TV Review: ‘Parks and Recreation’ Episode:’Pilot’

Keep smiling Aziz, maybe the show will get funnier.

If you felt The Office has gotten a little stale as of late then you’ve gotta give it to Parks and Recreation for being able to accomplish this feat in just one episode instead of the five seasons it took The Office. Damn that comes off a bit harsh after typing it. I’m not saying this show is completely devoid of humor in anyway, it does have its moments here and there but overall I felt the show just came off like it was trying too hard to be funny or too hard to be like the very successful Office. It just came off feeling like very fine treaded territory that had already been quite finely treaded by The Office.

Let me nit pick the characters at the start because, as of now, plot seems to be little what they are going for and more of it seems focused on these people making jokes whenever possible, and I mean whenever. Even a locked door becomes a pratfall for a not very impressive joke. I will give it to Amy Poehler because in most everything else I find her hilarious and in this she is able to pull off some good doofy moments here but so much humor seems forced throughout I can’t tell if it’s just bad writing or if she can’t come up with that much government and office one liners. She does put in a good effort though and her Leslie Hope, though I guess here she is trying to be a female zany Michael Scott like character, is very likable.

Now Aziz Ansari I will say is truly the highlight of the episode, and probably the season, as her colleague Tom. Most of his moments are worth perking your ears up for as he pulls off more than possible perv, rival recreation partner, and all around jerk in the best role the show can offer. They even inject a little Jim Halpert like character into the mix with Mark played by Paul Schneider who comes in as a fellow government employee. He’s actually quite a good actor if you’ve seen him in All the Real Girls and Lars and the Real Girl and he pulls off the possible love interest card very well. Now going off on a tangent I thought I had seen him in an episode of CSI: Miama and thought that that was weird he’d have to sink so low as to be in one of their episodes but it turns out I had mixed him up with a guy that actually looks very similar to him that was in the Dawn of the Dead remake.

They basic plot of the episode doesn’t amount to much at the moment and is actually just building up to what the rest of the season will be about I’m guessing. A woman, Rashida Jones who isn’t given much to do here and I hope that use her more later, informs Leslie that her boyfriend, also not that funny, fell into an abandoned pit and Leslie gets the bright idea to turn the area into a park. Her boss on the other hand doesn’t want to allow her to build it because, for some reason, he hates government and thinks everything should be run by private corporations, his character could use some spicing up as well. Though it was funny that he said he’d rather work for Chuck E Cheese than his current job.

So Amy runs around the rest of the episode in an attempt to get her boss to approver her idea. Luckily the Jim character, Mark I guess, rolls in and is apparently owed a favor by the boss and all is done and done. So hopefully this show can improve and do its thing because it looks like it could possibly do something good and be funny but right now it is just paling in comparison to The Office. It really needs to just loosen up and get out of the shadow of that show and find its own voice. Don’t pull a CSI and make a bunch of different spin offs that are all the same and really didn’t need to exist. Make your show need to exist.