He had a good role in Powerless but sadly the show found not audience. It had a lot of potential.
Okay, since a week ago, when my daughter introduced me to it, I’ve been bingeing Community. I’m on Season 6 (E6), and I have to award my vote to Parks & Rec (which I wouldn’t even have to tell you if this had been a poll with BALLS that lets everybody know how you voted).
But that’s enough digression.
Parks & Rec was a show that WAS what it WAS. Community was delightful, with its quasi-fourth-wall-breaking, its pitch-perfect homages to various styles of storytelling, its willingness, nay insistence, on making my experience a little more surreal each time I began a new episode. But, based on the delight I felt in the episodes before those gimmicks (yeah, I went there) and shenanigans started, I really believe it was going to be delightful anyway. They didn’t need to do episodes as Claymation characters, or G.I. Joes, or Baby Community Babies to delight me, and I eventually reached a point where I thought they didn’t believe in their own delightfulness being ENOUGH to delight me.
I dunno. Maybe if I’d watched the show once a week for six years, those would have been treats for me, instead of *“Hey-kaylasdad-look-what-ELSE-we-can-do”*s.
But the fact is that I also binge-watched Parks & Rec, and I was more moved by the unfolding story arcs that show presented me (to this day when the Guardians of the Galaxy turn up, I don’t see Star Lord; I see Johnny Karate. True story).
PARKS & RECREATION FTW! WHO’S WITH ME?
Your MeowMeowBeenz rating has been reduced to 1. You have entered The Darkest Timeline and been banished to “The Outlands”. May God have mercy on your soul.
Sounds like The Cape.
There could too still be six seasons and a movie!
I am. The others just aren’t cool like us.
The word you’re looking for there is meta. It’s not really fourth wall breaking, it’s self-referential. But they both sill let the audience know that the characters are self-aware, at least to some extent. When Abed wants doesn’t want to hang around with the study group today because he thinks it’s about to turn into a bottle episode…does he know he’s being filmed?
What if he knows he’s being filmed even when he tells Jeff they’re not recording Troy and Abed in Morning?
I’m just barely into Season 4. I haven’t been a big fan of the animated episodes. Once I make it through the series, I doubt I’ll watch those ones again.
It’s funny, back when DVRs were getting really popular, there were ‘studies’ that suggested that people actually enjoy shows more with commercials since you get a break during the show to digest what you watched. Granted, I’m not going to start watching commercials again, I think that’s true to a point. Similarly, there’s plenty of shows that I binged, that even while watching them I knew I’d probably like them more if I watched an episode a week instead of 8 episodes a day. While that’s partially because there comes a point after a week of binging a show where you’re just doing it to finish it, there’s also something about the anticipation of the next episode, that you lose when you watch them all at once.
Having said that, once I get through the series, this’ll certainly be a show I’ll return to, much like Friends and Parks and Rec and The Office that I’ll watch reruns if I see them or watch random episodes here and there because, ultimately, it is a good show.
Whether people will still be watching it in 20+ years (like Friends), I don’t know. It could prove to be a little too quirky to hold up that long. OTOH, it’s already 10 years old and plenty of people are still talking about it.
PS, as I’m typing this, I’m thinking that anyone that likes Community might also like Psych. Goofy show, not really grounded in reality, but close enough that you don’t think much of it. Mainly built on 90’s pop culture references…like enough of them that even if you grew up in the 90’s you’ll still miss some of them.
The first two or three seasons of Community were brilliant. After the big blow up, cancellations, firings, quitting, and revival it wasn’t the same and I dropped it.
Parks started a slow descent as the characters slowly became less incompetent and more successful. The successes of the Aubrey Plaza-Chris Pratt and Leslie-Adam Scott romances were examples of its decline. Comedy is in catastrophic romances, not successful ones.
I started Community over quarantine, and while I like it I don’t think it’s as incredible as some on here. Agreed that Community’s highs are higher, if I had to preserve one show and wipe the other from existence, I’d save Parks. Caveat that I’m just at the end of season 2.
But those things (getting better at their job, successful personal relationships, character arcs that resolve in a ‘good’ way etc) are the things that make it a ‘feel good’ show. Also, April and Andy made for a great comedy team on that show and getting them together, at least IMO, made the show that much better. I’m not sure I could even make the argument that any part of the show, much less their relationship was a decline.
Don’t get me wrong, shows with catastrophic romances like Friends and HIMYM are still great, but they’re not designed to have you walking away happy about how all the conflicts resolved.
It made me less interested in the show.
And, specifically, April was emotionally detached and smart and Andy was a selfish moron. That should never have worked. They had to change their characters to make it fit.
The Adam Scott character was a dead bore beyond being a foil for Rob Lowe. I had no interest in his romantic side.
In another thread, I mentioned that there were quite a few episodes that were significantly less funny the second time around, particularly some of the gimmicky episodes.
I watched both shows when they were first aired and ended up dropping both after a few seasons, but I don’t remember exactly why. Since then, I have watched Parks and Rec multiple times all the way through and have a real affection for that show. I put it on in the background when I’m doing laundry and household chores and it feels like the show is hanging out with me while I’m working. I pretty much know who is going to say what, and when.
The other night, I tried to watch Community again and didn’t stick through the whole first episode. Chevy Chase was already on my nerves. I will try again, because I do remember some stellar episodes like Paintball.
End of speech.
Wow, Parks and Recreation is really narrowing the gap.
I am into season 2 of Community. Oddly, I don’t want to marry the paintball episode like most do. It was fun but too over-the-top for my tastes.
I like the Community folks most when they are not doing something outrageous or 100% unbelievable.
75% unbelievable is ok, but 100% rolls my eyes.
mmm
Well then I’m curious what you’ll think of Seasons 2 and 3 (generally considered the best seasons of Community), which start getting more unrealistic, but also more hilarious.
Though, I consider the S1 Paintball episode one of the best episodes of television.
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Fans of Parks and Recreation might be happy to hear that there’s going to be a new episode in a week. NBC is airing a one-off COVID-19 episode as a fundraiser. It’s about how the characters are dealing with the social isolation.
Parks and Rec is the unnecessary but unavoidable by-product of a system of evolution that is based on the principle that ‘there are no wrong answers’.
Nah, it was pretty good. 
Well, one of the top Community episodes is being memory holed because Chang was a Dark Elf.
I found Parks to be too saccharine and sitcomy for my tastes.