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Jess, I liked Parks and Recreation as well, and I think it can only get better. It's a great time to be making a show about governance and government. The fact that Parks is about small, silly government, far from D.C., should serve it well, allowing it to be current (Are they going to have budget cuts or get some infrastructure dollars over in Pawnee?) without being too inside baseball or Obama-philic.
I'm also intrigued by the ways it's not like The Office, which, granted, are very few. The Office, set in a dying paper business in a dying town (Scranton), has always been about how regular people cope with this—being a part of a dying business in a dying town—while simultaneously contending with all the other jokers wasting away their lives in the cubicle next door. The American version of The Office has done much to mute the essential soul-crushing, dreariness of this premise, fully explored in the wondrously brutal British series. (Liesl Schillinger wrote a great piece a few years ago comparing different nations' versions of The Office that speaks to the why of this watering down).
Given the relative positivity of the American Office, it's no surprise that when the guys who softened it up were tasked with making a whole new show, they came up with something a lot less inherently depressing. Despite all the ways that Parks is like The Office, it's not about dead end jobs in a dead end place—it's about everyday jobs in an everyday place (where people even have their own offices, like, with doors and stuff). In other words, compared to The Office's Michael Scott, Poehler's Knopes doesn't even rate on the loser scale. She may share Michael's linguistic ticks and social awkwardness, but, in just one episode, by dedicating herself to building a park, she's already done something 100 times more worthwhile than Michael ever has. The fact that Parks is about relatively dedicated, successful people may make it far less indelible, and a lot more standard sitcom, than The Office—or it might just make it that much more insightful in the long term.
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