People have short memories. It's hard to believe, for example, that 2010 is still the year of Conan O'Brien's career ending on NBC. It's been 11 months since the final episode of his version of The Tonight Show, but it feels a lot longer. In further nostalgia, Lost ended in 2010. In some reductive way, doesn't it feel like it's been years since we last saw Jack Shephard, John Locke, Ben Linus, and everyone else? My point here is that some of the best TV in 2010 came way before the summer. Party Down, Better Off Ted, Dollhouse, and even some shows that aren't actually canceled made the rounds in the late winter and early spring, and one truly notable program is coming back very soon, thankfully.
If Parks and Recreation had aired more episodes in the calendar year, I'd be hard-pressed to know whether this show or Community was the better NBC show, or the better comedy, period. As it stands, there were only 12 episodes of Parks and Recreation aired in 2010, while Community had far more, and has grown as exponentially in its first season and a half almost as much as Parks and Rec (for short, to its fans) did in its second season. This Office-style sitcom had its work cut out for it; the ads pretty much promised The Office starring Amy Poehler as the Michael Scott character. What's more, the show featured Rashida Jones, previously of The Office, and there was even the potential for a Jim/Pam relationship between Jones' nurse Ann and Paul Schneider's Mark Brendanowicz. What went wrong in the first season is that the show had no consistent tone. There were flashes of potential, but very few strong episodes or even storylines. I have no idea what happened in between seasons one and two, aside from the writers being more focused, but it paid off.
As a season, Parks and Recreation's second goes alongside the first season of Arrested Development and the second season of its spiritual predecessor, The Office, as one of the best seasons of a comedy series in the past decade, at least on network television. Leslie Knope, the deputy director of the Pawnee, Indiana Parks and Recreation department, was no longer a one-dimensional, blinded obsessive focused on unattainable goals. Her superior, Ron Swanson, was less of a Dwight Schrute mimic and a more fully formed and fully realized breakout character. If there was a flaw with the season (and a minute one, to be fair), it was the Mark/Ann relationship. In the six episodes that comprised the first season, Ann was part of the main group of characters because of a literal pit that Leslie wanted to transform into a local park. Ann lived next to the pit and wanted the project to move forward, especially since it would give her something to do aside from avoiding her current layabout boyfriend, Andy. Once she and Andy broke up, and the pit got filled, what purpose did she serve?
Now, being a fan of Rashida Jones, I didn't want to see her go, but the writers didn't give her a lot of material, aside from a hilarious setpiece where she and Poehler pretended to be on a date to soothe Leslie's jangled nerves. The third season, which begins on January 20 (and since the show's on Netflix Instant, you have zero excuses for not watching), has jettisoned Brendanowicz as a character; while Schneider was a nice counterpoint to the insanity going on in the show, he served even less of a purpose, since Jones was more charismatic and had better chemistry with the other performers. In Schneider's place are Adam Scott and Rob Lowe, who entered the series at the end of last season as state-government fixers in town to perform a complete upheaval of the Pawnee government, including the Parks and Recreation department. Whatever ends up happening to the main cast--also including Aziz Ansari, Aubrey Plaza, Nick Offerman, and the wild Chris Pratt--know that Parks and Recreation has become as strong a comedy as The Office ever was.
Why has this show not done as well as other NBC programs? Part of this is thanks to NBC deciding to give the series a break so Outsourced could air after The Office this fall. When the show returns, it will air after The Office (featuring Steve Carell in his final episodes) for the first time, and now is the best time to check it out. If you watched the first season, you may be feeling trepidation. "Wasn't this the show that tried and failed to be another Office?" Yes, it did try and fail. What Parks and Recreation has become is a whole new beast, a show that keeps some of the familiar awkwardness with moments of great, gut-busting humor while keeping fresh all the time. It's an exciting time for comedy, because there are mere days until the return of NBC's most assured entry in the genre in quite some time. Get ready. Parks and Recreation is back, and hopefully better than ever.
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