Parks and Recreation: winding down?

[J.T.B.]

Duly noted and that's what I kept telling myself. However, it just seemed more odd to me than some of the other "fantasy" scenarios that they conjure up simply because it seemed to contradict the internal logic of the show itself wherein the city was always a few steps away from another fiscal crisis.

I'm with you, and I like when shows work within their limits. But most people don't seem to care and things are written however the writers think they need to be written. FWIW, it's not new, either: Andy Griffith objected strongly to the Mayor Stoner character in TAGS season 3 because a mayor can't be the boss of a sheriff, a county official. But he was overruled because the producers wanted an antagonistic boss character like the one on The Lucy Show.

The "official" website for the City of Pawnee lists the population as being 79,218. That's higher than I would have guessed. Of course, to a TV writer in Los Angeles, anything under a million people is probably a small town.

That's interesting. I'm sure you're right, that qualifies as a small town for people who use the term "fly-over states."

 

[davejames]

I still love the show as much as ever, but it does seem to be missing something recently with the loss of Rob Lowe and Rashida Jones's characters. Almost like some of the air has been let out of the balloon or something.

And much as I like Jerry and Donna, I just don't think they're quite fun or quirky enough to make up the difference.

Still though, even with that I think the show is feeling a lot less tired and played out than Community and a lot of other long-running comedies right now.

 

[the G-man]

Ann was great for keeping Leslie grounded and Chris was a perfect foil for Ron. Both are missed.

I will say that I liked the recent episode where Ben realized that Jerry/Larry was really a great guy and April was terrified of having pissed off Donna on Yelp.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I felt like they were finding a new style of story when Leslie was on the council, but then they axed that at the same time they lost two of the best characters. And they have dragged both April and Tom closer to the center making them less funny and less interesting.

To me the best periods of the show is when they have some kind of focused arc that forces the storytelling to be different. The Harvest Festival, the election, Leslie's service on the council. Now they have no central arc and they've already resolved all their other main characters' initial conflicts, and to me that has made the show pretty bland this season.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Wow.

Expectation: Leslie loves Pawnee so much she turns down the job.

Result: "Three years later".

I think I need to marathon the episodes from this season I missed on Hulu.

 

[Campe]

They New Caprica-ed us. And I loved it. Can't wait for the seventh (and most likely final) season.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Is it me or is Andy's venture into children's music a ripoff of John Redcorn's in King of the Hill?

 

[Bashir Trikona]

As much as I love Amy Poehler, I think my main problem with the show this season is Leslie. She's kind of treading water at this point, and the writers aren't giving her a sense of direction and she's becoming really annoying. Where do they go with her in a new full season? Leslie should take the job in Chicago after Season 5 and that's the end of the show.

I still like the other characters and I'm glad Pratt was back full time because Andy might be the best character on the show.

4-5 seasons is enough. Series tend to lose their energy after that.

 

[tomalak301]

Wow.

Expectation: Leslie loves Pawnee so much she turns down the job.

Result: "Three years later".

I think I need to marathon the episodes from this season I missed on Hulu.

That was my reaction. They changed the status quo on Parks and Rec and we don't know what Season 7 will bring. I'm actually looking forward to it now after the events of this last episode. Hopefully they keep on with the 3 years later thing.

 

[Aldo]

I loved Jon Hamm as Leslie's employee who is apparently a constant screw up that ran out of second chances.

I'm definitely interested to see where they go with this storyline, they had their cake and ate it too.

 

[shivkala]

I watched the episode last night and I have to say, that was the most fulfilling episode of Parks and Rec I've seen in a while. I couldn't help but smile and laugh at some of the scenes, notably Ginuwine's tribute to Lil' Sebastian, The Mouse Rat Reunion, Ben's reaction to seeing Letters to Cleo onstage, Jean Ralphio flirting with both Craig and Joan Kalamezzo, Bobby Knightrider, Duke Silver's reveal, Ben getting the copyright to Cones of Dunshire, and Saperstein admitting Tom was successful.

