>When NBC decided to take a British show called The Office and make an American version of it, they took the script from the British pilot and almost remade it word for word. For every character, there was an American counterpart. For every joke, it was either retold verbatim or it was rewritten for American sensibilities. The success or failure of the pilot for the American version of The Office owed more to the creative power of Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant, who created the British version than it did Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, who interpreted it for American audiences.

What could be credited to Greg Daniels and Michael Schur is the subsequent episodes of The Office that took those British version-inspired characters and relationships and put them into very familiar American workplace situations—making it a show that we Yankees could grow to love and appreciate on it’s own merits.

Now NBC brings us “from the team that brought us The Office” a new show starring Amy Poehler (Saturday Night Live) called Parks and Recreation. This show, entirely created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, attempts to take the Documentary/Comedy format of The Office and transplant it into a city’s government agency with an entirely new cast of characters.

As with any new show, it’s hard to get a real sense of how good this one is going to be by the half-hour pilot, alone, but there’s one thing I noticed as they sandwiched it between two new episodes of The Office in an attempt to gain an audience: there wasn’t much laughter happening in my house caused by Parks and Recreation.

Now, what makes The Office work for me are the familiar situations the characters find themselves in as part of an office. For example, when my friend Derek and I worked in the same office space, we had great fun playing pranks on our co-worker, Shirley. One favorite prank of mine was taking a screenshot of all the windows open on her computer and making that her desktop so when she came back to her desk and tried to click on a window or a folder, nothing would happen because it was just an image and not an actual file. This would make her think her computer was frozen and would then have to restart. She did this a couple of times before we broke it to her that we were playing a joke on her. And so I always get a kick out of the pranks Jim plays on Dwight and secretly wish that I would have thought of that, myself.

Part of my problem identifying with Parks and Recreation was that I’ve never attended a public meeting for city planning before so I just had to assume that the meetings portrayed in last night’s pilot episode would ironically ring true and would be funny if I connected with it.

I must admit, though, that it’s not a total loss. Amy Poehler’s character, Leslie Knope, is in some ways similar to Michael Scott in The Office, but without the crude and brash behavior. She is someone who hasn’t let the city government system suck all the enthusiasm and optimism out of her—much to the chagrin of her co-workers. She is the main subject of a fictional documentary that’s being filmed and she is very aware of being on camera and loves sharing her story with the world. Unfortunately, the camera also see’s everyone else’s lack of enthusiasm and their desire just to put in their time so they can go home.

In the pilot, Leslie Knope conducts a public meeting where community members have the opportunity to air their grievances. During this meeting Ann Perkins (played by Rashida Jones who portrayed Karen, the other woman, in The Office season 3,) who has come to complain about a pit next to her home that was dug by a construction company that promptly went out of business. Ann complains that her worthless (my opinion, not hers) boyfriend accidently fell in the pit and broke both of his legs. Leslie decides that this is her opportunity to make a difference in the world and promptly “pinky promises” to take care of the problem and transform the pit into a park, somehow.

It’s clear that the rest of the 6 episodes that have been produced are going to center around her efforts to get this accomplished. I was amused by the fact that they all celebrated so strongly the permission she got to form a “committee.” Well, isn’t a committee just a body of people that sits around and talks about something but doesn’t actually get anything done? I think she has a long way to go in getting her promise fulfilled.

A slight disconnect with the subject of tonight’s episode, though, is that many of Leslie’s character establishing moments were formed in a very nice park. Doesn’t that go against the idea that this town needs another one? I don’t know, maybe that was the point and it was supposed to be funny, but to me it just seemed a bit clumsy.

I’m not the type of person to bail on a show after the first episode, especially one made by the same people partially responsible for my favorite comedy on television, but I sure hope that Parks and Recreation can find its groove soon or I predict it won’t be around for long.

In case you missed it, you can download the pilot for FREE in HD at iTunes.

>

“As long as the dead guy says there’s a reason, then I guess everything’s gonna be just peachy.”

In last night’s episode of ABC’s Lost, “Dead is Dead,” we abandoned the story of the Oceanic survivor’s escapades in the Dharma of the past, and focused on Ben’s story where he professed to be on a mission to pay the Smoke Monster a visit to atone for his sins. I say “professed” because I never had the impression that he was sincere about what he was telling John Locke regarding his intensions on the main island.

