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Parks and Recreation is by far one of the best sitcoms ever put on television. Season after Season, Parks and Rec grew and evolved to create an ensemble cast that delivered comedic and heart felt stories for 7 seasons. It's hard to choose a bad episode through the run of Parks and Recreation, but there was one episode that almost hindered the shows success early on.
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I can't believe you fell in, too
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That's awesome. It's not awesome, Andy. Well, at least my boss will listen to me
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now that I broke my clavicle. It's not broken. It is. This is the pilot for Parks and Recreation
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And believe it or not, it's actually the weakest episode in the entire run of the show
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It might actually be one of the weakest television pilots in history. The characters feel like they are just slightly modified versions
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of characters from The Office. And it fails to deliver on anything you'd expect from a pilot
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It really feels like the pilot was written on the assumption that a viewer's familiarity
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with The Office will do the majority of the heavy lifting in establishing narrative and still generate lasting vested
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interest in the show, something at which it fails at almost completely
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Producing an excellent sitcom pilot requires an incredible amount of finesse to deliver the intended result to a home viewing audience
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A good pilot has to be interesting without over explaining itself. It has to introduce us to fully fleshed out characters
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while still leaving room for their growth throughout the series. It has to find a balance between delivering an engaging story
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while at the same time delivering on the intended jokes and humorous moments
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Too much story and the audience won't find it funny enough. Too many jokes and the audience won't be engaged in the story
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It has to be relatable without coming off as mundane, and it has to be mundane enough to be relatable
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A good pilot has to simultaneously thread multiple needles to be good enough
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to hook an audience and get them emotionally invested in the story
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Once that audience is hooked and emotionally invested, they will go along for the ride until the sitcom inevitably begins to run out of gas
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If a show is successful enough to make it to a fifth or even a sixth season, it really starts to operate on borrowed time
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Contracts are starting to expire, showrunners change, writers change, cast members leave
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All of those things and more become very visible on the horizon. Studios don't want to lose their viewers
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and so they will often make attempts to pique people's interest in new shows by creating shows
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in a similar vein to what has already been so profitable for them By 2009 The Office had cemented itself as a cultural staple Seeking to recreate that magic NBC reassembled the creators of The Office namely Greg Daniels
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and Michael Schur, and tasked them with creating a new show in the same vein in hopes that lightning might strike
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in the same place twice. They were already creating a spinoff of The Office with Rashida Jones centering in the leading role
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The decision was made to eventually pivot that show into a new direction
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Thus, Parks and Recreation was born. The pilot episode is the worst episode of Parks and Recreation
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because it fails to innovate creatively within the office's established and successful format
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It almost feels like NBC offered a Mad Lib to the show's creators and said, give me the office, but with blank
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And they filled that blank in with government employees. And then they took the pilot for the office
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switched up a few character dynamics, and called it a day. Playing it safe is understandable
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Networks are extremely averse to taking risks. So much so that they often conflate taking risks with innovation
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This could very well be why the pilot of Parks and Rec is so lackluster
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and the later seasons of Parks and Rec are so stellar. It's likely that before NBC would let Parks and Rec become its own thing
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it would have to prove itself within the confines of some rather stringent guidelines
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It's a little weird to think about. We want you to do the same exact thing, but differently
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It seems slightly paradoxical. But this is often part of the deal when producing what is hopefully
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going to be a major studio's next cash cow sitcom. This pilot's approach to introducing its characters to us
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feels really clunky. A great sitcom pilot seeks to balance character introductions
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with an engaging story. We need the who, what, where, why, and how of the show
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to be communicated clearly and in a way that draws us in. Parks and Rec's pilot really focuses on the who and the where
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We understand that these are people who live and work in Pawnee, Indiana, and that's about it
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This episode spends a lot of time telling us what is interesting about these characters instead
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of showing us why we should be interested in them. Gating the trust of an audience is a two-way street
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For an audience to trust the writers the writers need to trust that the audience will be able to understand what they are trying to convey Any great television show allows the audience to figure things out for themselves
