Another Emmy season has gone by, and while there were some well-deserved and long-overdue wins (Viola Davis! Jeffrey Tambor! Jon Hamm!); there were also some huge oversights. The most galling one in my opinion? Once again, Parks & Recreation did not get its due. And with the series finale having aired in January, it is safe to say that now the show will never see any Emmy love.
Parks & Recreation has a deceptively simple storyline. Over the course of seven seasons, Pawnee government employee and all-round do-gooder, Leslie Knope takes on workplace challenges with the help of her gang of quirky co-workers. Through facing obstacles great and small, Leslie and the gang grow into the kind of workplace family one can only dream of. This seems commonplace enough. There is no dearth of workplace comedies with similar storylines. But Parks & Rec is different. It blew past entrenched sitcom rules and remained unapologetically optimistic throughout its run.
One of the most obvious sitcom rules that the show completely disregarded was the ‘will they, won’t they’ dynamic. From Sam and Diane, to Ross and Rachel, to Jim and Pam, this popular trope has been a staple of the sitcom comedy for decades. Parks, on the other hand, does away with all the waiting and watching, as Steve Kandell points out in an episode recap on Vulture. April and Andy turn a dinner party into a wedding, surprising the characters on the show as well as the audience. I remember thinking, “This isn’t going to really happen now, is it?” But it does. Leslie and Ben also decide to do away with months of planning and get married on the same night as a successful fundraiser for the beloved Plot 48, a piece of land that Leslie has wanted to turn into a park since season 1. The gang gathers to help Ben and Leslie pull off a heartfelt and intimate ceremony in one night.
There is no build up to a grand wedding episode. There are no episodes filled with wedding planning and wedding-related tension. There are no last minute groom/bride-has-cold-feet moments. There is just a clean and simple episode that is a beautiful testament to Ben and Leslie and their love as well as to a show that does not rely on timeworn tropes to keep its audience interested.
Another hallmark of Parks & Rec is its relentless optimism. This is certainly unusual in a post-Seinfeld world. Seinfeld heralded the cynicism that has become commonplace in the sitcom world. There is no doubt that Seinfeld is a cultural touchstone and its success led to the emergence of a new age of the sitcom – one that essentially eschewed warm and fuzzy plotlines. Shows such as Arrested Development and Veep probably wouldn’t have existed if it weren’t for Seinfeld. Even The Office, the obvious precursor to Parks & Rec, was a tad prickly. It takes a few seasons for the Office gang to warm up to each other. Even its lead starts out being essentially unlikable. Michael Scott becomes more and more endearing with time, but even so, he remains somewhat of an ignorant bull-in-a-china-shop who occasionally lets his façade slip, showing us the genuinely good man buried inside.
On the other hand, Leslie is introduced to us, from the beginning, as being an incredible person. She tirelessly works to improve her hometown from the very first episode and never stops. If anything, she cares a little too much at times. She is loyal to her friends and sincere in her work, and even though her love life in initial seasons seems to be a bit of a mess, it never becomes the focal point around which the show revolves. While Leslie’s dating mishaps make up some part of seasons 1 and 2, it is never treated as an obstacle she must overcome to live a fulfilled life — a trap most sitcoms fall into. Instead, one gets the sense that Leslie has a great life and dating is just a part of it. And once she meets Ben, it becomes clear that her previous relationships had faltered only because she hadn’t met the right person as yet.
The show also remains unabashedly optimistic about the ability of people to come together and make a change. Always the underdogs, the Parks & Rec gang manage to overcome seemingly impossible obstacles, never letting a hard climb stop them from trying. The most cynical character on the show by far is April, and even she never really does anything truly egregious. Despite her grumbling, she does her part, and then some, to help her friends.
Parks & Rec manages to achieve a really simple feat, but one that many, many shows fail at doing — it stays true to its course. The show’s writers figured out the core of its characters and the show’s message early on, and rarely, if ever, wavered from it. This is often the difference between a good show and a great one. Parks & Rec was a show that valued warmth, kindness and optimism in world where comedy can sometimes teeter on the brink of cruelty. It remained true to its sitcom comedy roots, giving its audience memorable inside jokes and sharp one-liners, but did not rely on tired tropes. It was a game changer in its own sweet and sincere way.
Unfortunately, the Emmys didn’t seem to notice.
A Trope in Time 