Debate: Is It Time For Parks And Recreation To Call It A Day?

Parks And Recreation returns for its sixth season this week in the US. The upbeat and perennially optimistic sitcom stars Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, the head of the Parks Department in the small town of Pawnee, Indiana. It’s a small show of small ambitions, and its storylines often consist of little more than the finer points of raccoon removal — yet it’s one of the funniest shows on television.

Or is it?

This week, one rabid fan (Mitch Alexander) and one detractor (Alasdair Duncan) argue the case for and against the show: does Parks And Recreation still have something to say, or is it time to let go?

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Alasdair Duncan: The early seasons of Parks And Recreation are among my favourite TV of all time, no question. I’ve watched episodes like ‘Greg Pikitis’ and ‘Flu Season’ so many times that I can basically quote them word-for-word. I once went to a friend’s Parks themed birthday party dressed as Janet Snakehole, and ate a cake in the shape of Ron Swanson’s face. I love Leslie, April, Andy, Ron and all the rest of the Pawnee gang, and I watch them every week. But here’s the thing, and this is hard for me to say: but  Parks And Recreation just isn’t bloody funny anymore.

When it came along five years ago, Parks felt pretty unique. It was an era of misanthropic comedies, which primarily concerned themselves with the actions of horrible people doing horrible things to other horrible people (Two And A Half Men, I’m looking at you); Parks stood out because it was just so damned sunny and positive. Lead character Leslie Knope wanted the best for those around her and, by sheer force of will, she always got her way. It had warm, fuzzy feelings to spare, but it found an abundance of humour in its eccentric little world.

Then you have the cast, which is probably the strongest collection of funny people on television right now: Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt, Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari and, as of season two, Adam Scott and Rob Lowe. A ridiculously overqualified group, one of the big pleasures of the show is watching their individual styles bounce off one-another. The writing in those early seasons was top-notch, and each episode was dense with gags, both verbal and visual.

Around the beginning of the show’s fourth season, though, things started to change. Few shows retain their edge after that many years, but Parks’ shift away from laugh-out-loud funny towards doddering and sentimental came quicker than most. Even as the show developed the town of Pawnee and its collection of local eccentrics, the humour softened. Leslie’s relationship with Adam Scott’s nerdy Ben became more serious, eventually becoming one of the main plot lines. Each episode overflowed with warm, fuzzy feelings, but there were few actual laughs to be had. The most Parks demands of its viewers these days is a gentle sigh of, ‘Aww, isn’t that nice?’

As the show moves into its sixth season, I don’t see any of these problems going away. I still watch it out of a sense of loyalty, hoping to find some of the funny from those earlier episodes, but it’s just not there anymore. As a Parks fan, I might be in the minority, in that my biggest problem with the show is the thing a lot of other fans seem to love: the pairing up of Leslie and Ben. Before taking this rant any further, though, I’m going to hand over to Mitch, who I’m sure is already fuming and preparing a rousing rebuttal of some sort…

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Mitch Alexander: The internet echo chamber is a dangerously fickle creature. We want a sitcom to be funny, to be full of heart, and to put us all out of our will-they-won’t-they misery with serialised plot developments — and then we immediately forecast the same show’s demise when we get those things.  Or maybe people want it to end now before it gets a chance to shit the bed, to linger too long and get really bad. But if we are hoping for a show that is regularly hilarious and only occasionally transcendent to lose, then Chuck Lorre and his minions of mediocrity win.

If you want characters that aren’t just joke factories, you’re also going to get a bit of emotion. You might see it as schmaltzy, but moments like last season’s Ben and Leslie wedding are a well-executed balance between the Very Special Episode pathway that Modern Family* seems stuck on, and the human hurricanes of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia or The League. Plus, the show repeatedly makes light of the mental cluster bomb that is Chris Traeger’s mind, so that’s good stuff. [* If you hate on Modern Family I WILL cut you – AD]

Let’s not forget that we left season five with a group of local business interests attempting to boot Knope out of office, in a season where she clashed with Christian fundamentalists, rent-a-mobs and the unstoppable juggernaut that is the bureaucracy. She’s a smart cookie, but even Leslie Knope got Jammed in the last season. She and Ben Wyatt have the perfect power couple marriage – as power couple-y as you can get in Pawnee, Indiana – but their surroundings are chaos. For every ‘awww, shucks’ moment, there is a lecherous fragrance maker that hunts people for sport.

