After tuning into every NBC Thursday night (usually live but sometimes later on NBC.com) I feel comfortable saying that, in perhaps a Villanova over Georgetown type upset, Parks and Recreation is having the best season of any of them.* Last night exemplified why Parks is succeeding at a higher level than its more acclaimed brethren The Office and 30 Rock. I'll first just talk about what I like about Parks before I get into my minor but legitimate problems with the seasons of the other two.
*I'm not ready to say that it's the best show of the three because it is so early on (let's see it make it to season four or five first) but it is really excellent right now.
Maybe I'm just sexist or biased against former SNL leading women, but I was skeptical of Tina Fey as a sitcom lead (and was proven utterly and completely wrong) and then I didn't learn from my mistake and totally underestimated Amy Poehler. Poehler absolutely kills it each and every week as Leslie Knope. She often gets compared to Michael Scott (the shows are made by a lot of the same people and have a similar format) but I find Leslie much more likable and easy to empathize with. She is someone who is very good at her job but has a hard time relating to people despite her best intentions. Watching how driven she is and how she sticks to her convictions is one of the best sources of comedy on the show. The cast in general is very deep with each character being well-acted and claiming a distinct area in the comedy landscape. Parks is the kind of show I could see being on for a long, long time because each character is strong enough that the writers will really be able to get a lot of story/episodes out of each of them. I'm also really glad NBC brought back Office castoff Rashida Jones (whose characters on the two shows are remarkably similar). Above all, the show is just plain funny. Very funny.
As for The Office, my complaint with this season is what it's always been: too unbelievable. Now relative to the shows that bookend it, it's not that crazy, but the drama and realism that is injected into The Office mandate that the rest of the show should take place in that same universe, and it too often doesn't. Yesterday's episode was perfect example, as we were somehow meant to believe that (1.) 10 years ago Michael promised 15 third graders he'd pay for their college if they graduated HS. The fact that no administrators from the school looked into this AT ALL and were shocked when they discovered that a manager from a middling paper company couldn't come up with over a dozen college tuitions was far-fetched to the point of distraction; and (2.) that Jim would somehow be duped by Dwight handing him an anonymous set of arbitrary numbers supposedly ranking the Dunder-Mifflin employees. What? Why would Jim use this? What did he really think this was? Who put this together? It was out of character for Jim to be so easily out-witted by Dwight, even if it worked out fine for him in the end. Not to say I didn't enjoy The Office, it was still funny which is why I tune in, but it consistently has logic/continuity issues that are sometimes hard to overlook. This is what I really loved about the original, Ricky Gervais Office (one of my favorite shows of all time), that it could accomplish what it wanted to dramatically while still maintaining the same tone for its awkward, bizarre humor elsewhere.
30 Rock, while also funny and enjoyable, has felt strained and self-conscious to me so far this season. I wonder if part of the reason is that it was rewarded so heavily by critics and Emmy awards that it tries too hard to burrow into that same space it seemed to effortlessly occupy in season's past. Their brand of humor is very specific and there have been many times that the show has chosen to use a joke in that style at the expense of using a hypothetical joke that would probably be much funnier. This is a general statement but, for example, the opening of the season where Jack talks into the camera about "season 4" and then we find they are at a restaurant called "season 4" or Tracy saying (something like) last night, "I always finish things that I..." then leaving the room. It's still a show that I look forward to every week, but I feel like quality control has slackened a bit.
This could change any week, shows go hot and cold all the time, and I'm really not trying to take too much away from the shows that follow Parks and Rec, but if you like comedy and haven't been tuning in, do yourself a favor and catch-up on this year's best network comedy: Wizards of Waverly Place. But seriously, watch Parks and Recreation.
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