Tag Archives: Adam Scott

Must Flee TV: ‘Parks and Recreation’ – We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes

This week we’re checking in on NBC’s Thursday night comedies as they finish their respective seasons.  Today: ‘Parks and Recreation.’ 

Perhaps the greatest compliment you can offer Parks and Recreation is that it’s no longer referred to as the quasi-Office spin-off (ignore the fact that we just did that in the first sentence).  We’re now multiple seasons into an excellent run where Parks and Recreation has cast off the chains of its origins, found its own voice, become its own show, and surpassed its progenitor by all metrics save for Neislen ratings.  We still maintain that Community is the best show of the night, but Parks and Rec has not been behind by much, outpacing The Office during its second season.

At the end of Parks and Rec‘s brief, unimpressive first season, we laid out a plan for how the show could not only improve but excel, and we revisited this primer just prior to the start of the show’s brilliant third season.  We also presented three more key points as the show moved forward and they were as follows:

More: What do you with a problem like Rashida?

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Flashback: Another Look at Another Look at ‘Parks and Recreation’

With Parks and Recreation making its long, long-awaited return tonight, we thought it would be appropriate to take a look back at a post we wrote in September of 2009, just before the show returned for its sophomore season.  Right now, in January of 2011, Parks and Recreation is widely recognized as one of the best, if not the best, comedies on television (which is why it was so excruciating when the series was pushed until mid-season to make room for the abominable Outsourced), but just about 17 months ago when it was coming off a lackluster, somewhat disappointing first season the story was much different.  It’s developed into one of the most reliable, warmest, funniest shows on network TV or any other channel, and boasts perhaps the deepest ensemble cast, but back before its second season the jury was still out, and it was a show very much still finding its footing.  But Jumped the Snark went ahead and asserted the potential of the show, watching the first season and finding much room for improvement but also much room for greatness.  And we think its fair to say that both this blog and Parks and Recreation were vindicated.

In that post we outlined three areas where Parks and Rec most needed to progress to reach the quality of a show like The Office, its spiritual forefather (and not only has Parks and Rec equaled its progenitor, it’s now surpassed it.  The student has become the teacher).  Let’s take a look at those recommendations and how Parks and Rec took them into consideration.

See what we got right and they got wrong. Plus, our advice for Season 3!

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Filed under Analysis, Best Show You're Not Watching, Flashback!, Good Humor, Greendale Human, Lists, Must See TV, Mustachio'd

What About That One Episode Of ‘Veronica Mars’, TMZ?

Today in their “Where are they now?” posting, TMZ featured Rider Strong, AKA Boy Meet’s World‘s resident bad boy/sensitive poet Shawn Hunter.  However, we take an exception to their ostensibly derogatory summary of his post-World career, as they write:

In 2004, Rider graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University.

In 2009, Strong appeared in one episode of “Castle.”

That feels like a dig to me, no?  How does it feel to you?

I think we all remember his role in the season 3 episode of Veronica MarsMy Big Fat Greek Rush Week” as Wallace & Logan’s classmate and fellow participant in the Stanford prison experiment.  Strong, you may recall, played a guard in the exercise who bullied concurrent guest star and captive Samm Levine into pissing his pants (it was quite the guest star-studded episode, as Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson, appears as the professor conducting the experiment.  What Veronica was doing this whole time I don’t recall).

So to say that in the intervening years since the end of Boy Meets World that Strong has only gone to college and appeared on one episode of a somewhat popular ABC show is unfair, and plain wrong.  And, in addition to his spot on Veronica Mars, he also keeps up a pretty strong twitter presence.

We’re kidding here, of course.  But Strong, according to his twitter, has been working on his own films and even doing some theater.  And, more importantly, one time about 6 years ago we ran into him on the N train.  And he was gracious and kind, even as we completely geeked out, and no doubt made him feel uncomfortable from across the train car.  He was the first (but not the last) cast member of Boy Meets World that we have had the good fortune to meet, and for that he’ll always have a place in our heart.

And that, TMZ, is the kind of fact you can’t find on IMDB.

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