As many other reviewers have pointed out, the first season and a half is fairly weak. You can tell the writers are trying to figure out a direction for the show, trying not to make it a knockoff of The Office (and mostly failing). But around the episode with the telethon, something magical happens. More jokes strike their mark. The characters become more human, more lovable. The show stops following the brokenness of government and starts following the brokenness of its cast.
For a couple seasons, anyway.
Now, when I say the show loses its balance, I don't mean it stops being funny, or the quality of writing plummets. Far from it. The writing remains consistently strong, the jokes are hilarious, and the characters just get better and better. No, I mean that the show becomes less politically balanced as the series goes on.
The writers loved Obama. This becomes apparent sometime around the fifth season, when Leslie stops being a well-meaning bubbly liberal whose schemes to help her town sometimes succeed and sometimes backfire; and starts being an Obama stand-in who is harassed from every side by meddling Republicans who want her gone because they don't like her personally. And I'm not going to say the writers didn't have a right to do that; but I will say that this decision was to the show's detriment.
Take the episode where Leslie decides to save the local video store as an example of the balanced Parks and Rec. It's a perfect grey situation: The store does have community value, but it's also failing. Leslie has a point when she says that it should be preserved for its historical value, but Ron also has a point when he says it's best to let a failing business die. When it blows up in Leslie's face, it proves Ron right, but Leslie proves herself right by preserving the video store's community and historical value a different way. It was a great episode: funny, timely, and most of all, balanced.
Now take the soda tax as an example of the unbalanced Parks and Rec. This, too, is a good grey situation: Leslie wants to curb obesity in Pawnee, so she places a tax on soda. In reality, a tax on soda would be a sin tax-a tax ostensibly to curb negative behaviors, like the one on cigarettes. The people who object to sin taxes aren't mad that the government is "restricting our personal freedoms," but rather that the sin tax doesn't restrict anything at all. It just makes indulging a sin more expensive, and who reaps that extra profit? Yep, the government. The storytelling potential was ripe here. We could have gotten citizens saying that rather than restricting the size of sodas sold, Leslie chose the move that allowed the government to profit off of bad behavior. Ron could have pointed out that people are going to buy giant sodas if they're available, no matter how much they cost. Perd Hapley could have talked to people who found the move a shady one, who accused Leslie of not caring about obesity at all because the government would soon be dependent on the revenue generated by the soda tax. But Leslie is now our Obama stand-in, and we can't have her opponents looking reasonable, now can we?
Additionally, the writers seem to forget that Leslie is not the mayor, but the most junior city council member, and so she would not have the authority to merge Pawnee and Eagleton, or to unilaterally institute a soda tax.
It's just frustrating. I'm going to continue to watch this show because I love the characters, but the political storylines are getting worse. In the beginning, you could tell the writers leaned left, but they were more than willing to critique their own ideas. Now, they only seem interested in talking up Obama and using Jamm as an amalgamation of every Republican they despise.
For a couple seasons, anyway.
Now, when I say the show loses its balance, I don't mean it stops being funny, or the quality of writing plummets. Far from it. The writing remains consistently strong, the jokes are hilarious, and the characters just get better and better. No, I mean that the show becomes less politically balanced as the series goes on.
The writers loved Obama. This becomes apparent sometime around the fifth season, when Leslie stops being a well-meaning bubbly liberal whose schemes to help her town sometimes succeed and sometimes backfire; and starts being an Obama stand-in who is harassed from every side by meddling Republicans who want her gone because they don't like her personally. And I'm not going to say the writers didn't have a right to do that; but I will say that this decision was to the show's detriment.
Take the episode where Leslie decides to save the local video store as an example of the balanced Parks and Rec. It's a perfect grey situation: The store does have community value, but it's also failing. Leslie has a point when she says that it should be preserved for its historical value, but Ron also has a point when he says it's best to let a failing business die. When it blows up in Leslie's face, it proves Ron right, but Leslie proves herself right by preserving the video store's community and historical value a different way. It was a great episode: funny, timely, and most of all, balanced.
Now take the soda tax as an example of the unbalanced Parks and Rec. This, too, is a good grey situation: Leslie wants to curb obesity in Pawnee, so she places a tax on soda. In reality, a tax on soda would be a sin tax-a tax ostensibly to curb negative behaviors, like the one on cigarettes. The people who object to sin taxes aren't mad that the government is "restricting our personal freedoms," but rather that the sin tax doesn't restrict anything at all. It just makes indulging a sin more expensive, and who reaps that extra profit? Yep, the government. The storytelling potential was ripe here. We could have gotten citizens saying that rather than restricting the size of sodas sold, Leslie chose the move that allowed the government to profit off of bad behavior. Ron could have pointed out that people are going to buy giant sodas if they're available, no matter how much they cost. Perd Hapley could have talked to people who found the move a shady one, who accused Leslie of not caring about obesity at all because the government would soon be dependent on the revenue generated by the soda tax. But Leslie is now our Obama stand-in, and we can't have her opponents looking reasonable, now can we?
Additionally, the writers seem to forget that Leslie is not the mayor, but the most junior city council member, and so she would not have the authority to merge Pawnee and Eagleton, or to unilaterally institute a soda tax.
It's just frustrating. I'm going to continue to watch this show because I love the characters, but the political storylines are getting worse. In the beginning, you could tell the writers leaned left, but they were more than willing to critique their own ideas. Now, they only seem interested in talking up Obama and using Jamm as an amalgamation of every Republican they despise.