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

Parks and Rec is the future of all comedy imo

― Autumn Almanac (Schlafsack), Monday, September 19, 2011 12:54 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

it looks like a documentary, but it's not real! and it's a comedy! ~so innovative~

Is it worth just starting with S2, or do I need to watch the apparently crap first series to understand the characters?

i started watching in S2 and never watched S1, but then i don't really 'get' the show like other people do so maybe that's why?

it looks like a documentary, but it's not real! and it's a comedy! ~so innovative~

― run jaymc & jam-master jaymc (some dude), Monday, 19 September 2011 21:16 (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

enjoy your life of "on the buses"

i'd say just skip to season 2, thats what i did + i still find it funny

The first series isn't crap at all, the show just figures out what it's doing and who its characters are after those six and leaps into its own. That said you can totally skip it! tbh just watching the deleted scenes reel from the S1 DVD gives you a good enough précis.

Yeah, it's really just a bit slow more than anything.

just start at season 2. Who the characters are and what their relationships entail and mean is eminently apparent. You won't be swimming against the current having skipped six iffy episodes.

And it doesn't ~look~ anything like a documentary. I actually rly like that they never faff about with camera crew crap, just go "letting characters talk to camera gave us lots of scope for lols on the other show, let's just use that tool here."

yeah start watching with s2, if you end up liking the show and characters you can go back and watch s1 more forgivingly

Miss U BRANDANOWITZ.

He failed John Keats.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/tumblr_ll44u06MGa1qzua91o1_500.gif

This will never, ever get old.

YA HEARD WITH PERD

^^^don't need anything more to make it work, this 1 line does it all.

enjoy your life of "on the buses"

― Autumn Almanac, Monday, September 19, 2011 7:33 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

idg your britcom references but laughing about "mockumentaries are THE FUTURE OF COMEDY" is not any kind of deep statement on what comedies should be, just a lol at a total herb

AA isn't British which makes me worry that the other side of the world knows on the buses. poor other side of the world.

also the mockumentary thing is already dated as heck but p&r has had sense to tone that down as much as possible.

they could tone it down more (i.e. tell Plaza to stop looking at the camera, maybe do away with the talking heads altogether)

sure but then i wouldn't be able to swoon at plaza looking at the camera

yeah they should just do internal monologue voiceovers with footage of the character taking a reflective, thoughtful, hilarious stroll...

.. or stop trying to ruin P&R you guys

you know what would really punch up P&R is a wisecracking cartoon dog

One that gets biz-zay. Consistently and thoroughly.

i think there's a place for camera-glances, particularly when it's aziz or chris pratt doing it

tbh if any tv show could make it work

Yeah, it's kind of funny/neat how like in the first season it was like ostensibly a "documentary", and now its just a filming style.

idg your britcom references but laughing about "mockumentaries are THE FUTURE OF COMEDY" is not any kind of deep statement on what comedies should be, just a lol at a total herb

― run jaymc & jam-master jaymc (some dude), Tuesday, 20 September 2011 00:24 (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"mockumentaries are THE FUTURE OF COMEDY" is not what I said but you seem to be enjoying your jumping to conclusions mat so

well i was being charitable that that was the meaning of "Parks and Rec is the future of all comedy imo," which is even dumber if taken literally

"shit that appeals to ppl who make a new tumblr each week" is most probably the future of all comedy tho ;_;

Can't wait for the season to start so we can stop talking about this.

what is "this"? it seems like the topic is pretty broadly the show itself so i don't know how new episodes will change that. (but ok, i'll stop).

I just want new episodes to talk about.

I'm not gonna complain about the prevalence of the mockumentary format as long as it's helping kill off laugh tracks/studio audiences as a sitcom standard.

The best and most original comedy here comes from pride, motivation and positivity (sadly spoiled by the whole Gerry thing). Every major character in this show is good-natured. We like them all, we enjoy their achievements, and we're nearly always laughing with them, not at them.

(sadly spoiled by the whole Gerry thing)

if jerry didn't get treated like jerry, the positivity would be way too much (it still sort of is, but not enough to be a real detriment)

The Jerry thing rules imo

The positivity is already way too much for a lot of viewers. It's a very warm and fuzzy show.

btw I read an interview with Michael Schur in which he said Gerry is allowed to be the punching bag because he's the only one who's happily married, owns a nice house, has loads of artistic talent etc etc. I don't know that I agree with the sentiment, but his contentment with life does help balance the office bullying.

xxxp yeah I suppose it provides a contrast and helps the characters feel more real, but even without that it doesn't feel at all like a mawkish show to me.

and we wouldn't laugh *with* the main characters so much if they weren't constantly reflecting on/making fun of/complaining about the doofishness of the population of pawnee

On the whole they seem to like the doofishness of Pawnee. They don't aspire to move to e.g. NYC and thrash out a high-rolling career, they're quite happy to stay in a small town and make a difference.

So yeah, fut0re of comedy = (a) being nice and (b) familiarity with strong characters allowing deeper humour

and then i read on vulture like every other week that the show is up to some final-season-of-Drew-Carey meta hijinks on every other episode
― moonshit journey to caca (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, September 19, 2011 4:36 AM (18 hours ago) Bookmark

you sure you're not thinking of Community?

cuz they do that fucking meme bait shit every goddamn episode now

xp well they might not hate it but pawnee is generally the brunt of a joke. and it's not like a deep-abiding love for the town's flaws, it's mostly just leslie knope rolling her eyes at the camera. it's pretty mean-spirited, that's just masked by the general likableness of the main cast and the fact that we typically empathize with them in these cases.

community has just as much a claim to "future" of comedy (imo two and a half men is the future of comedy) and that can be mean-spirited as hell.

leslie loves pawnee!

why must comedy have a future

it does make fun of the townspeople but leslie's devotion to them sort of mitigates the potential sneering.

yeah leslie loves pawnee in spite of everything she sneers at, though some of that is obviously political posturing. and most of the other characters are all sneer. point is, even when the characters aren't making fun of the townspeople, the script is, and you the viewer are meant to laugh at (not with) them.

whiney WAS talking about community, he was pretty clear about that if you read the post before that

i don't think that's true. like, the recurring joke about the town is that it's fat, and you get the crazies at the town meetings, yes, but leslie's devotion to staging events/beautifying public spaces for the people of Pawnee is about genuine affection and i think that's the general vibe of the show.

xp

ah ok cool, should've trusted wgw

i think pawnee also works as a stand-in for everybody's/the viewer's own shitty quirky kinda awful hometown that you inevitably still harbor some affection for because, you know, you grew up there. it's hard to hate the place, you just know its flaws and a pretty important part of you loves it regardless.