One thousand three hundred and ninety-one words on why benching Parks and Recreation was a bad idea

2010-05-20T15:46:00.001-04:00

“I’m sorry, I just started hearing really loud circus music in my head. What did you say?”

So ended the penultimate episode of Parks and Recreation’s critically acclaimed second season, as deputy parks director Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) reacted to the shutdown of Pawnee, Indiana’s government by state auditors.

Fans of the show had a similar reaction four days later, when NBC announced ahead of its annual upfront that it will hold Parks until January, replacing it in the otherwise stellar Thursday night lineup with a comedy called Outsourced, which is about…you guessed it, outsourcing. (Except that it’s not. More on that later.)

Like the fictional shutdown, NBC’s decision leaves the future of the Parks Department in serious doubt. As a midseason show, Parks won’t get a full-season order unless the network has an unannounced scheduling trick up its sleeve—or Outsourced meets an early demise.

With the strength of its Thursday lineup not in question, and five more hours of available primetime than last season, NBC had been widely expected to add another hour of comedy to its weekly schedule, much like first-place network CBS. Instead, NBC picked up three big-budget action dramas, the “romance anthology” Love Bites, and an L.A.-based spinoff of The Procedural That Will Not Die—leaving no room for new half-hour comedies, unless one was bumped off.

The move was surprising enough that New York Magazine wondered if it was all part of an “admittedly convoluted, somewhat paranoid” plan to eventually place Parks in the coveted 9:30 slot behind The Office—essentially asserting that Outsourced is being set up to fail.

Perhaps NBC truly believes Outsourced can out-draw Parks at 9:30. Or perhaps NBC is intentionally sabotaging a comedy series that it developed. Either way, the decision has garnered the sort of negative attention to which this network is now accustomed. In the wake of the Tonight Show debacle, NBC has clearly and consistently shown that it is incapable of managing its content effectively—and that it can’t learn the lessons of its past.

In late 2007, NBC commissioned producer Greg Daniels to develop a spinoff of The Office, a low-key British remake that blossomed into NBC’s flagship comedy series. Over the next year and a half, that project evolved into Parks and Recreation, which debuted last spring to mixed reviews. Comparisons to its sister series couldn’t be avoided; co-creator Mike Schur, a former Office writer, mused to the L.A. Times that “if we had built [the show] around a 90-year-old Maasai warrior people still would have said, ‘He reminds me of Michael Scott.’”

Certainly, the bumbling behavior of Leslie Knope can outwardly resemble the well-worn antics of her Office counterpart. But the characters themselves couldn’t be more different. Michael Scott’s naïveté and awkwardness stem from his lack of intelligence and drive; Leslie’s, from a surplus of both. Where Michael couldn’t find his way out of a cardboard box, Leslie would devise a five-point action plan and second-guess herself until she was sure she found the best possible exit point. They’re different kinds of crazy.

And really, who wouldn’t be a little crazy when surrounded by a supporting cast like Parks and Recreation’s? Leslie’s boss, the curmudgeonly libertarian Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman), thinks his entire department should be eliminated; her assistant Tom (Aziz Ansari) is a wannabe playboy who seems allergic to hard work; office intern April (Aubrey Plaza) brings teenage apathy to an entirely new level; and shoe-shiner/aspiring musician Andy (Chris Pratt) can scarcely hide his insanity behind his half-bearded face. Rounding out the main cast are the show’s resident straight men, city planner Mark (Paul Schneider) and Leslie's friend Ann (Rashida Jones).

The brilliance in Parks’ second season came from evolving these cartoonish caricatures into real, complex characters. Ron is revealed to moonlight as a sappy jazz musician named Duke Silver; Tom’s marriage to an attractive surgeon turns out to be a green-card sham, though he has real feelings for her; and April finds a reason to care about her job in the form of Andy, who despite his flaws continues to prove himself as one of the nicest guys in Pawnee. The talented Paul Schneider was never given much to do in the series, and having successfully completed Mark’s character arc—a transformation from horndog to husband type—he’ll be departing the show after Thursday night’s season finale.

The loss of Schneider, however, seemingly cleared the way for two big additions to Parks and Recreation’s cast: Rob Lowe and Adam Scott as the aforementioned state auditors, sent to fix Pawnee’s budget crisis. Lowe will only be sticking around for eight episodes, but Scott was added a regular—and, coming from the much buzzed-about series Party Down, will fit right in with the cast of upwardly mobile comic talent. Scott, Jones, Ansari, and Plaza have all appeared in films produced by the current king of big screen funny, Judd Apatow, and Ansari recently signed a three-picture deal with Apatow Productions. He'll also host the MTV Movie Awards next month.

With the stock of its cast rising, the near-universal critical praise surrounding the second season, and Greg Daniels’ undeniable track record, you’d think NBC would be savvy enough to realize Parks was in for a significant ratings boost next fall. It’s a formula that has worked for NBC before—twice.

In a better timeslot and with increased star power, the second season of The Office almost doubled the ratings of the first. And NBC’s other successful Thursday comedy, 30 Rock, barely managed five million viewers in its 21-episode first season before steadily increasing to almost eight million for the third, thanks to critical acclaim and star Tina Fey’s much-talked-about impression of a certain ex-governor.

Would keeping the Thursday night lineup intact for next season have been a risk for NBC? Sure. But it’s the kind of forward-thinking, creative risk that other networks regularly take, while NBC plays it safe and avoids anything that might affect its bottom line in the immediate future. The late night debacle is an obvious example, but there are plenty of others. Do you think NBC would have revived Family Guy? Gambled on repeat-unfriendly serial dramas like 24 and Lost? Indeed, in its current lineup, The Office stands alone as evidence of NBC’s ability to think outside the box and be rewarded for it—and by benching Parks, the network has shown that it hasn’t even learned from its own experience.

And in case Outsourced, with its halfway-around-the-world setting and predominantly South Asian cast, seems like a refreshingly original concept, you won’t be surprised to hear that its unconventionality is only skin-deep. According to Deadline.com, the “socio-economic aspects of exporting American jobs to India are not expected to be front and center story-wise”—instead, the show has been billed as “the Midwest meets the exotic East in a hilarious culture clash.” The trailer attempts to draw laughs from an employee whose name sounds like “Man-meat,” as well as several Indian characters singing American pop songs with thick accents. It’s no wonder the reaction at NBC’s upfront was reportedly muted. Time writer James Poniewozik blogged that Outsourced “did not look good at all.”

A fan campaign to move the Parks and Rec back to the fall lineup is under way, and the adversity may end up cementing the show’s status as a cult hit. But whatever happens, it’s hard to see any of this working in NBC’s favor.

To be sure, benching a show that attracts five million viewers per episode isn’t going to incite open revolt. But in once again choosing to chase the easy advertising dollar, NBC is further alienating a demographic with outsized, and ever-expanding, influence on the new media landscape: young, educated, tech-savvy viewers.

They’re the ones who made The Office NBC’s highest-rated comedy, through iTunes sales and blog posts. They’re the ones who turned Conan O’Brien from absurdist funnyman to cult hero overnight. And they’re the ones who will be writing the next chapter of television history.

In ten years, when the current business models have crumbled and we’re all watching “television” on the internet, the National Broadcasting Corporation will have to compete based on the quality of its content, not hype from an upfront funneled through a subservient press. And unless the network brass learn their lessons now, they will not stand a chance.

Swan Ronson's Blog

One thousand three hundred and ninety-one words on why benching Parks and Recreation was a bad idea