CHICAGO – Excelsior! Comic book legend Stan Lee’s famous exclamation puts a fine point on the third and final play of Mark Pracht’s FOUR COLOR TRILOGY, “The House of Ideas,” presented by and staged at City Lit Theater in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. For tickets/details, click HOUSE OF IDEAS.
DVD Review: ‘Parks and Recreation: Season Two’ Tries to Keep NBC Sitcom Alive
CHICAGO – Amy Poehler’s “Parks and Recreation” had the serious problem of trying to find an audience on NBC during the destruction of the network by “The Jay Leno Show.” Debuting in April of 2009, it struggled to find a following and then barely hung around through the disastrous times at NBC during the 2009-10 season. To everyone’s surprise, it was renewed and will return on a revamped Thursday night lineup in January. To try and ignite interest in the show one more time, Universal has released the second season of this better-than-average show.
DVD Rating: 3.5/5.0 |
The second season of “Parks and Recreation” finished 108th in the ratings. If it was on any network other than NBC, it would probably be canceled. And the true tragedy is that it’s a damn funny show. The key to the success of the series is that, like “The Office,” it’s become a true ensemble program. Season one focused a bit too much on the quirkiness of Poehler’s lead character Lesley Knope and co-star Rashida Jones, but season two allowed supporting players like Aziz Ansari, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt, and Nick Offerman to shine. A sitcom is only as good as its worst supporting actor and the ensemble on “Parks and Recreation” is one of the best on TV.
Parks and Recreation: Season Two was released on DVD on November 30th, 2010
Photo credit: Universal
Poehler plays Knope, one of those weird low-level politicians who actually seems to enjoy the red tape of her profession. She heads the Parks and Rec Department in Pawnee, Indiana and comparisons to “The Office” are clear but the second season of the show really developed its own personality. The writing still needs a bit of fine-tuning but “Parks and Recreation” is one of the more promising sitcoms on the air. Only time will tell if it’s kept on long enough to fulfill on that promise.
Special Features:
o Over Two and a Half Hours of Deleted Scenes
o Bloopers
o Pratt on Parks
o Mouse Rat Performance
o ?uestlove on: Parks (RZA Screen Test)
By BRIAN TALLERICO |