center of the show, Leslie and Ron (certainly not Leslie and Ben).

So goodbye, Parks And Recreation--you've freed up thirty minutes in my weekly schedule, so I'm now free to find another sitcom.

A few random notes:

--alas, the death of 30-year-old producer Harris Wittels put a damper on things, especially, no doubt, for the cast and crew.

--what was that shot at the Wolverines?  Is there something going on here?

--seeing the future every time Leslie touched someone felt like it came out of Lost.

--the message was very pro-public work, which is fine--especially if we remember it came from people making a ton of money in the free market.