The Chris Moeller Archives

My deepest TV secret

There's something I need to tell you that's not easy for me to say. Are you ready? Here it is: I don't like the TV show "Parks & Recreation."

Oh, that feels so good.

You see, although the show is not a winner in the Nielsens, my immediate circle of (mostly) left-leaning, middle-class, hipster-lite compatriots adore it. Friends like it. Family members like it. The television critics I consume on the internet absolutely love it. And that love, I feel, is completely unjustified.

This is a show that has completely changed its course over five seasons. Rarely have the fingerprints of network executives and focus groups been so visible on a piece of television art that's considered "a critical darling." And it wasn't that great to start. It began as a ripoff of "The Office," another "mockumentary-style" show where the writers can be lazy by having the characters read exposition directly into the camera. And why the hell is there a camera in their fictional lives to begin with? Is there really a documentary film crew recording the day-to-day actions of the city employees of Pawnee, Indiana? Does the lens really follow them into their bedrooms and into every private area of their lives? (I have this same problem with "Modern Family.") It would be one thing to use this narrative device to make a clever comment about human "performance" in the age of reality television. That's what the first, British version of "The Office" did.

Yet it's obvious that the catalyst instead for this technique on "Parks & Rec" was a network note that read something to the effect of: "This show will be on Thursday nights after 'The Office.' Can you make it like 'The Office'?" And then the network notes only continued to pile up after the fact. After the short-order first season and then a full second, Amy Poehler's character Leslie Knope required a new love interest. Actor Paul Schneider's performance as city planner Mark Brendanawicz had been widely perceived-- accurately-- as something akin to a piece of chewing gum stuck to the LCD flat-panel and he had to be replaced. Network notes (which always read something similar to this) said-- bring in a handsome leading man-- or two.

Some television comedies value humor and execution above the actors' physical appearance, and it leads to back-and-forth battles with the network. Farsighted comedy producer Paul Simms wanted Dave Foley (who looked like he was 12-years-old) as his leading man on a pilot television show called "Newsradio" in 1994, got him, and then NBC forever hated the hilarious "Newsradio," moving it around the schedule almost weekly. But that show today stands strong against the challenge of time. Other shows take those network notes close to their proverbial bosom, and that's how you wind up with Rob Lowe fumbling his way handsomely through the corridors of Pawnee city hall.

Joining the cast in season three, Lowe's character was a non-starter from the beginning. As the tone of "Parks" was becoming increasingly saccharine sweet in an effort to contrast it from the show it was ripping off, Lowe's Chris Traeger was introduced as the new "boss" of the fictional office. The writers concocted a beaten-to-death, artificial story line in which Traeger forbid office romances, keeping the mad love from blooming between Poehler's character and one played by the other newcomer, Adam Scott (a very capable actor stuck playing a sweeter-than-sweet bore of a love interest). The angle on Lowe's Traeger, evidently, was that he was a high achiever, and in terrific physical shape. He was paired off romantically with Rashida Jones' character (who had been present since the outset of the series) because going into season three (and now, incidentally, through season five as well), the writers still had no idea what to do with her. For a show that's increasingly about the empowerment of women, the considerable charm and talent of Jones goes almost completely to waste on the show. Write her a role already!

And that leads me to my biggest complaint about the show, the lead character of Leslie Knope. Leslie was well-meaning, but pretty ditzy, during the brief six episode arc of season one. Now, as she's portrayed by Poehler, she's become increasingly competent in her career, but growing to be more and more a hollow shell. Leslie is presented to us as a politically-liberal stock character type, and her liberalism is the soft, squishy kind favored among Hollywood's phony progressives. She believes in "big government," so as to contrast her from the more clearly-drawn Ron Swanson (played expertly by Nick Offerman), a dyed-in-the-wool, "man's man" libertarian, who served as her boss prior to Knope's season four election to the Pawnee city council.

The Swanson character actually believes in something, but in a lame effort to identify Knope in this character comedy, writers and set designers have decorated the public servant's office with photos of the famous American female politicians she admires-- Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Condoleeza Rice, Janet Reno, and Nancy Pelosi- a veritable "who's who" of American Republicrat criminal imperialists (only Sarah Palin is apparently out-of-bounds politically). The effect of this badly written character beat is that Knope comes off as not a principled political heroine at all, as she's intended to be, but a office- and status-chasing dimwit, who's impossible to root for because her most strongly-held belief is not a political issue of right or wrong, but one of toothless, gender-identity politics-- should women seek political office?-- which hasn't been controversial for almost half a century. Does Lesley Knope, for all of her civic-mindedness, ever pick up a newspaper?

This fall's season five premiere episode found Leslie in Washington D.C., hobnobbing with Barbara Boxer and John McCain (portraying themselves), again inviting the audience to embrace the childish alternate reality of the "Parks & Recreation" world where our politicians, not just in fictional Pawnee, Indiana, but even in the real-life capital, are self-effacing, well-meaning, idealistic heroes. (Joe Biden appeared later in the season.) This fantasy props up the political status quo, and provides a fine dessert for people who tuned in all fall for "Saturday Night Live's" impersonation-heavy and satirically-shallow Thursday night (prime-time) and Saturday night election-year political coverage.

As "Parks" continues to try to be everything to all people (as "Saturday Night Live" has for its last quarter century), and fails miserably at it in the ratings while holding a valuable slot in NBC's Thursday night lineup ("Community" finally returns February 7th!), three performers stand out. I enjoy Offerman, as I stated. I do so enjoy Aubrey Plaza as April (worthy of her own series much more than was "The Office's" Mindy Kaling), and Aziz Ansari as Tom. These are a trio of fresh, biting characters who actually inspire laughter when they're not being pulled down into the sugar bowl.

The biggest problem with the uncomplicated world of "Parks & Recreation" is that, without complications, the dramatic stakes are very low. There are no villains. I can't imagine how the show can possibly become more sweetened if it manages to maneuver a sixth season out of Kabletown executives. Even the die-hard fans of this show are lying to you if they tell you they care about what happens to Rob Lowe's character, and the Poehler and Scott characters have basically already been written off into the sunset. Knope and Swanson used to butt heads. Now they're basically father and daughter.

The show yearns for an America in which there is less political divisiveness, failing to recognize that the political divisiveness that has sprung up since 9/11 is the result of actual collective self-reflection. It's progress. This is the same thing NBC's news division fails to understand, coincidentally. We don't just all go along anymore. This is a nation, consciously or not, starting to come to grips for the first time with the sins it commits. This sitcom thinks the two major political parties should get along better, when in reality, they agree on almost everything that's important already, argue over cultural trivialities, while the citizens, who are depicted as collectively stupid on "Parks & Rec" during every town hall meeting, are increasingly dissatisfied with both parties for just this reason.

This show was launched as something much darker than what it is now, and that original version, as I said, was a clone of something else, but at least it was cloning, essentially, the Ricky Gervais British masterpiece that held considerable truth. The only dramatic stakes in a given episode today are that Leslie Knope might encounter a person that doesn't value her sincerity, doesn't identify with her lack of cynicism, and doesn't personally like her as much as those of us in her real-world audience are supposed to like her. And as a viewer, I don't like her. See my problem?

posted by CM @ 5:01 PM