Happy 2!

Park It is my favorite toddler

Since the last time I wrote, a big anniversary has quietly slipped by — Park It turned two! That’s right: I’ve been writing this little Substack every week (give or take) for over two years.

When I first started this project back in 2024, life looked different: I was barely a year into my job at Substack, I was living in my old apartment in SF, I wasn’t yet roommate to my gal Pepper. My goal with this thing really was prioritizing time to write every week. What did it feel like to really build a weekly habit around writing? It was more about making sure my writing wheels didn’t get rusty, so to speak. The Parks and Rec of it all was more of a vehicle, a way of exploring comedy and pop culture through the lens of a show I love dearly and know like the back of my hand.

I’ve loved the past two years, even the times that I’ve stared at a blank screen for hours, trying to force myself to get through a couple hundred words. Even on the weeks that my Parks episode was totally uninspiring, Park It has always been my favorite challenge.

It has been so creatively fulfilling for me. Even though I’ve written about a 15-year-old sitcom for the better part of two years, it has kept me sharper on what’s going on in the comedy scene, forcing me to watch shows with a more critical eye to see what I think about them. I’ve been able to write about things like SNL’s “Grind Song” and Broad City and Pitch Perfect and Veep and Sex Lives of College Girls, in addition to just Parks and Rec. Back in college, I used to start my papers for English class weeks in advance. I’m the opposite of a procrastinator (more of a teacher’s pet than anything, let’s be real). I like to turn problems over and over in my head for days at a time, really chewing on them before I dive in. And when I start writing, I work out the rest of my thoughts in real time. It’s very rare for me to show up to a page with a fully fleshed-out idea. Flexing that atrophied muscle has been fun!

Park It also tends to start way more conversations for me than I’d expect. It turns out some people actually do read this thing! And every single time they mention it to me, I’m completely amazed. I’ve been able to talk to people like Jennifer Keishin Armstrong and Jim O’Heir about this little show I love.

At the same time, you may have noticed that I’ve been showing up here at Park It a little less the past few months. While I used to stick to a weekly cadence, rain or shine, this year I’ve been a bit more lax when it comes to self-imposed deadlines. There are a million reasons for this: I unexpectedly moved apartments back in January; I’ve been traveling SO much for work, spending time in LA, Austin, South Carolina, and NYC; Pepper broke her leg, which consumed quite a lot of my mental energy; I’ve been at friends’ weddings all over North America; I’ve gotten into reality TV (Summer House! Below Deck!), which I now find myself turning on for something mindless in the same way I used to turn on a sitcom. As a result of all of this, I just… haven’t had that much mental space for Parks and Rec.

I also forgot that the show starts to lag after Leslie gets elected in the season four finale. Don’t get me wrong: I still love it very dearly. I love the Ben and Leslie marriage, I love the way we watch Ron fall in love with Diane, I love Tom’s storylines. We get introduced to some truly stellar new characters (Jeremy Jamm, for one). The show really does wrap up nicely for everyone.

But we also lose the plot at times. There’s the whole Larry/Gary/Terry/Jerry bit that I loathe. I’m not a fan of the Pawnee-Eagleton merger, even though I do love a Kristen Bell guest star moment in the episode where Eagleton reveals their bankruptcy. The whole Ron and Leslie fight in season seven breaks me in half, as does Leslie’s recall from her City Council position.

So prioritizing writing about season five, in the midst of all of my normal life shit, has also been a bit trickier.

To be fair to Parks, this is always how I get with shows that stretch for many seasons. I’m a HUUUUUGE Friday Night Lights seasons 1—3 stan, but barely remember that Michael B. Jordan is a key part of the final two seasons. I stopped watching Grey’s Anatomy after Derek died. I only remember the ending of Veep because I can’t even fuckin’ BELIEVE she would do that to Gary.

