Quick spoilers for last night's "Parks and Recreation" coming up just as soon as I pretend to be a zoning board member...I've had two issues with "Parks and Recreation" to date: first, that the writers really don't have a handle on Amy Poehler's character yet, and second, that it hasn't made me laugh all that much.
The former problem is still in effect -- or, at least, Leslie is still too much the female Michael Scott -- but the last two episodes have seen some movement on the latter. Last week (which I didn't review here) had some nice physical comedy involving Leslie and the beer bottles, plus Andy's naked crutch chase. "The Banquet," meanwhile, offered up a great joke at the end of the teaser about how the Indians used "every part of the pioneer," Tom riffing all the awful things Leslie could say in her speech(*), the former councilman who assumed Leslie and Ann were a couple and was so concerned about making them feel accepted, and Ron (easily the show's best creation so far) refusing to kiss up to Marlene and giving a "factually accurate" speech ("It is true that you have won this award").
(*) This worked better than a similar scene in the reporter episode, which also seemed like an excuse to let one of the actors just improv for a bit, in that I believed Tom would do this, and in that it works better involving a supporting character as opposed to the lead.
I know a lot of people have already given up, but I really feel like the show is a summer's worth of tweaking away from being good. It's not there yet, but I see glimmers.
What did everybody else think?
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