PARKS and RECREATION aka "Everything's coming up Amy"

nah, you're totally off-base, hm. show grew the beard after the first bunch of episodes and is now often brilliant.

well there's no accounting for taste, but i gave up at the easter break

"community" is just streets ahead

i can see you not liking it, but if you were watching it until the easter break it's hard to believe you felt it was an Office clone. such a different tone -- it focuses on the characters + their relationships much more, where the Office often feels slapstick and you can rarely empathize with the Office characters.

i haven't seen "office" post-series 3, but it was str8 fire at that point. i didn't empathize with ne of the P&R characters tbqh.

idk. office has gotten so bad lately that i feel retroactively skeptical that it was ever good -- even tho i used to love it at one point.

I actually kind of appreciate that P&R still plays like a docu-comedy w/o ever acknowledging that. I mean, they have asides and reaction shots, but WHAT ARE THEY LOOKING AT AND WHO ARE THEY TALKING TO? It's kind of fun that they break the fourth wall all the time yet are still some of the most humanized characters in any sitcom on tv.

idk. office has gotten so bad lately that i feel retroactively skeptical that it was ever good -- even tho i used to love it at one point.

^ this.

I can't remember which episode it was this season that finally put me off it, but I haven't watched it in weeks.

Just noticed Diedrich Bader will be on Outsourced. Hello '90s!

obviously tom's offer to host weighed the scales in its favor, but otherwise april woulda never had her 21st at his corny ass slicknuts nightclub. it would have been much more in keeping with her character, as someone who has no tolerance for that kind of contemporary kewl, to force the gang to party at some cobwebbey ol bowling alley bar. anyway the show is now permanently ruined because of this

does rob lowe look like a motherfucker with some dark secrets to anyone else btw

21 year olds have their birthday parties at places you might not think they would. Plus, this is Pawnee, IN... not exactly a place with a bunch of options. Tom hosting it makes perfect sense, and hardly ruins the show in any way.

Rob Lowe is definitely a twelve-stepper or scientologist (or both).

if pawnee is large enough to support a full-time parks & rec dept then they're large enough to have a dilapidated bowl-a-rama; THEY BLEW IT

I'm just saying people often do things out of character on 21st birthdays. I dressed up in a suit and went with friends to the expensive lounge at the Hilton two towns over. Hated it, but it seemed like a good way to turn 21.

i believe you, i'm just sayin if tv show characters do things out of character on their tv show then the tv show is consequently irreparable and must be cancelled post-haste

Never even thought of April going to a club (probably the only one or two big-sized clubs in Pawnee) was out of character. Also April is supposed to be a bit of a mystery imo

What really kept the Office going was Jim and Pam and now there needs to be Jim and Pam doppledangers in the office (Andy and Erin don't make the cut)

I wish Andy and Erin could be plucked out of The Office and cast in another show. Not one starring them necessarily, but they're too likeable to be trapped in that bomb.

if this is a mid-season replacement could that free up adam scott to do more "party down" exclamation mark question mark

prob not, i think doing a network show precludes one from being on another series full time more for contractual reasons than merely scheduling. or at least that was definitely the case with Jane Lynch and Glee.

i like where this show is going but imo you can't really get mad about people comparing it to The Office when for like a year it was only known as as, like, "Untitled Office Spinoff Er No Wait Not A Spinoff Because We're Gonna Use Rashida Jones But She'll Be A Different Character."

its an office rip, tonally moreso than in terms of character and plotline lifts, but i dont think that precludes it from being funny

I didn't see the April/party thing as being very out of character. Back at the top of the season they made it look like she was a regular at the gay bar w/her boyfriends. Besides, you could see the party being a way for Andy to see her as a grown-up after the episode where she couldn't go into that bar with him.

iiiijjjj made that argument too weirdly for me to not take it as facetious, although i guess who knows.

been thinking about how this show's weird mix of character ages/backgrounds made the cast seem like a weird hodgepodge initially but now i think it's a strength in that it feels more like a real workplace than the avg show where everyone in an office is magically same age/race/etc.

^ truth.

Tom still seems out of place and operating on a different plane, though.

I really, really like the way that we've seen Andy grow this year. Last year I thought he was a one-note character and couldn't wait for his inevitable departure, but now I think he's my favourite character (after Ron Swanson/Duke Silver) and look forward to his scenes.

That's where Parks & R has really hit its stride this season: embracing the ensembleness of its cast to allow everyone to be _wacky_ enough to get big laffs, but having enough _wackiness_ to spread the focus around enough so that it doesn't get annoying. I mean the show is all Urkel and no Laura, but there's 8 Urkels so everyone has a chance to be a little bit Laura for a moment.

i love poehler but the best decision they ever made was to reduce her screentime and give everyone else more--that and avoid the ugly results of a terrible poehler-mark-karen fillipelli love triangle

xp did you really have to bring Family Matters into this? DID YOU!?

Max, I agree, it also had a nice side effect where the Leslie-focused episodes stand out a little better in general, and she has done great along with the rest of the cast. The sad thing is that Schneider, though not a bad actor, seemed to have little chemistry with either of the women - even compared to the one episode we've just gotten with Scott and Lowe

Did I do that?

hey carl got any cheese

am way too invested in this show to consider waiting until january for another episode.

For them to justify pushing this back to midseason, Outsourced had better be one DAMN HILARIOUS show.

can't say i'm eager to get to a new season promising MULTIPLE LOVE TRIANGLES OH BOY

i would just like to thank this thread for introducing the phrase "grew the beard" to me. god i love that kind of critical shorthand.

considering revisiting this show on DVD but don't get why they just don't eliminate the doc angle entirely. plenty of sitcoms do without talking to the camera and fourth-wall breaking glances! i haven't really heard the argument for how it makes the show better and can't imagine people would be up in arms if it was simply a single-camera sitcom without the superficial office jacks

though honestly its the word that amy poehler has moved beyond being the bastard child of ally mcbeal and michael scott that has me considering coming back

outside gaze has become a weird shorthand for "edgy sitcom"

honestly i can deal with it most of the time except April's thing is apparently to look up at the camera every 5 seconds apropos of nothing

it's a "hey geeks, I'm still cute" reminder

http://i47.tinypic.com/1fe8ok.jpg

http://i42.tinypic.com/1o5zx5.jpg
pretty much sums it up

no Jerry

i like how they made it real easy to crop out schneider

aubrey plaza just now tweeting that the Producer's cut of the finale on Hulu (which I can't get) is longer and better. if anyone investigates these claims, report back.

gukbe, if you're back on mac you can use hotspot shield to access hulu

not back on mac yet bro. plus throttled/crap internet made hotspot shield pretty useless. i also seem to recall hulu being all 'can't detect a region so f u buddy' and giving me that feeling of rejection.

it should be on nbc.com too though right?

interesting chemistry here between an interviewee who doesn't seem to like talking and an interviewer who seems to really like talking but doesn't really have anything to say

http://www.hulu.com/watch/125977/late-night-with-jimmy-fallon-aubrey-plaza-talking-and-walking

that was pretty great!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq5lIwkupJU

This actually works a little too well. I hope NBC doesn't get any ideas.

this show is better than the office

i was gonna post the friends thing too :-)

now do one for community!