Dangerous confession time: I didn’t watch any West Wing until being persuaded by Rob Lowe’s magnificence on Parks & Recreation. I can feel those judgemental gasps, but Wayne’s World ruined him in my eyes for many years. The healing power of Chris Traeger compelled me to cast off these teenage impressions, and I’m better for it. Leslie Knope remains the show’s focal point, but darnit if each character doesn’t aim for that title every single week. There’s a stellar supporting cast, but I would even watch an episode or two of just interactions between various townsfolk.

Except Jerry, but I mean, ugh. That guy.

I watched the opening five minutes of Anna Farris’ new comedy Mom, and was immediately reminded of why Parks & Recreation is so important. Mom’s clown car of characters aren’t even one-dimensional; they are 0.6 of a dimension at best. Light passes through them. And I forgot how disturbing and surreal canned laughter can be – it’s not its mere existence that’s offensive, it’s the disproportionate responses after every line. When Andy Dwyer suggests that an illness may be due to network connectivity problems, I don’t need a big red stamp that says HEY THAT WAS FUNNY AND YOU SHOULD RESPOND AS SUCH!

As we move into season six of Parks, it’s definitely at a better place than its spiritual counterpart, the US version of The Office. People have actually changed jobs (and not changed back five episodes later). Leslie Knope took four seasons to reach her dream, and is suddenly in danger of it being taken away. Plus, there is the possibility of a baby Swanson, presumably emerging from the womb with a lustrous moustache and sign that says ‘Trespassers will be made an example of’.

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Alasdair Duncan: Dude, I agree with you that Leslie and Ben are the perfect power couple for Parks. They’re the perfect couple in just about every way. He knows just what kind of food she likes when she’s down – usually waffles, but occasionally mac and cheese pizza – and he supports her in each and every endeavour. He even gave up his sweet political consulting job to be with her in Pawnee. She loves his adorable little butt, and smooches up on him whenever the opportunity arises. Leslie and Ben are the sweetest, lovey dovey-est couple in the entire world — but they’re not a good sitcom couple, because true love and happiness are as boring as batshit.

Pain, misery are bickering are the stuff of comedy gold. Mismatched sitcom couples are a cliché for a reason: it just plain works. Take Sam and Diane from Cheers, one of the greatest all-time sitcom couples. He’s a rough-and-tumble guy, she’s sensitive and refined. He’s a jock, she’s a brain. He makes fun of her pretensions, she loathes his boorish manners — and yet for all the animosity between them, they are helpless against the attraction that keeps bringing them back together, even as it drags them to all new lows. “Are you as turned on as I am?” he asks at one point, after one of their knock-down, drag-out arguments. “More!” she growls back.

Sam and Diane’s apocalyptic relationship set the template for many sitcom couples to come, from Ross and Rachel on Friends to Nick and Jess on New Girl. They were two damaged, broken people, but their clashes were a constant source of comedy, and the pain they heaped on each-other made the fleeting moments of pleasure all the more meaningful. It’s far more fun to watch people fight and see the sparks fly than it is to see them sit around agreeing with each-other, and that’s my biggest problem with the later seasons of Parks And Recreation: everyone is just so damn contented, especially Leslie and Ben. There’s nothing at stake.

Amy Poehler says that Cheers is the gold standard to which she holds all other sitcoms. I find that surprising, in that Leslie and Ben are such a bland proposition. They never clash in any meaningful way, and her sheer, unrelenting positivity destroys any obstacle in their path. In fact, nothing bad ever happens to her – there was one episode where she literally solved her problem by throwing a bunch of puppies at it. Nothing sticks to Leslie or Ben. They’re the TV equivalent of a Hallmark card or a Thomas Kinkade painting. Just look at this syrupy montage – Sweetums itself would be ashamed to push this level of saccharine on the obese children of Pawnee.

