Watching The Office

Have you warmed up to Parks and Recreation or have you quit watching it?

New York Magazine takes another review of the show, after five episode helpings and finds that it has finally come to its own…

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If you missed the pilot episode of Parks and Recreation, you can download a copy of this on iTunes by following this link.

Seems the show was able to maintain a good number of the audience share from The Office.

Here’s the data from TV By The Numbers:

The Southland premiere drew a 3.2 rating with adults 18-49 and 9.72 million viewers, Parks and Recreation premiered to a 3.0 rating with adults 18-49 and 6.77 million viewers while the Harper’s Island premiere  pulled a 2.7 rating with adults 18-49 and 10.49 million viewe

The star of Parks and Recreation appeared on Leno in the last week of March. Below is the complete video from NBC.com:

NBC through its executive Ben Silverman defends the test results of the new mockumentary starring Amy Poehler and written by The Office’s Greg Daniels and Michael Schur. The series is expected to air in three weeks (April 9th to be exact).

In an interview with EW, Silverman says:

“All of the research we do around initial rough cuts is negative. If you had seen the initial research on all of ours and our competitors’ successful shows, it tends to be like that.”

Unfavorable results from test groups are quite common it the industry. The Smoking Gun even reports that Friends didn’t do so well during the initial test runs, but it has become TV’s most successful program.

Deadline Hollywood Daily isn’t buying the excuses from NBC.

Amy Poehler’s remarks on Parks & Recreation:

• “I play Leslie Knope, the head of the parks department in a small town — and her dream is to build a new park. When Obama says, ‘Okay America, let’s get to work!’ Leslie is the one who responds, ‘Great! I have all these big ideas!’” the actress told the mag. “Government shows are usually about people making huge decisions super quickly — ya know, those big walk-and-talk shots down the halls of the White House. We wanted to explore the small ways in which people try to make a difference and fail — in a mockumentary style, like ‘The Office.’”
• “There’s something to be said for banging up against an administration keeping you down, but it’s about how ‘hope’ translates into actual change. (Our producers) Mike Schur and Greg Daniels did research for the show and met with some city planners. To me, there’s a lot of interesting stuff to be mined, character-wise, from the people that get in the way of that, or don’t want to change, or talk a lot about it but have no idea how.”
• “So I think the plan is to have the show on for 18 years and then at the very end we build a park. (Deadpan pause.) That would be amazing!”
• “It has nothing to do with ‘The Office’ other than style. Our world seems a lot bigger to me than theirs, actually. But that could just be because I’m shorter than (Steve) Carell,”

The series will air April 9th on NBC.

The following comes from a twelve-page report from the rough cut pilot that was aired to a test audience. They didn’t find the new program that appealing. Parks and Recreation stars Amy Poehler and is written and executive produced by The Office’s Greg Daniels and Michael Schur.

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Recurring The Office star, Rashida Jones, has moved on to another Greg Daniels project, as you must know. She is playing a supporting role in the Amy Poehler comedy, Parks and Recreation. She speaks about her new show and the other actors she is going to work with in an interview with Collider…

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The non-spinoff spinoff to The Office premieres April 9th on NBC and here are two teasers that were released this week.

Here are some promo photos for the new Greg Daniels series starring Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreations, premiering on NBC this April —

Thanks to Holly for these.

As you know by now, Amy Poehler’s new TV series, Parks and Recreation (coming in April), is about Leslie Knope a national park director and her team of misfits. One of the site’s website has just been discovered on the internet. This is the official website of the park itself: City of Pawnee Parks and Recreation. Amy Poehler’s character, Leslie, has a little note on the site. It would be a good chance to get to know her character this early.

Parks and Recreation’s show runner is The Office’s Greg Daniels.

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It seems there is reason to look forward to the new Amy Poehler comedy (created by The Office’s Greg Daniels) that is coming in April. According to E!, from the initial read through of the script, it looks like there’s comedy gold here again.

Read the interview with Amy Poehler after the cut…

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Everwood alum Chris Pratt is set to join Parks and Recreation, the Amy Poehler comedy that’s coming to NBC this mid-season.  Pratt will play the unemployed musician boyfriend of Rashida Jones’ character (she plays the nurse and co-worker of Poehler).

Also joining the series, which will debut April 19th, is Paul Schneider, who was once included in Variety’s 2007 list of Top Ten Actors To Watch. His character, Mark, seems to be someone who is quite the ladies’ man. Mark had a one night stand with Leslie Knope (Poehler’s character) but he also has his eyes set on Ann (Jones’ character).

Unconfirmed reports say, Nick Offerman may be playing the role of Ron, the boss at the park.

Tentatively titled Public Service, NBC has revealed that the Office-inspired mockumentary starring Amy Poehler will now officially be called Parks and Recreation.

How did they decide to switch from Public Service to this? According to Ben Silverman who spoke with the New York Times recently — “You] can’t make fun of public service. [We] don’t want to seem mean about it.”

Parks and Recreation, which is executive produced and written by The Office’s Greg Daniels, will premiere on April 9th on NBC. It will tackle the story of a small town local government official (Poehler). It will also star Rashida Jones and Aziz Ansari.

Why do I get the feeling there’ll be a bit of Sarah Palin in jokes on this one?

Photo from JustJared

The non-Office spin-off starring Amy Poehler is now taking off and the cast and crew have began shooting scenes for the series. They also have a name for it now —- Public Service.

Here’s a photo of Amy with her co-star Rashida Jones, taken at a Sherman Oaks California playground.

The series will premiere on April 9th on NBC. Details to what the show is all about has been blogged earlier here.