Hacker Cinema
Parks and Recreation
2009 · TV series · 22 min episodes · 7 seasons
Created by Michael Schur, Greg Daniels
In an attempt to beautify her town — and advance her career — Leslie Knope, a mid-level bureaucrat in the Parks and Recreation Department of Pawnee, Indiana, takes on bureaucrats, cranky neighbors, and single-issue fanatics whose weapons are lawsuits, the jumble of city codes, and the democratic process she loves so much.
6 positive18 neutralfrom 24 commenters
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24 comments on Hacker News
Most broadcast TV shows, with the commercials removed, are about 21-22 minutes long. Those are usually my go-to for lunch. I tend to re-watch series as well, so I don’t have to pay too close attention.
I’m currently re-watching Schitt’s Creek, but others I’ve enjoyed are Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Office, Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock, King of the Hill, The League, Scrubs, Workaholics.
There's a TV show called parks and recreation which has that exact premise.
I couldn't see myself living in Northern Ontario either, but for some people, small town life is idyllic. There was even a popular Canadian sitcom portraying such a life ("Corner Gas", set in rural Saskatchewan). As a "city-slicker" I really enjoyed watching Corner Gas. It's like the Canadian version of Parks and Recreation except more rural.
For anyone not aware of the reference, this is from an episode of Parks and Recreation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiyfwZVAzGw
NBC’s Thursday lineup around 2010 basically.
New episodes of Community, 30 Rock, The Office, and Parks and Recreation.
And things associated with it all, like The Good Place.
From an episode of Parks and Recreation about a city councilor election debate (2011):
"And now, we have a question from Twitter, which is apparently something that happens now".
They had no idea.
Aside from (mostly) practicing normal sleep hygiene recommendations, I listen to a sitcom that I've already watched many times using wireless earbuds as I fall asleep. Sometimes I do both ears, somtimes one ear, depending on whether I feel like sleeping with my head turned. I'm normally a back sleeper.
Because I've already seen the episodes, they don't stimulate any thinking. They're comedy, so all happy and lighthearted. Well written comedy is funny on multiple-goarounds, but other than some chuckles the point is mostly to help me fall asleep happy. On a bad night I'll listen to two episodes, but mostly I'm asleep halfway through the first episode.
My go to shows fwiw are It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The Office. Parks and Recreation also works. It's OK to have plot, as long as you already know the plot / have seen the show enough, so you aren't trying to watch the episode.
Since some of these shows moved off Netflix I've had to buy them on Google Play store. FWIW Google Play's player is better than amazon video's for mobile (it's basically youtube's player).
The wireless earbuds I use are these: $35, https://www.amazon.com/Soundcore-Bluetooth-Headphones-Waterproof-Sweatproof/dp/B07WPFPP5C and they're connected by a cord so you don't lose one of the buds when you sleep (used to happen to me). I have two sets of earbuds now, because I really struggle to sleep without it now that it's part of my routine and I can't risk them not being charged.
- One hour of walking (I walk fast). - Two to three episodes of Community, Seinfeld, IT Crowd, The Office, Parks and Recreation or Brooklyn 99 (I bought them online so I can do this anywhere I have internet). - A nap of at least 30 mins.
Sometimes I do two of those options.
With regard to Game of Thrones, I don't think the article argues that it necessarily got better in quality season by season but that it took a couple of seasons to find a massive viewership and become a cultural phenomenon. That said, I think the quality did improve between season 1 and 5.
And I vehemently disagree with the notion that "almost all shows get significantly worse". There are definitely many shows that do jump the shark at some point and significantly drop in quality. On the flip side, there are many examples of shows that needed a couple of seasons to find their tone and really hit their stride which they most likely never would have had the chance to do at Netflix. E.g: Parks and Recreation, Community, Justified, even Breaking Bad imho.
Reminds me of the Parks and Recreation episode with the delegate from the Venezuelan city
"Drive too fast" JAIL
"too slow" JAIL
Amazing. Sounds like a Parks and Recreation episode.