I’m not just going to crap all over Parks here. There’s still some stuff I love about the show, especially April and Andy, who provide a nice balance for Leslie and Ben. Andy’s progression from hopeless case to slightly less hopeless case, and April’s growth from disaffected teen to sorta-maybe-competent and smart young woman represent rare examples of meaningful change on a show where the characters mostly just stagnate. The rest of the gang exist only as collections of key traits. Tom is needy and annoying! Ron is a gruff loner – with bonus facial hair! Chris is terrified of letting the cracks show in his cheery facade! Then there’s poor, sweet Ann – so boring that not even her friends know what she does or why she’s around. These characters are funny in the same way internet memes you’ve seen a million times are funny.

I feel like I’m kicking one of Leslie’s puppies but there’s really no way around this: I wish that Parks had gone out strong, before its present day slide into pleasant but dull territory. Then again, I could be biased here. My favourite contemporary sitcoms include It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia and Veep, both shining examples of the ‘horrible people being horrible to one-another’ genre, so it could be that I’m just a heartless bastard with no capacity to love. You know what, though? Those shows are tightly written, and always manage to wring laughs from their well-established characters.

Final thoughts, Mitch?

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Mitch Alexander: My ultimate rebuttal was initially going to be a link to this wonderful Tumblr entirely dedicated to Parks and Recreation GIFs, but I suspect most readers already have it bookmarked anyway. “Stop pooping” indeed.

It’s funny that you mention Cheers, and the influence it has had on Amy Poehler, because you know who else that show has influenced? Every shit-sipping hack sitcom writer in Hollywood. Anyone that’s come up with a character’s catchphrase before their dialogue (granted, “BAZINGA!” doesn’t have the same acerbic brilliance as “NORM!”, but you take what you can get). Anyone that pushes a male and a female character together (initially for no other reason than they’re there, and not unattractive), then apart, then together again — because how else can a show illustrate drama than by putting their characters through extreme emotional torture? The things you hold dear to your heart about a bunch of roustabout Boston alcoholics have been used and abused by US sitcoms – good, bad and eye-tearingly terrible – for the last 30 years. (Sidenote: this is basically how I will remember Cheers for eternity.)

Many long-running sitcoms of the ’80s and ’90s were built on a solid foundation of, well, unsolid foundations – yelling matches, sexual tension marathons, old friends and lovers dropping by just to drop a turd in the plot punchbowl. But that was then, and this is now. The line between drama and comedy and dramedy and croma (a just-invented word to denote a comedy and drama fusion that leans slightly more on chuckles) is much more blurred, and TV is able to show a spectrum of subtle emotions without gonging you over the head about it.

A single glare during a talking head scene can convey more angst than an entire bottle episode. This may result in less zinging one-liner extravaganzas than in the past, but do you know what else there was a lot more of in the old days? Tuberculosis and Reaganomics. BOOM.

I think that any beef, real or imagined, that people might have with Parks & Recreation is more to do with the human tendency to recall the past fondly. My opponent’s (and make no mistake, he may now be my enemy) vision of Cheers becomes more incandescent with each passing year, as does his recollection of the early Parks And Rec seasons. Decades from now, there might be public holidays dedicated to the Andrew Bernard, Regional Manager years of The Office.

Let’s not speed up this process – taking Old Yeller out to the barn, when he’s clearly fit and healthy – just so we can get to the fond remembrance stage. I’m not saying that Parks won’t eventually become a tiring mutual obligation between creators and consumers (few shows are ever given the dignity to bow out before then), but I’m definitely saying we’re not there yet.

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Alasdair Duncan is an author, freelance writer and video game-lover who has had work published in Crikey, The Drum, The Brag, Beat, Rip It Up, The Music Network, Rave Magazine, AXN Cult and Star Observer.

Mitch Alexander is a Melbourne-based writer who, alongside Junkee writers Alasdair and Rob Newcombe, previously worked on a pop culture podcast that the world just wasn’t ready for. Or they just got lazy. His work has appeared in The Beat, Brag, The Vine, Scene and Rave Magazine.