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These superior programs essentially create a world in which we embark on a loosely guided exploration of the things the writers are
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trying to direct our attention to. We get to look around, and occasionally, the writers shine a light on the things that
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are intended to be viewed with a layer of importance. In turn, we feel like we did the work alongside the writers
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and performers to reach our destinations throughout the episode. The Parks and Rec pilot doesn't afford the audience
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this freedom, and instead takes the approach of seemingly grabbing you by the face
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and telling you exactly what to look at and why. They are demanding our engagement
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without earning the right to have it. Once the writers get us in the door, so to speak
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they need to deliver a product that lets us know it's worth our time to stick around for more
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And this pilot just doesn't succeed in this area. Instead, it tries to reel us in without ever really
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setting the hook. None of these characters feel like real people. Instead, they come off as exaggerated caricatures
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of what certain types of characters are supposed to be. Take the introduction of Tom Haverford, for example
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He goes straight to objectifying Ann Perkins without any subtlety or nuance
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I'm very comfortable around women, attractive women. I've spent a lot of time with them
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His first line of dialogue is sitting at a table inappropriately commenting on her relationship with Andy
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Do you mind doing that somewhere else? I'm trying to watch TV. I'm talking about the pit you fell in
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When we are introduced to the character of Leslie Knope, she's surveying 10-year-olds in a park
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and kicking a drunk man out of a slide. This isn't how people interact with one another
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and is just another example of this pilot's inability to earn the laughter it is trying to achieve
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There's a strange veneer of cynicism laced throughout the pilot as well
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Many of the characters we are introduced to come off as being fairly abrasive and somewhat combative
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There's an inherent snarkiness to some of the dialogue, and there's nothing that ever feels like it hits us in the heart
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and makes us feel anything for the characters. This could be due to improvisation
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or maybe it's due to the fact that the actors are basing their characters off of a script that told them about as much
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as it ends up telling the audience, which is very little. If you look at the character of Leslie Knope in this episode she introduced as a somewhat delusional local politician who includes herself in the same group of women as Hillary Clinton Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Nancy Pelosi
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all while hitting a drunk person with a broom. The joke lands, but this is a moment
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where we need to fall in love with characters, not go for jokes. Parks and Rec's pilot sacrifices substance for satire
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at almost every opportunity, and in doing so ends up feeling like it's just a loosely scripted joke showcase
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rather than a cohesive episode of television. This would be fine if it were, say, a sketch comedy show where the premise and the joke are the centerpiece of what is making us laugh
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This is a show that is supposed to be about people who we care about in relatable situations
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This gets overlooked entirely. Obviously, this is not how Parks and Rec ended up
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It was ultimately able to iron out some of the kinks made by the show's rocky start
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Andy Dwyer's pivot from lazy, manipulative man-child into a lovable goofball was a good start
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It brought a lot of charm, and Chris Pratt's chemistry with Aubrey Plaza is so relatable that it's tangible
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I never would have ever done this without you. Thank you. The addition of characters like Ben and Chris
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really helped fill in some of the missing gaps, while at the same time helping the show really
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settle into its own unique style. The cynicism was dropped quickly and replaced
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with warmth and heart. Relationships started clicking, and writers really started to have fun developing some of the show's
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more colorful characters. Slowly but surely, Parks and Rec continued to grow and evolve to a point at which it delivered
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episodes that were on par with the best episodes of The Office, proving that slow and steady can win the race
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and also that a weak pilot doesn't kill a series if the showrunners have the wherewithal to course correct
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at the appropriate time. Parks and Rec's pilot shows us what happens when writers who find success lose sight of what it was
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that made them so successful in the first place. We need to care before we can start laughing
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We need to fall in love with these characters before we can start playing with the intrinsic hilariousness
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dwelling within them. In a way, we kind of need comedy to look us in the eye and tell us that it cares about us
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before inviting it in for a nightcap. Read it back to me. Committees cover our democracy with blood
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Hmm. Sounded better when I said it
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