Thursday, April 09, 2009

'Parks and Recreation' review - Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I review "Parks and Recreation":
Early on, there was a lot of confusion about whether the show that came to be known as "Parks and Recreation" would be a spinoff from "The Office" or just a similar comedy from "The Office" producers. Not helping this confusion was that NBC clearly wanted a spinoff, while "The Office" producers clearly wanted to do anything but that.

The end result suggests a compromise of sorts, even if it's not what either side intended. "Parks and Recreation" is not a spinoff -- the presence of Rashida Jones in a different role from the one she played on "The Office" makes that clear -- but its style, sense of humor and central character are so similar that it could very easily be sold as one. (Maybe as "The Office: Civil Service"? "The Office: Midwest"?)
You can read my full review of "Parks and Recreation" here.

Because of the Passover holiday, I'm not going to have a chance to do a separate post on the pilot, so feel free to discuss it here after it airs.

2 comments:

Hyde said...

I'm hopeful, but still not expecting very much. I think that's been my default stance with the debut of every new sitcom since Seinfeld left the air.

Alan Sepinwall said...

I know I initially said to comment here, but I set up a separate post to discuss the pilot, after all.