I do not say this lightly or on account of the fact that I just recently finally watched the rest of the series. Parks and Recreation is the best show that I’ve ever watched, and is now my favorite television show of all time.
This does not mean I no longer like shows like Married… With Children, Batman the Animated Series, Dead Like Me, Breaking Bad, season 4 of Dexter, or any other show that I’ve claimed to be very favorable of at differing points of my life. But they all fall short in comparison to Parks and Rec. And honestly, it’s not even really a contest anymore at this point, and I’m hard pressed to believe that I’m going to actually see something I like more any time soon.
The thing is, I had this conclusion in mind after I finished the fifth season of Parks and Rec. But I wanted to make sure that the show didn’t really end up going downhill really fast like Dexter did, and ultimately tank the series as a whole. But I’m not surprised that it delivered all the way to the end, and I can’t say that I’ve felt so emotional watching a series wind down ever, compared to how I felt with Parks and Rec.
No matter if I was feeling down or disappointed in something going on in my life, watching Parks and Rec was an instant cure all for my gloom. And at 22 minutes per episode, it was really easy to simply watch an episode, or binge-watch several, which the latter was mostly what I was doing on the weekends when mythical girlfriend was at work. And now that I’m done with the series, I’m wondering what I’m going to do with my life now.
What’s great about the show is that throughout the 100+ episodes, nobody grew cynical, and the humor wasn’t really ever truly mean-spirited. Everyone grows as characters, everyone cares about one another, regardless of how much they might like to troll each other from time to time, but it really all goes back to the growth of characters and relationships.
The writing is clever and witty, and dealing with 22 minute episodes, there simply isn’t enough time for things to really get stale and feel like a grind. The fact that the drawing power of celebrities throughout the later seasons basically is a testament to me that I’m obviously not the only person seeing how good of a show is, and the willingness to want to be a part of it. I mean really, from Detlef Schrempf to Michelle Obama?
All I know is that I can’t remember the last time I watched a show with this many episodes, where I not only was invested throughout the entire journey, I didn’t ever get bored, want to multi-task in the middle of episodes, and laughed heartily and loudly as often. The show made me laugh a lot, choke back tears more than I’d like to admit, and think about all the characters and their fictional matters and relationships on a scale that can only say that I loved the show. More than any other show ever, in my entire life.
God damn, what a great show Parks and Rec was. It’s going to be a cavernous chasm to fill the television void left behind by it. Maybe I can just supplement some viewing time with re-watching some episodes occasionally, when I’ll probably get let down by so many other shows.
