Parks and Rec is one of my favourite pieces of television and for the better part of its run on television, I was genuinely awestruck by its superb ensemble cast and characters and its emphatic sense of worldbuilding that gave way to so many memorable side characters on the show. The utterly unassuming first season therefore stands out in stark contrast relative to the show it would go onto become and its central saving grace is that the first season is as short as it is at just the six episodes.
In my opinion, the show manages to get right some aspects of Leslie's character such as her infectious joy and optimism in government work but it seems to get wrong her overall tone, opting more for bumbling and incompetent and less for confident and assured. In the early parts of the season in particular, she plays out like another version of Michael Scott, obnoxious and overbearing and it only spells out more clearly how Parks and Rec initially operated under the shadows of NBC's The Office.
Ann is perhaps the only character in my opinion that they manage to get right from the start but that might also have to do with her being one of the more easily defined characters on the show. She's effectively the "straight man" of the series and Rashida Jones plays that part without any difficulty whatsoever. Going back and seeing Ann and Chris being a couple on the show is so strange and difficult to re-adjust to seeing where these characters would go onto.
The problem with Mark's character is a) there is already a "straight man" in Ann on the show and b) Paul Schneider just isn't very charismatic onscreen and he just doesn't quite translate the more nuanced aspects of his character whereby he can be both sleazy and empathetic and what not.
A big problem with this first season is how April is almost blatantly pushed to the side. She gets so little screentime and only a handful of completely unsubstantial lines of dialogue in this season that she's not even a caricature of the apathetic adolescent. Through April's complete lack of character, the season loses one of its pivotal voices that makes the show so goddamn endearing. Speaking of personalities, Ron Swanson is also a weak voice in the first season even if he gets a handful of moments that work well in retrospect. To extend that idea another step further, Jerry and Donna are also pushed aside for the most part here or maybe, they weren't initially conceived to be part of the show's ensemble.
Season 1 barely hobbles its way to the finish line but it's not absolutely reprehensible or anything. It just isn't very convincing and at all and there isn't much humour or even fun to be found here. That all changes with the second season and by the end of that second season, the show would completely find its voice when two of the greatest personalities on the show make their entrance.
If you have kids and you were not born with 'I know everything and I won't make any mistakes' attitude then this is a series for you. Most of these mistakes are insane if you aren't a parent... If you are, it's everyday life pretty much.
The move you should have made was taking Melanie under the train at the meet dummy
Oh Stfu Melanie, stoping lying about doing it for souls onboard. You doing all this because you like to be in charge.
Why was Ruth the bait lol. So a shovel didnt hurt by a air vent did
Omfg!!!!!!!! Why are you letting Wilfred go like hes not going to come back. Jesus Christ!!!
I’m down with this show. :v_tone3:
Did they just made two train and made it, Religion train and Science train :joy: lmao. Good to see we still can’t separate Church and State
Why not just stay on the train and do most research on the track to eden or find a way to scout that area by idk sending the sign cart that you just put that fuck face Wilfred in. Nothing makes logical sense just like i said from jump was to separate the trains even before a civil war was about to break out lol
And here we go Josie flip flop again and with Layton now lol so all she said before was pointless
So Wilfred is for sure going to switch tracks and head toward New Eden and start shit up again :man_facepalming_tone3:
Yo i didn’t realized if you turn the W pin around its M for Melanie. Nice touch
Hahahaha the way the Murder girl die was priceless and worth all the other dumb shit in the show. Im glad i got to see that. Best part of the episode. “Suck on that” pun intended
Season 1 was pretty good, now season 2 is just so, so boring. I really hope this picks up. And that they started shooting 35mm or digital for later seasons. Certainly one of the ugliest shows on TV as of season 2.
Not beeing American doesn´t connect me as much with the topic but Cranstons performance alone was worth watching this. I've never pictured LBJ beeing that way.
It started a little slow I was going to turn it off and I should have the ending is shit it gets unbearably slow halfway through just don’t watch it
So many amazing 90s references. And we now know Seth McFarlane's drug of choice.