Reminds me of the other fake-but-now real holidays made up by tv shows and other groups. One example that comes to mind is Parks and Recreation making up "Galentines" day, and it's pretty much a real holiday by now.
The article viewpoints are probably right, Netflix and Amazon need a few more hits that people trust.
The Office was a big fallback show and Netflix needs a few of those of their own. Stranger Things probably fits that.
The Witcher might change things for quality on Netflix.
Netflix shows have high production quality in terms of cinematography, lighting, sound, color, sets, on location etc. Writing and big draw actors aren't there just yet, though they have a bunch of that going and started that way with House of Cards. Stranger Things was new actors except a couple like Winona Ryder, the writing was better and it was successful. Maniac and Sabrina are also pretty good in this area. Bojack Horseman has a cult following. Dark is amazing. Black Mirror was a great acquisition. I Am Mother was pretty good and premiering Annihilation was a steal. Russian Doll was excellent. Animation like Death, Love & Robots, Voltron, Castlevania and more are solid. Those are all the model to go for. What is missing in most shows is writing and casting/actors draw to make a staple series that becomes a fallback like the article mentions.
> Consumers turn to a trusted source when they don’t know what to watch on their streaming service
> Subscriptions like Netflix and Amazon Prime offer plenty of critically-acclaimed, award-winning content. But the thing is, viewers have to pick which movies and series they’ll watch, and observers say many are getting burned out from all that decision-making.
Now with The Witcher the writing is based on a really solid book series, they have a big name actor Henry Cavill that has read the series and it looks great. It could be their Game of Thrones.
Amazon is also trying this with Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time.
These shows if they are done right, will get rewatched for a long time and draws in the mega fans that are influencers.
Netflix is doing pretty good with stand up comedy, maybe even the leader now. They paid Dave Chappelle and will forever be thanked for that by comedy content consumers.
Netflix and Amazon need some big hits like the coming epics, and they need some good staple shows like the Office, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn 99 (Netflix should have bought this), Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Friends, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm and more. When they have that they equal the content competition that has that trusted good quality. They need a few more of these always watchable fallbacks.
They are both still chasing HBO, HBO is still the top in consistently good content and shows.
Personally I love the competition, some real funding and creator freedom is being unleashed, some are big hits, some are average and some not so good, but I like the amount of content and like the vibe of where Netflix is headed. Their new intro splash where the N goes into color bands is even great, matches their really colorful catalog.
If we were on Reddit there would already be 1000 comments referencing the TV show Parks and Recreation.
Of all the shows you mentioned the only ones I have watched is, OITB (left it at after watching S04 I think), Master of None (both the seasons), I realise that its a drama that leans toward being a rom-com but I do not watch rom-coms at all. Kudos to Mindhunter, indeed that was entertaining and right in my ballpark. Liked House of cards till the time Spacey was there, S06 disappointed me. Season 1 of Making a Murderer was outstanding, season 2 didn't catch my interest. Also the last comedy I watched end-to-end I think was Entourage (which was produced by HBO), The Office (US) and Parks And Recreation, not surprisingly Netflix doesn't stream any of these in my region, Prime Video does the last two and Hotstar streams Entourage.
These are good shows not great ones like The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men, BB, Six Feet Under you know about the stuff that critics rave about etc. I don't care if Birdbox was watched by all of Netflix's subscribers, thats precisely the sort of thing that I don't watch the majority of the time, you watch that thing once and you forget that you ever watched it again. I'm now on probably my sixth or seventh rewatch of The Wire, that should tell you something about my viewing habits and why Netflix's content just doesn't work for me. I don't expect a network to consistenly churn out shows like that but at least some of the shows should be somewhere close to that level which HBO continues to do with The Deuce, Succession, True Detective(I know they fucked the dog on S02) etc.
Also you have the time to watch ALL of that, I don't. I work in tech too, I have an hour on weekdays and maybe 2-3 on weekends for leisure, so its only natural that I would be picky about what I watch, the absolute best, currently that would mean shows like The Americans, Escape from Dannemora and shows from the past like Halt and Catch Fire(from AMC), Six feet under, Deadwood which not surpisingly were also made by HBO. Netflix doesn't stream any of that.
