City of Pawnee, Ind., parks and recreation services are prepped and ready to go for a much-anticipated debut tomorrow night. With an experience-laden staff and proven strategic plan, this collection of bureaucrats sure has a lot going for it.
Too bad this kick-off couldn’t come at a worse time.
Perhaps Parks and Recreation, NBC’s new mockumentary from The Office executive producers Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, could have made a bigger splash two years ago. Back then, The Office was a trailblazing force in American comedy, emphasizing subtlety and nuance over mindless stunt humor.
Through the first three seasons of The Office, it was arguably the most dependable show on television. While other top-notch programs would still churn out the occasional let-down episode, you could tune in every Thursday and know you were going to get your fill of side-splitting laughs and character-driven drama. Jim’s (John Krasinski) and Pam’s (Jenna Fischer) sexual tension provided the perfect balance to Michael’s (Steve Carell) and Dwight’s (Rainn Wilson) perpetually zany antics.
Ever since NBC ordered a 30-episode season for the show’s fourth year (the previous high was 23), however, The Office has slowly but surely been declining. Even though that fourth season only ended up including 19 half-hour segments due to the Writers Guild of America strike, one could still see the comedy being stretched too thin.
Each of the four hour-long specials aired to start the season felt just a little off, as the pacing and quality of humor clearly suffered. Stunts such as Michael driving his car into a lake and Dwight freezing Angela’s (Angela Kinsey) cat to death were too broad for the show’s well-established style of humor. As the season slowly treaded along, the lack of drama in the now-together Jim and Pam’s lives stripped The Office of its narrative momentum.
Flash-forward to the in-progress fifth season, for which NBC ordered a whopping 29 episodes. If it weren’t for Amy Ryan’s fantastic six-episode stint as Holly, the pitch-perfect yin to Michael’s yang, there wouldn’t be much to redeem The Office this year.
Sure, the occasional one-liner or well-timed facial expression will still force a laugh. And yes, the chaotic fire drill cold opening for the post-Superbowl episode, “Stress Relief,” has to go down as one of the series’ funniest scenes (some of us are still laughing at Angela’s cat being thrown through one hole in the ceiling only to fall out another).
For the most part, though, the magic is gone. The awkward pauses don’t seem as sharp, and the dialogue often feels sloppily written. Jim and Pam are still too happy together and no one cares about Dwight’s, Angela’s and Andy’s (Ed Helms) love triangle that fulfilled the show’s office romance quota for far too long.
Which brings us back to the issue at hand: Parks and Recreation. NBC has smartly sandwiched the pilot of its prized new comedy between two new episodes of The Office tomorrow, ensuring a sizable audience for the show’s first appearance.
Whether Parks and Recreation sinks or swims after tomorrow appears to be another matter entirely. With The Office clearly struggling to keep the fresh ideas coming, how can we expect Daniels and Schur to do much better with their side project?
Now, Parks and Recreation does have a few positives going for it. Amy Poehler’s bankable name and quick-witted humor should be an asset from the start. With Office alumna Rashida Jones and the hilarious Aziz Ansari (of the sketch comedy series Human Giant) also on board, you can’t complain about the program’s casting.
On the other hand, the promos for Parks and Recreation make the show appear to be all too much in the same vein as The Office. After all, Poehler’s Leslie Knope is a mid-level bureaucrat with an overzealous attitude who takes her job far too seriously. Sound familiar? It’s obviously too early to judge, but if she ends up being little more than the Michael Scott character retooled, Parks and Recreation will be in trouble.
These impending problems are precisely what many feared would happen when NBC first slated The Office’s creative team to work on a new mockumentary (originally pegged as a direct spin-off of The Office). Working on a similar show that is already growing stale, Daniels and Schur should realize producing more of the same on another program isn’t going to help matters.
When Michael boldly stepped down as the regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Scranton after 15 years of devoted service in the March 19 episode, “New Boss,” his mindset eerily paralleled that of many Office fans: It’s been a great ride and there were some really memorable moments along the way, but things just aren’t the way they used to be.
tfloyd1@umd.edu
