So I started this. I forget where I am in the second season now, but it's still pretty early. I'm guessing that this show completely changes at some point in my near future, since I haven't even met anybody named Ben yet, and the clicks and whistles that I heard about the show before I started mentioned the hell out of that particular pair, I could swear. Also, Louis C.K., man, I love you and everything, but you're not allowed to be on anything else anymore. You're now just interminably the lead from Louie, and it's very odd and disconcerting to see you trying to pitch sex toward Leslie. And it's going to be super duper annoying in, like, three weeks when I have to go buy those two episodes from the fourth season that didn't record properly.
Yes, at the end of the second season, new characters are introduced and the way Leslie is written finishes her shift away from Female Michael Scott into a much better character, and the show gets like 1000x better. It wasn't bad to start off with, but it gets way, way better.
Just rewatched the most recent season, on a whim. Totally worth it. This show is brilliant, and it better be allowed to stay on the air for a long time. Brian, good stuff comes to those who watch! It's so worth it, the characters evolve brilliantly and more importantly, funnily.
Did the show switch out the entire writing staff in the middle of the second season? Maybe it's because I'm sort of half looking for it, but you can see that whole Michael Scott to real Leslie transition happen all at once during the Christmas episode. At least, I think it was the Christmas episode. The one where everybody else has to do Leslie's job, which I thought was because she was falsely implicated in a sex scandal. It's fun to finally understand Jean-Ralphio and DJ Roomba, although my usual criticisms for comedies straying too close to factually controversial political and social issues stands. I guess the show just gets off with a stern glare, because it only referenced food woo for initial impact and didn't try to stick the landing on it. Now somebody just needs to tell me why in the holy hell I'm supposed to Google Rory Gilmore Sex Boat (because I did that and nothing happened, except a blog that was just as confused about it as I was) and somehow trick me into watching the second season of Friday Night Lights (the serial killer one - or that's the joke, anyway) and then I can understand all of the Firewall and Iceberg podcast.
I think Seiler finally had a stroke. I've seen every episode of Parks & Recreation and I have no idea what he's talking about.
I like to imagine that he initially writes that kind of post in indecipherable script in one of hundreds of notebooks crammed full of similar crazed spidery scrawl, and then only later transcribes it to the forum.
That's weird. I honestly thought I wasn't being that obscure. I cannot possibly be getting weirder at this point in my life. Starting the third season now, and I am going to be super duper sad when this goes off the air. I am just so fantastically impressed at how well done all of it is. It has managed to turn around (or fire - I never did like Mark very much, and I'm hoping that his not being in the opening credits were a positive sign) every single character I initially disliked. It's like the show took it upon itself as a challenge, even, because Ben is not particularly lovable off the jump. Maybe I'm being more charitable toward him because I've heard the phrase "Leslie & Ben" so many times at this point that I'm protecting myself. But it fixed Rob Lowe and Aubrey Plaza and Aziz Ansari and....uh....that guy who plays Andy. I'm quite pleasantly surprised. Not entirely shocked that it's never done well in the ratings (one of the points of wisdom taken from the first two seasons of The West Wing is that all the people you need to get to watch your show to be successful don't want to see genuinely good people being effective at anything, and god help you if they're ever nice to one another), but finding out that the larger television audience is a bunch of chodes is a little bit like finding out that cookies are yummy.
I don't keep up with ratings at all, and I had no idea this didn't do well. That really is a shame, and I'm sure you're right about the reasons. None of the characters are hateable, and nobody is really mean or unpleasant. Even April's mellowed out. It's too happy for its own good, I guess.
