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

^that is why the whole ann/tom thing is dumb

Newsflash: Rashida Jones is jaw-droppingly gorgeous rolling out of bed or sweeping a floor or, basically, breathing.

^that is why the whole ann/tom thing is dumb

― LaMonte, Friday, September 21, 2012 3:07 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also because they are totally unconvincing in acting it out

at first I thought the plotline was that they were pretending to date

That was the plot line in this episode. Did you mean when they first started dating?

This just wasn't very funny, like it was written by someone who'd only made the vaguest attempt to understand any of the characters.

Taking half the cast out of Pawnee was a mistake as well.

show is kinda too cutesy for me at this point, might be done with it.

yeah not a great episode- characters becoming more cartoonish and yet less funny, plotline seemed to puncture encroaching fonzieness of ron swanson only serving to amplify it. i am glad they finally killed the tom and ann relationship.

That was the plot line in this episode. Did you mean when they first started dating?

― she started dancing to that (Finefinemusic), Friday, 21 September 2012 12:18 (Yesterday) Permalink

yeah

the fonziefication of ron has been happening since the beginning of S3, if he started out like that no one would've minded probably (like andy, or if chris were a more important character in the beginning)

i'm prepared for this to be the season where the show goes downhill but it's probably also the last season and it's tiny so i'm ready to just ignore that and laugh way too hard at the stuff that works

er, i'm rusty -- switch andy and chris, and i meant if andy were more impt in the beginning than people would've cared more about his character suddenly changing (but still no one ever cares that chris is a cartoon)

pretty much they're all cartoons other than leslie and ben.

Ben is a cartoon, he's a stick figure

i'm prepared for this to be the season where the show goes downhill but it's probably also the last season and it's tiny so i'm ready to just ignore that and laugh way too hard at the stuff that works

This is the Parks & Recreation thread, not the Community or 30 Rock thread

pretty much they're all cartoons other than leslie and ben.

Not only that, they've been cartoons since season 2 IMO

They're cartoons but they're loveable ones.

Possibly the worst move has been taking April out of the office and putting her into a more fulfilling job in another city. I hope they find a way to bring her and Ben back soon. I don't really the point of the writers finding a convoluted way to bring Ann into the parks department only to send two characters hundreds of miles away.

so many whiners itt

No, no. They're right. Based on the twenty minutes we saw this week, there is no way this season won't be awful.

The first episodes of NBC seasons are usually a bit clunky, it'll improve.

this is a show about nice people being nice to one another. people need to chill.

Seriously. I don't know what people will complain about when all of the decent NBC sitcoms are gone.

I watched the last 6 or so episodes from last season just before this season's premiere and they were all of a piece. If you've been a fan up to now, there's nothing wrong with the show unless you're actively looking to nitpick.

word

ron was being worse than usual tho. i think it was about how he needs leslie or chris or such to keep him in check or he just becomes horrible.

That was my read as well.

“And here, in a third-time’s-the-charm move, is the REAL theme of the episode and also, I predict, the season: Leslie finally has her dream job and it is not at all like she dreamed it would be. Generally speaking this is the No. 1 problem with dream jobs. Say you always dreamed of being a princess or a mermaid. What about if you become a princess, people post topless photos of you on the internet? And HOW DO MERMAIDS HAVE SEX?”

— Jessica Goldstein, Vulture: Parks and Recreation Recap: Twinkle Twinkle Big Star

I actually enjoyed this one reasonably well.

No, no. They're right. Based on the twenty minutes we saw this week, there is no way this season won't be awful.

― Old Lunch, Saturday, September 22, 2012 10:17 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i came into the episode feeling that this season was going to decline, just cause these shows usually don't go this long without losing their shine. it's ok. but if this is going to become like the community thread where the slightest complaint is met with a chorus of guilters branding you the devil for ruining their precious giggles experience, i'll remove bookmark now

unless that's already happened in this thread, i don't remember

man, there are a bunch of grumps itt

Two words: Oval Redenbacher

why would you even bother watching the show if you were expecting a decline? I usually don't waste time watching things that I don't intend or expect to enjoy

anyone who loves a show has already seen the episodes they'll always love the most, so they'll always think it's on the decline whether it is or not, and will always be loyal enough to keep watching, and probably complaining.

Ehhh, not really. A lot of shows I love continue to surprise me. Or at least maintain a high enough level of quality that I still appreciate them. Even in light of the fact that hardly any shows stay great for more than, say, five seasons, I can often still find stuff to love. People need to save the naysaying for the good shows that go well and truly off the rails (any P&R fans complaining at this point in the run need to watch the entirety of Roseanne to see what a true decline entails).

I still love P&R, and it still has the problem of being full of impossibly delightful in-love couples that make me feel a lot of emotions.