I'm guessing Jamm's Succession Rally was just a quick joke and never amounted to anything. After seeing the crowds at the concert, it's hard to imagine Cherry Pie was able to draw a bigger crowd.

I loved that Tammy got Ron to realize he has changed and that he's accepted happiness into his life. While the day-to-day Ron hasn't changed, it's nice to know that he, in fact, did change.

 

[Mr Light]

Damn. They must have been convinced they were getting cancelled. That absolutely felt like a series finale. They wrapped everything up and jumped forward three years! That was a really beautiful episode and epicly huge with tons of location filming with huge crowds. I'll be very curious to see what the last year will be like. (the creator said in an interview he expects it to be the final season)

 

[the G-man]

I just watched it. While I didn't love all the guest stars (with the exception of Mrs Obama and Ginuwine they seemed forced and overdone) overall it was a decent series finale.

The problem, of course, is that it wasn't a series finale.

I hope I'm wrong but I'm having a hard time seeing how they do another season after this. With everything wrapped up so nicely, it's almost like another season would be "After P*A*R*K*S"

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I haven't seen all 11 seasons, but Frasier seems like a show that had a fairly good run.

It did but the last few seasons were much weaker than the peak years.

Agreed. Although, if you watch them out of order, a lot of the later episodes are still, objectively, just as good as the early episodes. It's just that they ran out of story ideas somewhere around Season 6 and started recycling a lot of stuff. (IMO, they should have ended it when Niles & Daphne finally got together at the end of Season 7.)

 

[the G-man]

One minor thing that bugged me about the Parks finale: When Leslie tried to talk Ron into working for the feds. First Ron, as we would all expect, chortled derisively. And, of course, he turned her down. But then Ron said the the National Park Service was the one branch of the federal government he liked better than the rest.

Um, hello? This is the man who wanted to privatize every park in the country and held contempt for his own department. No way he'd say that.

Yeah, I know Ron's mellowed, but he's mellowed about how he treats people, not his political or philosophical beliefs.

It was almost like they had to cut a scene for time where Ron confessed to the camera that he really just said that make Leslie feel better about leaving or something. That would have been more consistent with his (mellowed) character.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It did seem like a soft moment for his character but I don't think it contradicts his character.

Ron is a smart logical guy, he's able to separate his feelings about the morality of government agencies from his feelings about the efficacy of government agencies. He thinks it's wrong to spend public money on parks, but he thinks that morality aside, Leslie's parks department is at least effective at what it's trying to achieve.

I think it's in line with the episode where Leslie came back after being recalled, Leslie was sinking back into micromanaging and he said "You've managed to build the rarest of things...an effective government agency".

 

[Destructor]

Agreed. There have been several times in the run of the show where Ron has had to sort of reluctantly admit that Leslie runs a good department. I don't think it was out of character for him to say that he likes the Parks Department better than all other departments- he is an outdoorsman, after all.

 

[the G-man]

Ron Swanson quotes:

• I don't want this parks department to build, any parks, because I don't believe in government. I think that all government is a waste of taxpayer money.
  
  My dream is to have the parks system privatized and run entirely for profit, by corporations.
  
  I don't want this parks department to build any parks, because I don't believe in government. I think that all government is a waste of taxpayer money.

Even if Ron begrudgingly thinks Leslie did a good job with the local department that doesn't translate into him now admiring (or at least tolerating) the National Park Service, which seemed to be what he was saying.

 

[Destructor]

Even if Ron begrudgingly thinks Leslie did a good job with the local department that doesn't translate into him now admiring (or at least tolerating) the National Park Service, which seemed to be what he was saying.

I think that's being a bit ungenerous to Ron. He still hates all government departments, it's just because he works in Parks and all his friends work in Parks and Leslie is a force of nature that not even Ron can deny the power of, he has to concede that, of all the government departments he hates, he hates Parks the least. You have to admit, if you asked Ron which department he hated the least, that he would say Parks.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Ron thinks, in general, government agencies are a waste of taxpayer money and incompetent.

In the case of Leslie's parks department, he only thinks it's a waste of taxpayer money.