I also don't understand how you think AMC won't exist, are they going to be insolvent ? Doesn't look like it, they have a cash-cow in The Walking Dead(I only watched till S06 then got bored) They got two of the best TV shows I liked BB and BCS, BCS is gonna kill it in the next season. They also produced The Terror, a brilliant mini-series which Netflix didn't stream as well and again Prime Video did. As a viewer I don't care about Netflix's subscriber numbers or HBO's lack thereof, I want to watch content I like which sadly Netflix doesn't produce on a consistent basis, this is entirely subjective and I realise that I might be one of the edge-cases in all the millenials when I say Netflix don't tickly my fancy.
I'm not biased towards HBO, hell HBO doesn't even stream in my country, I'm incredibly picky about what I watch since I'm short on time, Netflix churns out a LOT of shows, its only natural that some of them turn out to be brilliant and some of them indeed are, but the rest, like 90% of the shows are just average, they don't work for me, I simply do not have the time to watch them.
In that sense, Netflix is like the Y-Combinator of producing original content. You produce(invest in) hundreds of TV shows(startups) and hope one of them makes it big (becomes a unicorn) and the rest of them, well they would be probably cease to exist after some time.
There's a scene in an episode of the "Parks and Recreation" show where Peter Serafinowicz is playing "His Royal Excellence Lord Edgar Darby Covington, 14th Earl of Cornwall-Upon-Thames and 29th Baron of Hertfordshire". He and Andy (Chris Pratt's character) are standing in a courtyard and His Excellence is pointing out the buildings his family owns.
Andy: "So what else does your family own?"
Edgar Covington: "Well... have you heard of Scotland?"
Modern Family, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, The Middle, Raising Hope, How I Met Your Mother, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt were all fairly recent examples of decent modern sitcoms (and wow that list is bigger than I thought it'd be), and for the most part, generally centered around middle class families/people. Some are a bit more outlandish and over-the-top at times, but that can also be their appeal.
By modern, I also mean they follow a continuing story arc episode-to-episode, so while you could watch any episode in isolation, you get a lot more if you know backstory and the characters. They're also all "single camera" shows (no laugh track) which IMHO is a much better style, and allows them to be more creative, have a continuing story, and frankly, be funnier than the (pause for laughter) lines in a show like Big Bang Theory.
The author blames the modern sitcom's remoteness from working and lower-middle class concerns with their creators' immunity from the recent recession. In place of everyday situations, we have shows set in "soundstages and writers’ rooms," the haunts of the out-of-touch in New York and LA. So you wind up with a show with this sort of genesis:
Our creator was once a prominent writer and performer on a comedy sketch show, which aired live every Saturday night from an NBC studio in New York. It ran for 90 minutes. After their time on the show came to an end, our creator decided to pitch a sitcom based on their experiences there. The lead character is the head writer on a comedy show, similarly produced in New York. They must balance their work in the writers' room and their personal life, though this turns out to be difficult. A pilot is made, and our creator plays the lead.
Modern viewers may recognize this as 30 Rock, but it is in fact The Dick Van Dyke Show. It is based not on SNL but on a direct ancestor, Your Show of Shows. Carl Reiner's performance in the pilot may have dissuaded executives from casting him in the commissioned series (hence Dick Van Dyke), while Tina Fey remained the lead in her own version. But otherwise the parallel rings a sight near perfect.
The author stumbles over himself insisting, however, that while The Dick Van Dyke Show did not give vent to working and lower-middle class concerns, it did at least feature characters who "had careers" and were definitely of a class. As if the same were not true of shows like 30 Rock (which is at times obsessed with class difference), or of Parks and Recreation and The Office. These do not depict realistic workspaces, but why place that demand on a sitcom? And why not place the same demand on, yes, The Honeymooners, Taxi, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, I Love Lucy, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, The Andy Griffith Show, and on and on. In all cases the demands of the form—and in almost all cases the demands of overly long tenures—stretched the premises and the rare attempts at realism very thin.
