"Parks and Recreation," much improved

I never felt it was a bad show -- I thought it was a promising little show during the first season -- but it definitely took a big jump up during the second season. There isn't a bad or boring character in the bunch. My only concern is that they might be starting to rely too much on Ron Swanson's eccentricities. I hope they don't drive his character into the ground.

I agree that Rob Lowe has been great. I also think the fact that he's in the credits means he's going to be sticking around, even though his character has moved to Indianapolis. I wasn't so fond of his colleague -- played by Adam Scott -- at first, but I've started to enjoy his character in the last few episodes.

 

I love ensemble shows like this one. I was not a big Poehler fan on SNL. I thought she was way over the top and I never saw the appeal. I think she's tremendous on this show.

 

And the thing is, Lowe's probably the fourth-funniest character on the show, behind Ron, Andy and Tom, in whatever order you prefer.

I do hope they dial it back a bit with Ron, though.

 

We started watching this year after giving up pretty early in season 1. I have to say, easily the funniest show on TV right now. In a way, it combines the best elements of Modern Family, 30 Rock and Community. The Media Blitz show which was on a couple of weeks ago did not have 15 seconds go by without a huge laugh.

 

RE: Rob Lowe. The last episode was a "season 2" show. They filmed a bunch of shows, then found out they were going to be a midseason replacement (Amy Poehler is actually pregnant in many of these episodes). When it resumes, it will be "season 3." At the time, they weren't sure if Lowe was going to be back so they had him break up with Ann (Rashida Jones) and move back to Indy. I read he actually is not in the first episode back, but will be the rest of the season after that.

 

Watched the Harvest Festival episode this morning. Fantastic -- the whole thing with Lil Sebastian was gold.

 

Swanson is the funniest character on TV right now.

I'm sure everyone noticed the Bob Knight reference, but hopefully people picked up on another Indiana native reference.

 

And I just read that the chief of the tribe was played by the actor who voiced John Redcorn in King of the Hill. He was great.

 

I'm glad Parks and Rec, Community and 30 Rock have all been renewed because none of the three (despite all being great shows) get shit for ratings. The only NBC Thursday night shows that do well in the ratings are The Office and whatever show is on right after it.

 

I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment, and I think I've targeted the difference from its very shaky start.

They totally overwrote Poehler's character at the beginning of the show, made her too weird, too frenetic, too ... out there. After the first season, she's gradually toned it down to the point where she's a believable character who actually does sensible things sometimes.

And in tandem, they've developed the fringe characters into larger roles. I believe some of the people who have taken off -- Andy, Audrey -- weren't expected to be major players when the series was conceived.

 

I'm going to ask this in the most non-accusational way possible. Background: I saw half of the first ep of P&R, hated it. I know it's better, and different. I just haven't gotten into it.

Question: Do you have to know background to find the first clip above funny? Because if so, that's cool. If not, it's definitely not the show for me.

 

I loved how Ron's rolling his eyes and thinking "what now?" while Leslie was leading up to her Lil Sebastian intro and then the horse comes in and he's uncontrollably giddy.