On Parks & Rec
Cory Barker writes:
Someone might ask me what I’m watching, what’s good, etc. and if they’ve already made up their minds about Parks and Rec, it’s difficult for me to sell them on all the specific reasons I love this program in such a short time…
I’ve realized that I just have to simplify the message…As an overall product, Parks and Recreation is already better than The Office has ever been. Let me say that again. Parks and Recreation is most certainly better than The Office. This includes the halcyon days of The Office in seasons two and three. I’m not saying it’s a major gap, but it is my belief that Parks and Recreation is simply the better program…
I don’t write this column to be particularly controversial because for the most part I assume that it won’t be. I’d imagine that this sentiment is fairly common among the television critics who watch both series.
I like to keep the pop-culture stuff on Twitter, but after tonight’s episode I felt compelled to throw this up here because I wanted to explore why I’m drawn into it myself. In his piece Barker compares Parks and Recreation with The Office and in turn highlights how the creators of Parks—the same people who ran The Office for the first four seasons—upped their game with Parks.
Barker points to Parks optimistic quality. In comedy it’s easier to do negative than positive. For ex, making fun of accent. Easy laughs. Of course it’s not always so cheap, there is much genuinely fun is to be had with strife: look at Jim/Dwight or many scenarios in Arrested Development. Still, it’s much harder to do humor when the characters generally respect each other and have a positive outlook on life. Somehow in Parks, they’ve got it to work and it’s the bedrock of the whole show.
A lot of it has to do with Leslie Knope, Park’s “Michael Scott equivalent”. In The Office, my favorite Michael Scott moments are when he “wins” by virtue of being genuinely himself. Michael is a misguided soul, but I’d like to think he has it when it counts. Take a look at the The Client where he, being himself, closes a deal or Booze Cruise where he encourages Jim to just go for Pam. This doesn’t mean, he can’t be goofy; I just like Michael when you can really root for him, and unfortunately he is not always that person
One week he’s socially awkward but well-meaning, the next he’s pathetic and bitter and the next he’s warming and misguided. It didn’t matter as much when the episodes around Michael were so good and quickly became a huge problem once the rest of the program was a mess
You might think that it’s impossible for Michael to be constantly “winning” (ugh). That it works better when if his and competence is low, but Leslie Knope somehow is what I’ve always wanted Michael to be. The difference:
With Michael, we’re often left to feel sorry for his actions and outbursts and then get surprised when he actually makes a right call at work. Leslie is sort of the opposite. She’s always making admirable choices
even if those choices get her into some minor trouble.
Just these tweaks—an optimistic attitude and Leslie Knope—set it apart from The Office. There’s more technical stuff Barker points out, such as how the show seems built to last (i.e. not built around a Jim & Pam well that will run dry) and has a more serialized storyline.
Since this blog was always meant to be a design place (or something. I had bigger plans for it before :/) I’ll leave you with Brand New’s assessment of NBCU’s new logo which has a nice Parks shout out.