I think you can make an argument that the most popular comedies available right now—whether on TV or at the movie theaters—are unflinchingly escapist. (Though, as the article notes in its discussion of an episode each of Horace and Pete and Girls, this has not gone unnoticed or unremarked by all of the shows' writers. Still, these two are not the most popular things around by any stretch.) Similarly, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were seen to traipse across exclusive resorts, high-class stages, ballroom floors, and Venice, in elaborate dresses and a "top hat, white tie, and tails"—all during the Great Depression. Sometimes hard circumstances produce a public clamoring for comment; sometimes the public just wants a reprieve.
As a former ESL teacher, I think TV can be helpful but it's better to be very selective about which shows you watch. Pick shows that have a lot of dialogue in English.
Older TV shows tend to be more dialogue-centric. If you have the TV Land channel, I'd suggest: MASH, All in the Family, I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, The Dick Van Dyke Show, &c.
Contemporary shows that would be good for this purpose might be: Modern Family, NCIS, Mad Men, Big Bang Theory, Parks and Recreation, Arrested Development, Parenthood (advanced: lots of simultaneous talking).
It's interesting that he would go to a sports network over the culture clash between statistics and narrative. Sports has traditionally been extremely negative on "stats geeks", and favored narrative explanations, along with factors like "grit" and "determination" and that kind of thing. Silver's own former work in sabermetrics was a frequent target of pot-shots from ESPN commentators for years. There used to be a blog on that kind of anti-intellectualism in sports commentary (written by people who post-blog went on to write for the TV series Parks and Recreation): http://www.firejoemorgan.com/
Sign of a more general change?
Timing animations with sound really does make a huge difference. The whole experience seems fuller and more well rounded, and it's usually not that hard to do.
Parks and Recreation, the TV show from the creators of the American version of The Office, has an intro that demonstrates this quite well.
The first intro times the introduction of the title text to the first jingle in the song, and then the beats to the frame transitions, which feels playful and fun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI7f4CgATiE
Then in Season 3, they rearranged the sequence to fit the new characters in, and the whole thing feels boring and out of sync:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTgIJdcIpj0
I literally wince every time I watch it. I've always wondered whether it was the same people that worked on it, and what the story behind it was.
I thought the section on TV shows was nonsense as well. He cherry picked a few examples that fit his model.
Off the top of my head some modern comedies that don't fit are Modern Family, Parks and Recreation, and Desperate Housewives.
There were plenty of classic shows set in the city as well. Mary Tyler Moore, The Jeffersons, The Bob Newhart Show, Three's Company, Taxi, Welcome Back Kotter.
Thanks for the link!
I've not only been talking to my target market, but the more I dive into this project, the more I see myself becoming my target market…
I think that I've seen a few collectives run into these sorts of accountability issues, and it would probably be up to the artist with respect to what they'd do for it.
With regards to a TV approach, I already know of two genres with low-hanging fruit: world-wide documentaries/vlogs and talking-head kind of comedy (ala funny or die, parks and recreation, or the office).
I have no idea how to raise money, but I really don't want to raise money until it's already profitable, that way the collective would only be answering to itself.
EDIT: Thinking about it more, a crediting system based on popularity and income could build an incrementally higher fee for making it free, but that money would transparently go into making the production better. Like buying another set for a film, or putting together a music video for a band.
I haven't had Cable/Satellite since 2002. I started watching all my TV on DVDs that I bought from Amazon, but then switched to iTunes around 2006.
Now it's mostly a combination of iTunes/DVD - I'm pretty certain it's less expensive than subscribing to TV.
The good part of this (and it should be emphasized) - is that you now watch for a _purpose_ - Latest episode of Lost, BSG, Dexter, Weeds, South Park, Doll House, BtVS, Angel, The Wire, DeadWood, Heroes, The Office, Dr. Horrible, Mad Men, Parks and Recreation, Castle, Californication, Dr. Who, Kings, Sarah Connor Chronicles, True Blood, Torchwood.
Any time that might have been lost to just passively watching television, news, is now, of course, lost to passively reading ycombinator, nyt, wsj, groklaw... :-)