As Ben and Locke were interacting, I really enjoyed watching how Locke treated Ben. It was like a parent asking a child if they took a cookie when the parent already knows the answer to the question, but is testing the child to see if he’s going to tell the truth or not. Obviously Ben is a huge liar who is very much interested in preserving his own self-interests, so there were many opportunities for Locke to test him like that.

It was interesting to see a little into Ben’s history from the flashbacks in tonight’s episode, which actually make me feel a little more sympathetic towards him and his ability to have compassion on helpless babies and children. This, of course, informed his actions when they showed him confronting Penny Widmore in his effort to take out his revenge on his nemesis Charles Widmore for killing Ben’s daughter. Upon seeing Desmond and Penny’s son, Charlie come on deck of the ship Ben had a change of heart and couldn’t kill Penny like he intended to. But since he had already non-fatally shot Desmond, Desmond proceeded to beat the living snot out of him. Good boy!

Later in the episode we got to see Ben’s final confrontation with the Smoke Monster who showed Ben his history with his daughter Alex and the reasons he sought revenge on Charles Widmore. I’ve heard the producers of the Lost, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, say that each time they show the monster, they want to reveal a little more about it. Well, I’m not sure that I learned anything more about it this time, but it was interesting to see more and to wonder if the manifestation of Alex immediately afterward was a form that the monster was taking or if it was actually a re-embodied Alex who had come back to warn him not to follow through with his intentions to kill John Locke again.

I am believing more and more that the island definitely does have mystical qualities about it and isn’t just some scientific magnetic phenomenon. It’ll be interesting to see how satisfying the final explanations about the island are when all is said and done.

So now we see that Benjamin Linus is fated (or doomed) to play second fiddle to the seemingly well-intentioned John Locke, whom it seems that the island has chosen as its new human leader. So, will Ben go against the wishes of Alex and try to kill Locke and regain his leadership position over the others? I guess only time will tell.

Category Television, Uncategorized | Tags: | Comments Off

>

Well, two out of three isn’t bad. With yesterday’s review I estimated that it would be Scott, Lil, and Kris in the bottom 3, but America surprised me by sending Anoop to the bottom. With Seacrest’s usual cruel shenanigans, he led Matt Giraud on and then mercilessly let him sit back down. With the few that were left, it was obvious that the bottom 3 would be rounded out with Lil and the new piano man, Scott MacIntyre.

I usually don’t care for results nights because it so painfully obvious that the producers are trying to stretch out the full hour. Perhaps I am alone in that, but tonight was no exception. Extended behind the scenes Ford commercial anyone? Although I must say that this was the first one of their commercials that I didn’t just fast forward though. I even had a big grin when Scott tried to get reassurance that they weren’t trying to put him in pink.

With a quick release of Lil, we were left with Anoop and Scott to sweat it out during the interlude. I will probably get a lot of comments about this, (like the guy who roasted me for not being a Lambert fan), but I never enjoy the group performances. My opinion is that all the contestants are trying to stand out, and therefore, they never blend in well together.

We also had an appearance from Flo Rida. Not my usual type of music, but not bad. Although, was I alone in only being able to understand about 5% of his lyrics. I didn’t care much for the Kesha features; great voice, but it didn’t seem to fit. (By the way, have you ever surfed on a Flow Rider? Too cool! I did last weekend, but I’ll have to save that for another review.) I guess I was lucky I didn’t understand the lyrics, as they are pretty suggestive (Bill Clinton’s theme song, perhaps). Frankie Avalon was a fun addition and I thought Kellie Pickler did a pretty good job, until she started wandering around the stage and it seemed like she struggled a little.

Finally we got back to Scott and Anoop. I was at least right in one thing, that Anoop did well enough to save himself from elimination and was sent back to the couch. Scott delivered an encore performance of Survivor’s ”The Search Is Over,” and arguably did better than the previous night, until he reached the falsetto portion, which once again proved not to be his forte. Simon tells Scott that only two of the judges are in favor of saving him, which ultimately prompts a final plea to the judges, that he would show them that he could be better.

I hate that they string people along so much. When we were first introduced to the Judges’ Save, we were told that the decision had to be unanimous. If the judges were split, then why were they pretending that they were deliberating on saving Scott? It seems cruel. Also, it seems to deprive the contestant of their dignity. Just lower the boom and let them get on with it. Scott had a great run, but I don’t think he could have lasted much longer. I do hope he is able to find an audience though, perhaps as the new Piano Man.