That poor man. His father was disgusting
I am sad, disgusted. If I were dexter I would kill trinity again
Season 5 of Dexter was referred to as a “re-imaging of the series,” and it succeeds brilliantly at this. A character drama at heart, this season does an incredible job at developing the main characters and giving them compelling story arcs. In the wake of Season 4’s shocking finale Dexter finds himself broken and lost, and attempts to find redemption in helping a traumatized rape victim track down and exact revenge against the rape gang that abducted and brutalized her; meanwhile Det. Quinn starts to suspect that Dexter is dirty and hires a P.I. to investigate him. The serial storytelling is especially well-done, as the stories move fluidly from episode to episode; staying remarkably coherent and organic. And the guest stars this season, Julia Stiles, Peter Weller, and Jonny Lee Miller, deliver extraordinary performances. Dexter has come a long way, and this new re-imaging in Season 5 makes for an exciting time for the series.
Was about to start watching when I realised that Aziz is no longer in the show. Won't be watching. This should have been a spin-off.
Average episode. i'm already tired of Abigail and please that red headed journalist is a pain.
That's another one of my favorite Bundy episodes.
Depending the outcome I'd say they have just stepped up the serious factor of this show by a lightyear. And we've just met the Borg of the Orville universe. Remember when Picard turned towards the screen saying "Resistance is futile" ? This comes damn close to my reaction back than.
1st half of the movie was good. Had potential. But other half is just bad. Not worth losing 2 hours.
This movie is unbelievably bad.
The funniest, most original thing I've seen in a long long time man. These two are superb. They are brilliant at what they do. They've completely changed my mind about improv. A true gem indeed!
I was OK, but felt like it missed a lot of what actually happened.
I know nothing of the story/events, but it was disjointed and left me with questions like - what happened with the miners? Were they still mining? We never saw one instance of the ore arriving and being loaded onto the ships.. other than the ship at the very beginning, there was just ships in the harbour with only the ferry actually docking ... on one occasion. What happened to the English guys?
The picture/poster had absolutely nothing to do with the movie because everything was on the land.
After watching the whole first season*, I can sort of see the themes they tried to go for... but nothing solidifies, and there are no payoffs in the conclusion. This sort of undermines the whole story, since we are really just following a bunch of characters who are all just really bad people. Would have needed either likeable characters, or a story that actually is thought out.
*) It was a chore, I don't recommend it.
This may sound heartless, but I did not expect to care about this movie. I was born after Vietnam, I'm not American, I never served and neither did any of my close friends. But this amazing cast elevated it to so much more than a movie about grief about a fallen soldier.
You can see many different things in this movie, but for me it was a movie about friendship. Trying to bond again when that connective tissue you once had is no longer there. Over the course of the road trip Fishburne, Carell and Cranston manage to converge and ultimate rediscover there old friendship, creating one of the most heartwarming stories I've seen recently.
The Jimmy part of this episode wasn't interesting but the last 15 mins were so intense!
This isn't actually a comment, it's a rant...
The movie goes from interesting and mysterious to stupid and idiotic.
3 guys working shifts on the lighthouse of a small island find a small chest with a dozen gold bars, recovered from a salvaged loot that hit their shore. The apparently dead body near their loot isn't dead and tries to murder one of them, but gets killed in the process. They keep the secret and the gold. Soon after two strangers arrive looking for their dead mate, and more importantly, the looted gold. One thing leads to another and they soon become involved in a fight for their lives. After prevailing, a shadow appears outside of the lighthouse... afraid, they chase that figure until the character portrayed by Gerard Butler kills the runner with a swift cut of the neck using his crab-hunting hook. The figure he killed was a ~12yo child, I'm guessing the child came with the two other deceased pirates, even though it's stupid enough. From there on James (GB's char) enters a delusional state that jeopardizes the 3 companions. The rationale behind the steering direction into sheer stupidity wants us to (vaguely) believe that mercury poisoning was somehow involved, although the most stupid character (Gerard Butler's) was not necessarily in direct contact with the substance, and certainly not as much as other characters might have been. Unclear.
TL;DR: Scenery, music, and acting is great... you enjoy half the movie and then it steers into a great anti-climatic and frustrating 2nd half, ending in the same direction as Gerard's character. I would have unseen the movie if it were possible because the bad parts cancel the good ones. Negative, but candor, a waste of my time - despite the beautiful cinematography.
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YOU MUST COME DANCE WITH US!
STELLIO! STELLIO CONTOS! STELLIO! STELLIO CONTOS!
Its sad how close this movie is from being great instead of good. The problem is that the last act the movie really starts to drag. I liked it up to that point and it has a good ending but it really could have been trimmed down. Still a good movie, with a good twist on the concept of baseball but could have been executed better.
Poor Jared... this scene was so surreal
Great episode, great acting. I felt the story was a bit weird and they just "gave Wilford the train" with little push back. Seemed weird. We'll see where this goes.
