|
|
|
This American TV comedy series airs on Showcase/Foxtel and stars Amy Poehler. Amy plays the part of a perky Leslie Knope who works in the Pawnee parks department. Pawnee is a fictional town located in Indiana. This idea was created by Michael Schur and Greg Daniels. It had its debut in 2009 on April 9th. It utilizes a single-camera sort of 'mockumentary' style of filming. It gives the impression that the documentary crew is out filming everybody.
Michael Schur and Greg Daniels are both Emmy-award winners as the executive producers for the hit show 'The Office' on NBC. They re-unite here to make this 'mockumentary' type series and follow their mid-level parks department bureaucrat Amy Poehler while she tries to beautify Pawnee, Indiana and at the same time advance her career.
She is determined to make a name for herself by beautifying the town. She throws in with a local nurse named Ann Logan (played by Rashida Jones) and takes a stand against troublesome neighbors, single-issue zealots, and greedy real estate developers who use the city codes and various lawsuits as weapons for achieving their own personal gains.
The writers did extensive research on local politics in California to do this show. They consulted with elected officials and urban planners. The character of Leslie Knope went through some minor changes after their first season because of the audience feedback. Audiences found her to be a bit ditzy and not too bright. The writing staff then attempted to inject current events into the episodes like a government shutdown of Pawnee. This notion was inspired by the real life crisis felt within the financial community. The show featured several special guest stars with some of them returning for multiple episodes.
Parks and Recreation evolves around the Leslie Knope character played by Amy Poehler. The local nurse mentioned above (Ann Perkins played by Rashida Jones) insists that construction pit that was left in the vacant lot next to her house be filled in because her boyfriend fell into it and broke both his legs.
Leslie then vows that the will turn that pit into a town park in spite of all the resistance she meets from a parks director named 'Ron Swanson' (played by Nick Offerman). He is one of those anti-government libertarian fellows.
Paul Schneider plays a city planner named Mark Brendanawicz. Leslie hides some deep romantic feelings she has for him. He states emphatically that this project is unrealistic because it involves far too much government red tape.
However, in secret Mark convinces Ron that he should approve the project, so Leslie along with her staff and Tom Haverford (played by Aziz Ansari) and a dis-interested April Ludgate who was an intern, sets out to get the community involved with pushing the project forward.
Later on Ann is infuriated when she finds out that Andy was faking his injuries the whole time just to get sympathy and pampering from her. About that time a lonely and drunken Mark manuvers Leslie down to the pit where he kisses her. Leslie refuses his advances because he is drunk. Her rejection embarrasses him and he accidentally falls down into the pit injuring himself.
At times the actors will look directly into the cameras and engage in 1 to 1 interviews with members of the documentary crew. There is no live studio audience or any laugh tracks present. For all purposes it is handled like a regular documentary.
| |