Clocking in at seven seasons, Parks and Rec learned a few lessons from its predecessor, The Office, which ran for nine seasons, including two controversial final ones that went on after Steve Carell’s departure from the show. Amy has talked before about how Mike Schur called her the summer before they started filming season seven of Parks to tell her it would be the show’s last. He pitched the idea for a thirteen-episode run and a time skip, culminating in an absolute banger of a series finale. Amy immediately got on board, preferring to go out on their own terms versus stretching the show out longer. It was absolutely the right call. The show has said all it needs to say by season seven. It probably could have wrapped with five or six. But it takes a while to hit its stride, so part of me does think that if it wrapped any sooner we’d feel shortchanged.

Season five of Parks has made me reflect on how I feel about miniseries versus a network show’s traditional run. Streaming has obviously changed the game for all TV. The norm now is eight-to-ten-episode seasons with multiple years in between each one. Some shows drop all episodes at once, some come out weekly like network releases. Only a handful of modern sitcoms (Abbott Elementary being one of them) use the traditional model of 22-minute episodes released weekly on a network.

This has resulted in many fewer hours with our favorite shows, but I actually do think it’s prevented the fatigue that many network shows seemed to hit, right around the fourth or fifth season. The writers’ rooms know how the arc of an entire season will play out, even though they’re usually only guaranteed one season at a time. They only have to fit those plots into five to ten hours of TV. They don’t face the same pressure as the Parks writers, who were sometimes genuinely concerned their show would be cut mid-season. It results in tighter storylines, more cohesive narratives, a faster pace towards the grand finale.

Even though I’m writing a Substack about one of the most iconic network sitcoms of all time, this rewatch has made me wonder if I prefer the streaming model, more and more. I think I’d rather leave a show wanting more than get lost in the sauce and limp my way to the ending. Take Hacks, which is releasing its fifth and final season this week. I’m heartbroken for it to finish, but it’s undoubtedly the right call. There are only so many more ways we can see the Ava and Deborah dynamic play out. It’s better to leave them on a high than stretch the story beyond its boundaries or what’s realistic for each character. Do I wish I had more of it? Absolutely. But do I think that would make it a better show? Absolutely not.

i love these fools

The obvious exception here is shows that are canceled before their time. A League of Their Own with Abbi Jacobson was one of the hardest hitters (no pun intended). Only eight episodes of TV and a cult favorite, it was canceled after just one season. It was a perfect season, but still! That’s barely enough time for the characters to come into their own, much less evolve before our own eyes.

I think three to five seasons are a sweet spot. It’s enough time for us to get to know the characters, but not so much that we start to know them better than we know ourselves. This is how I feel with Parks sometimes. I can almost anticipate what Leslie or April will say before they say it. It’s comforting, to a certain extent; it’s like talking to old friends. But after a handful of seasons, they stop surprising you. With something like Hacks, I feel like I never know the characters’ next moves.

What’s next for Park It, you may be wondering? First of all, this is NOT to say that we’re stopping this thing! I looove this project and I love this show. The whole world of Pawnee is so comfortable to me, I miss it when I’m away for too long. And even though season five isn’t my fave of all time, there are some banger episodes. Leslie and Ben still have to get married. Tom has to start (and later sell) Rent-A-Swag. Leslie has to get recalled from her city council office. There’s so much more for us to discuss.

But I might be writing here more so when I feel inspired about a particular episode versus showing up every single week for every single episode. Maybe we’ll hit the best episodes only. Maybe I’ll just riff on my thoughts about whatever I’m watching at the moment. Maybe we’ll have more conversations with authors I love. I don’t really know! I’m figuring this out as I go.

I also have a few other projects cooking that I’m excited about, separate from Park It — there’s one about summer camp that I’ve been working on for far too long. I’m a camp kid, if you didn’t know. I’ll talk about that project more soon when I come up for air, but I’m pretty stoked about it.

In the meantime, though, I’ll still be here, writing about Parks and Hannah Montana and my pets and SNL. Thanks for showing up and thanks for sticking around. Cheers to another year, Park It!