12 Favorite Comedies of 2011: ‘Modern Family’ and ‘Parks and Recreation’
These two series are wildly popular with distinctly different groups. One is the hit Emmy-winning best comedy that a network built a night around. The other is a critically acclaimed workplace series that falls into that amorphous, undefined “beyond sitcom” category.
Modern Family
There was something special about this extended family when they burst onto the scene a few years back. It’s the stuff sitcom franchises are made of, and once audiences get a taste of it, they’ll let you sail along for years and into the syndicated sunset (suggested marketing campaign: “I’m an MF‘er”) on the faith they had in those strong early episodes. Modern Family is not a great series, but it is a good one, and it fills a niche that was empty for several years prior to its arrival.
You can’t fault a writers room for trying to give audiences what they’ve demonstrated they want. But after two Emmy wins for best comedy, Modern Family has been coasting for most of its third season, too often falling prey to its own tempting formulas and devices. There is so much organic material to be mined here that when they reach for outlandish contrivances they’re leaving a lot of their own potential unfulfilled.
But I didn’t put this show on my list to beat it up. I can’t stay mad for long, and one of my favorite parts of this show is the deeply rooted family dynamics that separate blood relatives Jay, Claire, and Mitchell from those that were married or born into the family. While I take issue with the TV Academy’s insistence that this is best comedy on TV, it is certainly firmly entrenched in the middle of the pack, where it will likely remain until it becomes unprofitable.
Season's greetings from the cast of "Parks and Recreation." (Chris Haston/NBC)
Parks and Recreation
I didn’t want to like Parks and Recreation. But thanks to a friend’s recommendation and the fact that all the episodes were on Netflix streaming, I watched the six-episode first season in a couple days and was hooked. Which is weird looking back, because the first handful of episodes were dark and the show was still evolving into its eventual self. The second season maintained a steady rise in quality, character development, and humor.
But the third season, which aired last spring, is masterful, beginning to end. From the Harvest Festival story arc to April and Andy’s surprising relationship (I especially love their alter egos, Janet Snakehole and Bert Macklin) and the brief but memorable onscreen escapades of a tiny horse named Li’l Sebastian, the show had me alternately in tears and stitches. The characters felt fully formed (even Rob Lowe’s Chris, who I pretty much hate), the stories funny and relatable. The heart of this comedy is healthy and steadily beating, and it runs on an essential optimism and the belief that its characters can all be friends without diminishing the scripts’ opportunities for conflict.
Every minor character in Pawnee and every miniscule detail of the town’s ludicrously American history builds into a tapestry of a real place. It’s a shining example of finding the relatable in the specific, and this feels like a rich, lived-in place, where people work in an office and get along most of the time. Leslie’s ongoing political ambitions seem bound to continue to drive the show’s current fourth season, and while I can’t vote for her in an election, I’d like to cast my vote for this as one of the finest shows of the year.
