Parks and Recreation
Our Review
The warmest show on this list — a sitcom that believes government can work and people can be good, which makes it quietly radical. Amy Poehler’s Leslie Knope, a mid-level parks bureaucrat in Pawnee, Indiana, is TV’s great optimist: a woman who loves waffles, her friends, and her city with equal ferocity. The first season is a rough six-episode copy of The Office — skip to season 2 and you’ll see one of the great season-long ramps in sitcom history.
The ensemble is ridiculous: Ron Swanson, the mustachioed libertarian who accidentally built a government utopia; Nick Offerman’s deadpan is a national treasure. April and Andy’s romance is the funniest accidental love story on TV. Aziz Ansari’s Tom, Retta’s Donna (treat yo self), Chris Pratt’s pre-star Andy, and the revolving door of Pawnee’s horrible citizens (Sweetums, Joan Callamezzo, Perd Hapley) make this the densest joke-per-minute comedy around.
Verdict: Watch it. It’s a hug in sitcom form — and it never winks at you about it.