The TV Column

Parks and Recreation lasted on quality, not ratings

PARKS AND RECREATION -- "One In 8,000" Episode 620 -- Pictured: Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope -- (Photo by: Ben Cohen/NBC)
PARKS AND RECREATION -- "One In 8,000" Episode 620 -- Pictured: Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope -- (Photo by: Ben Cohen/NBC)

It's really hard to feel sorry for NBC's Parks and Recreation. The series had a good run, especially for one with such low ratings despite winning a Peabody Award for excellence in television programming,

Parks and Recreation's shortened Season 7 (only 13 episodes) begins at 7 p.m. today. With back-to-back episodes, the final curtain will fall with a one-hour series finale Feb. 24.

With the "demotion" from Thursday to Tuesday nights, it's the end of an era (see below).

With Amy Poehler's rapier comedic timing and a sterling ensemble behind her, NBC had hoped Parks and Recreation would join its legendary lineup of smart, quirky comedies -- shows such as Friends, Frasier, Cheers, The Office and Seinfeld -- but it never quite caught on.

The first season averaged out to a disappointing 6 million viewers and the series went downhill from there, finishing last year with an anemic 3.76 million. Those are numbers that would have kicked a lesser quality program to the curb long ago.

Ratings are always tricky. Seinfeld, considered by many the best sitcom of all time, didn't crack the Nielsen Top 30 until Season 4. But the final episode on May 14, 1998, had an astonishing audience estimated at 76.3 million viewers (despite the fact it disappointed many).

Times have changed since '98. Viewers have changed. When an intelligent, sophisticated comedy such as 30 Rock tops out at a modest 7.5 million viewers (Season 3) and finishes with only 4.6 million (Season 7), the audience has become far too fragmented.

That's especially frustrating when compared to the 16.45 million viewers the only occasionally funny Two and a Half Men pulled in for Season 2. The lowbrow series, which has been phoning it in since before 2011 when star Charlie Sheen went to rehab, still drew more than 10.6 million viewers in its 11th season last year.

Two and a Half Men is now in its 12th and final season, with the finale set for Feb. 19.

Sadly, the glory days of NBC's Thursday comedy "must-see TV" are long gone. If the network's recent failures, such as The Michael J. Fox Show, Sean Saves the World and Welcome to the Family, are any indication, those days won't be back anytime soon.

Final proof: Beginning next month, NBC will schedule three dramas (The Slap, The Blacklist, Allegiance) on Thursday in hopes of competing with ABC's stellar drama lineup. This will be the first time since 1981 that there has been no comedy on Thursday for NBC.

A further indication of changing times is the highly anticipated Tina Fey creation Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Starring Ellie Kemper (she played receptionist Erin Hannon on The Office), the quirky comedy was originally set for a 13-episode midseason airing on NBC, but was sold to Netflix and given a two-season order beginning in March.

NBC entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt explained the surprise deal by saying NBC's midseason was "very drama-heavy" and the comedy might not be as well received as they hoped. Netflix, home of cult favorite Orange Is the New Black, comes out the winner here, although NBC wins as well as the producer.

Unlike the networks, streaming services such as Netflix are not at the mercy of Nielsen ratings and advertisers. They also are not attempting to dumb down to the broadest audience possible. There's plenty of room in this new streaming environment for quirky.

So it's a fond farewell to Leslie Knope and the denizens of Pawnee, Ind. Maybe we can drown our sorrows in a tube of cookie dough.

Local reality: Cable's WGN America premieres a new "docudrama" series at 9 p.m. today. Wrestling With Death follows the Latham family of Osceola, who run the Wilson Funeral Home by day and a wrestling league by night. Twelve half-hour episodes will run back to back each week.

Fair warning. Wrestling comes from the same outfit that brought us last year's insipid Clash of the Ozarks, which set Hardy's image back decades.

Still sunny: The "depraved underachievers" of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia return for Season 10 at 9 p.m. Wednesday on FXX.

Man Seeking Woman: This new comedy follows a naive young man (Jay Baruchel) as he looks for love in all the wrong places at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday on FXX.

Workaholics: Season 5 of the Comedy Central sitcom debuts at 9 p.m. Wednesday. It's still puerile humor following three party dudes.

Broad City: Season 2 airs at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday on Comedy Central. Produced by Poehler, the former web series follows two young best friends (creators Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson) navigating life as broads in New York.

The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:

mstorey@arkansasonline.com

Style on 01/13/2015

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