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

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?

I didn't see a major change from last season either.

last season was much worse than seasons 2 and 3

imo

only thing I remember loving in the last season was the claymaytch

No real drop off to me I just agree about the cartoony nature of the characters at this point.

yeah i agree with matt, and my complaints about the show pretty much extend to last season as well. it pretty much seems too self-aware and cutesy in a way that it didn't quite have to *rely* on in seasons 2 and 3.

as long as I lol a few times per episode I'm good. and the only episodes that didn't make me lol at all were the first few.

I feel like some people here have only watched this and, like, two other shows ever. Y'all have no perspective whatsoever if you're talking about major declines wrt this show. And I even share your same general concerns (the point they took the leash off Dwight was the point when the rest of the cast of The Office slowly started moving towards Caricatureville and, ultimately, Awfulsburg). I just don't see it at all with P&R. I'd advise a straight-shot rewatch to getcher head back in the game.

And for the record, I totally understand why a show like this just isn't some people's thing. What I don't get is how it could be your thing for a while and then suddenly not so much when it's been doing the same thing for a long while at the same general level of consistency.

Oh, and the main reason I complain about people complaining in these threads is that they hardly ever specify why they think the show is taking a turn for the worse so it's hard to even see where they're coming from. Re: Evan's point about Ron and his meat, I honestly don't see where that whole thing is taking that broad a turn. And I did watch the series straight through recently, so it's fairly fresh in my mind.

The characters were acting a bit more like caricatures of themselves but I have the feeling it was deliberately broadly written in order to recap on a lot from last season and feel accessible to new viewers. It was very much like a Community season opener in that regard. I doubt there'll be a significant drop in quality but they need to find a way to get all the characters back into one setting.

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.

― heated debate over derpy hooves (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Saturday, September 22, 2012 11:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

NBC is trying pretty hard to be square this year but i don't think Animal Hospital and Guys With Kids are going to suddenly do really well and make them think oh we do need any of these shows critics like anymore.

the quality dropoff in this show is definitely a mass hallucination but i'm enjoying watching this thread eat itself.

Also Chris Pratt has been an absolute genius at doing broad comedy for two seasons now so it's not like broadness in itself is a problem in Parks and Rec.

hay guys RON SWANSON and MUSTACHES and BACON right hahahahahahahah

Re: Evan's point about Ron and his meat, I honestly don't see where that whole thing is taking that broad a turn. And I did watch the series straight through recently, so it's fairly fresh in my mind.

― Old Lunch, Sunday, September 23, 2012 7:45 AM (4 hours ago)

They just keep trying top the last Ron-loves-red-meat-gag in every single episode as soon as it became a popular meme.

But...top it how? I mean, what exactly is the progression of outlandishness here? It's not like they have him wearing a bacon suit and gnawing a porterhouse in every scene. Like, he's a dude with a clearly-stated fondness for meat and in this episode, he's put in charge of a barbecue. If the b-plot in the next episode is Ron demanding that his office chair be reupholstered in jerky, I will concede your point.

some dude the new head of nbc specifically stated nbc needs to and will be moving away from niche (his word) critics shows and used the thursday shows as what he was specifically talking about. i've heard the theory 'nbc has so many shows they have to cancel before they get to parks and rec' and this is plausible - chuck got 5 seasons this way - but i can totally see the new guy canceling a show that he didn't develop (and hence gets no credit for), a show where the ratings are only going down, is only gonna get more expensive to make, and has a high enough media profile (but doesn't do anything at the emmys) that the argument can be made that anyone who was gonna watch this show is already watching this show. considering that the other thursday niche shows are either already announced ending this year or moved to another night (and probably ending this year) i don't think it's crazy to suggest that a show the head of nbc specifically pointed out as the type of show w/ no future on his network might not have the brightest future.

oh i know what the guy said -- just saying their slate of new shows is so incredibly weak that who knows what plan they'll scramble for when Matthew Perry fails to save them. frankly i wonder if NBC itself going down the tubes isn't a bigger threat to certain shows than simply being canceled.

personally i would be happy w/ P&R and Up All Night both being canceled so Poehler and Arnett can take some time off, mend their relationship, and find projects where they're actually more than 10% as funny as they CAN be

tbh GOON is a good bit funnier than it has any business being

Animal Hospital, not so much

yeah Goon Tuesdays is not a bad show, it's more its existence that's depressing

don't we already have a bunch of "NBC sucks" threads?

Not enough, imo. NBC is kind of the George Lucas of television networks.

tbh GOON is a good bit funnier than it has any business being

Well, it has Brett Gelman and Bob Ducca--though it has barely used them so far--so it's a fair bit ahead talent-wise than other new sitcoms.