Okay. So, it's a good show and all, but I have one complaint. I'm about halfway through season four now and...is a comedy really supposed to make you this weepy? Seriously. I get that I'm kind of a light touch on certain issues (like people who are good being unexpectedly rewarded for being good, which is why the end of It's a Wonderful Life gets me), but this is kind of ridiculous. I got verklempt at all of the following scenes: the wedding, the smallest park, the trial (just finished that one), and even, I shit you not, back at the beginning of the third season when Leslie needed a favor from the police to provide security for the Harvest Festival but instead she just asked them to help out Ron and then Ben went there to ask them again and the police chief just says that she gets as much as she needs because she's such an excellent person. I'm honestly a little bit worked up just typing that out. Actually, as I think of it, maybe that episode had one of the best exchanges of the entire series to date: <approximated, because my memory ain't that good> Ben: Leslie's going to need another favor. Police Chief: That's fine - Leslie gets as many favors as she needs. Ben: ...Why? Police Chief: Because she's the kind of person who uses personal favors to help other people.
Uhh... Uh... Don't watch the last episode, if you're that worried about getting teared up. I never cry during tv/movies and I shed a single tear.
I am, of course, not really complaining. It's just a little odd for a comedy these days. Unfortunately, I also suspect that that also means it will never win the Emmy for comedy, but at least it was nominated, and I'd love to be proven wrong on that one. Two episodes from the finish line. Frigging Persona 4.
Uh, what? Awards panels love to give the comedy award to something that's not really a comedy, so a little heartstring tugging and tear jerking can only help.
Not in my experience. This is why Louie has not been and will never be nominated for the comedy Emmy. It is deliberately not funny far too often, and despite the fact that it's very good, voters will always be extremely uncertain as to whether they are awarding the show for being the best comedy, or for simply being a very good half hour of television. Parks and Rec is in a slightly better position in that its tone is more inherently comedic than something like Louie or one of the various pay cable half hour "comedies" that were never comedies and, as such, were never rewarded (it was considered noteworthy when Girls and Veep premiered, as it marked the return of pay cable to actual, deliberate comedy), so we'll have to see how it pans out. I'd personally prefer to see a half-hour format category not restricted to comedy, wherein you could comfortably put stuff like this (because 22 minutes of anything is always going to have a hard time beating 42-55 minutes of Mad Men or Game of Thrones or any of those shows that get more room). I'd be delighted to be proven wrong on this one, though.
Hey - this started again. This is still totally the same show, and it's kind of a sign that three sitting senators across the political spectrum showed up on this show. This show continues to be the nicest goddamn thing to come out of my television. Question - where would you go to buy pre-frozen meat for grilling? Because the only thing I can think of is those horrifying preformed beef wads, and I would think that Ron Swanson would shove a live honey badger down his shorts before spending money on such a thing.
Ron Swanson said he bought that meat, but actually he went home to his freezer which is filled with the animals he killed over the previous year and brought some of them out.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ben's Dad. In tags, because...eh, why not? Somebody put their chocolate in my peanut butter.
Hey, Lucy Lawless: how do you keep getting hotter? I thought it was weird when you showed up on Burn Notice and even weirder in Battlestar Galactica, but now it's just mind-bending. Seriously, you're forty-four years old and you get exponentially better looking with each passing year. It's almost inconsiderate at this point.
Wow, I had no idea that was her. Also, my favorite part of this season is the relationship between Ben and April. It's a testament to how the show just finds interesting things to do with the characters. Most others would either have those two hate each other or force some kind of weird romantic tension. But here they just become friends. I loved how April cracked up at Ben's "I am a robot" act at the end of a recent episode. The show is alone in how it mixes charm and humor.
Yeah, that's really great. As ebotional as that proposal scene was, I think that moment where Ben is acting like a robot is my favorite thing so far this season.
Cool. They had a bunch of other cameos from senators earlier, too, including McCain. I wonder if the show is developing a following among politicians because of how optimistically it views government and public service?
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I was hoping and hoping and hoping but I never thought it would actually happen. Fantastic!
Please roll up in a bitchin' Trans Am. It would also be acceptable if he shows up due to hitchhiking through Pawnee.
I'm two weeks behind. Or I was anyway. How is this still a sitcom on television? I was basically out for that entire last segment on account of how I strongly identify with parts of Ron Swanson. Comedies aren't supposed to make you cry like that. The weird part is that I was largely unaffected by the season finale. I think this show mostly gets me when it isn't trying.
Thursday's episode cements my opinion that this show is at it's best when all the characters are in the same place at the same time.
