Mini-reviews: ‘The Office’ returns; ‘Parks and Recreation’ meets ‘Breaking Bad’
Rather than giving some full-fledged reviews of two of NBC’s hit comedies today (since we’re a bit late thanks to a jam-packed schedule last night), we’re going to condense our thoughts here on “Parks and Recreation” and “The Office” into a pair of bite-size morsels that are easy to digest as well as enjoy.
The great news here? Both shows delivered some of the stronger work of the season … especially “The Office,” which was suddenly struck back to life by an incredibly awkward stunt pulled off by some of the Dunder-Mifflin employees on Dwight.
“The Office” – What made Dwight’s prank so worthwhile this week was the commitment to it, as Nellie, Pam, and Jim perfectly orchestrated a way to have him give a radio interview (which had actually been canceled) by stripping down to his underwear and causing a giant panic. Was it mean? Sure, but seeing Kevin and Jim interact with him in the midst of his panic attack were literally the funniest moments of the season.
As for the other stories, they were hit-and-miss. It’s interesting seeing how long Oscar can keep his affair with the Senator a secret, whereas Andy’s decision to go on a three-week boat trip with his brother made no sense. How is this guy holding down a job at all given how often he goes away? We wonder if this is a way to write him out of an episode or two for Ed Helms to pursue a couple of other projects.
“Parks and Recreation” – Even in comedy, Jonathan Banks is terrifying. This is what we learned here in seeing the actor go from playing an evil drug dealer to being Ben’s intimidating father, who was at war with his mother and completely ruined his own son’s engagement party. Seeing the chain of events unfold here, along with Leslie’s reaction to it over time, was a thing of beauty.
Outside of Leslie’s attempts to get everyone to come together, the only other thing that happened was Tom getting Ron to invest in his Rent-a-Swag company … which was one of the weaker Tom stories in a while.