I'm glad that I still enjoy seeing happy couples and realistic depictions of same, but given my utterly cynical outlook on relationships where I'm a participant, I'm sympathetic to the notion that those depictions sometimes stir up a lot of (sometimes unpleasant/unwanted) emotions.

I won't mess up this thread with my feelings
Ben Wyatt is total impossible dream boyfriend though
I think they know that (they = writers, actors)

i've never felt any true emotion for any characters on this show, it always just felt to me like a mad scramble to pair up every character besides Ron, Jerry and Donna in hopes of igniting some kind of shipper buzz

There's a few times the April/Andy relationship has made me feel feelings things, but the relationships are just part of the smalltown workplace narrative imo.

ron driving off with the barbecue still going made me lol

the only pairing that makes any sense for to me is tom and ann. ben and leslie was obv from the get go, april and andy happened cuz of very obv chemistry between the characters. do wish they hadn't dropped the natalie morales thread they looked like they were gonna develop w/ tom.

the only pairing that makes any sense for to me is tom and ann.

This. The other two main relationships feel pretty natural and well-developed and very pointedly un-sensationalistic.

why would you even bother watching the show if you were expecting a decline? I usually don't waste time watching things that I don't intend or expect to enjoy

― cake-like Lady Gaga (DJP), Saturday, September 22, 2012 4:51 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

huh? since when does "in decline" mean totally worthless? i watched the office until last season and that whole thing is one big decline. and my first post itt that started this discussion said that i'm willing to just plug along and pay attention to the positives, but apparently everyone stopped reading after the word "decline"

all shows peak and tail off, it isn't challops to speculate on when that might happen

yeah but they arrived at the current relationships after Leslie/Mark and Ann/Mark and Ann/Andy were non-starters. it's a shame they abandoned Ann/Chris, that was at least funny. (xpost)

ann/andy was the bright spot of that rough draft first season, pratt nailing that character was the only reason he hung around after that thread ended. leslie/mark they dropped after rough draft first season, ann/mark worked as a plausible relationship but wasn't funny and was dropped after dude who played mark left to do art films and schur and daniels move away from an office template and towards a simpsons/koth template (whether that was the plan for the character all along like they've said i'm skeptical of though i have read things w/ schur from the first season where he talks about how the guy mark was based on did the same thing so who knows), ann/chris they abandoned cuz rob lowe wasn't actually joining the cast initially (i'm not sure how much more there was to milk out of that relationship anyway, though it probably would've yielded more laffs than the four or five i got out of ann/tom). agree that the shipper aspects are too prominent esp for one of the relatively weaker aspects of the show - something that's probably the inevitable result schur's favorite show being cheers and the show itself initially conceived as a spinoff from a show that has now explicitly stated it's raison d'etre was jim/pam.

also 'they arrived at current relationships after previous relationships were non-starters' describes every single person or thing in a relationship ever.

P&R isn't a depressing fiasco like the office has been since the writer's strike, but the show has changed a lot and it's ok to think the change isn't good.

idk I like it just fine

it's okay if ppl don't, but I personally still enjoy the show a ton

i still love it! thought first episode wasn't the greatest but travel episodes and episodes w/ warm politician cameos tend to be difficult anyway. having done a half marathon of the office a few weeks back i can affirm that this show is in better shape than that show was at this point. and even that show had stuff in the obv decline stage i loved eg. michael scott paper company. at this point i am much more worried that this is the final season (ratings were down from last season, when it wasn't exactly the cosby show) than i am that it's about to go over a creative cliff.

It's probably the last season if only because NBC seems hellbent on getting rid of that entire Thursday night sitcom block. If this does wind up being the end, at least it got picked up for a full season.

Yeah, thats what worries more than anything, NBC acts like these are toxic to "regular" sitcom viewers. Worse that just this being the last season of P&R though, this means Fall 2013 will be full of shitty fucking comedies. I understand the "controversial" opinions wrt this show, The Office, Community, etc etc, but I'll take even a sub-par P&R over a fucking Two and Half Men or shitty, third-rate comedian with hot wife sitcom any day. At least these shows tried to bend formula a little.

When characters get cartoony in this type of show it's because their most popular bits become their one note M.O.- but on this show the one that bothers me the most is the Ron/meat thing. It plateaued at this ridiculous level and has been beat to death for SO LONG. At this rate by the end of the season he'll just be grunting and chewing on a raw slab of steak.

Still enjoy the show though!

I just started watching this show about a week ago and blazed through the first 4 seasons on Netflix. Finished season 4 last night and then realized that I could watch the latest one on hulu. Watching them all in sequence like that I don't think there was any noticeable dropoff here. I think people are way overreacting. First ep of a season is often kind of weak anyway, no?