Parks and Recreation: Season 5

I just read my posts on all four previous seasons of Parks and Recreation to check for observations I'd already made so as to avoid repeating them here. Everything I've hit on before applies to this season too, and in no way have I changed my overall opinion of the show since its earlier days. But I noticed that I still haven't really gone into any depth talking about what I believe is one of the show's strongest features: its characters.

Any show needs interesting characters to thrive, but "breakout characters" are what can elevate otherwise fairly generic sitcoms to greatness, or at least significant pop culture relevance. For example, what's Happy Days without Fonzie? What's The Big Bang Theory without Sheldon? What's How I Met Your Mother without Barney? Whenever you watch any one of those shows, you're watching because of the existence of those characters. The rest of the respective casts may be just fine, and the writing might be funny enough even when said breakout characters aren't on screen, but those shows and many others are significantly elevated due to that one special incarnation where the acting and the writing combine nicely into someone memorable. What sets Parks and Recreation out and above so many other comedies is its sheer number of potential breakout characters. What I mean by that term is characters that could suffice as the sole breakout character on most other shows, but don't have to carry such a load here at all.

Objectively speaking, Ron Swanson is the breakout character on Parks and Recreation, the star of more T-shirts, posters, and Internet memes than anyone else on the show. But even on a hypothetical Parks and Recreation where there is no Ron Swanson - gah! - there would still be, say, an Andy Dwyer. Or a Tom Haverford. Or, especially in later seasons, an April Ludgate. Here's a quick exercise. Think of a fairly bland comedy you've seen recently. Now, add any one of the aforementioned Parks characters to the mix. Does that character not instantly become the best part of that show? I'm not suggesting that any one of the characters on Parks could instantly elevate another show to greatness, but it's a hell of an improvement, no?

Anyway, Parks has an embarrassment of riches on that front. It's not the first show in that category, by a long shot; Arrested Development instantly springs to my mind as another example of a show with so many absurdly memorable characters. (Buster! Lucille! Gob! George Michael!) When a show has such an all-star loaded roster, so to speak, it can avoid revisiting the same sources too often and running the proverbial well dry. No one character is stealing every scene, and as such, no one character must shoulder the load for the rest of the show.

Of course, Parks is great for so many other reasons, too, and some of the biggest laughs in the show come from one-off characters or even unnamed people shouting at town hall meetings. In fact I've heard it argued by others that it's the depth of Parks, and not the breakout stars, that form the backbone of the show. Hey, maybe both are true. Maybe the show is just plain great from its top-billed stars to its tertiary characters to its guest appearances to its throwaway gags.

Well, this has run long. But at least I came up with something new to say about one of my favorite shows. Until next time!