From Slate: "You really should be Watching Parks & Recreation"

I wholeheartedly agree with Jonah Weiner's analysis of NBC's sophomore comedy Parks & Recreation. This is a show that struggled through its short first season only coming back funnier, stronger and with a better focus in season two.

You really should be watching Parks & Recreation and here's why:

Over the past month or so, TV writers have been working to hip America to an apparently little-known fact: NBC's Thursday-night sitcom lineup does not, as one may have thought, kick off at 9 p.m. ET with The Office only to end an hour later with 30 Rock's closing credits. Several critics have encouraged us to check in at 8 p.m., when the daffy new Community airs, followed by Parks and Recreation, currently in its second season after debuting last spring as a six-episode, midseason replacement. The ghosts of Rachel Green and Cosmo Kramer have been drafted to the cause: "NBC's Thursday comedy block," the Los Angeles Times declared, "has matured into a lineup almost as formidable as that of its 1990s heyday."

Going by the ratings, Parks and Recreation is Thursday's weak link, limping behind the pack. According to Nielsen, the average second-season Parks and Recreation episode (as of mid-November) has drawn 5.3 million viewers, compared with current-season averages of 6.5 million for Community, 7.3 million for 30 Rock, and 10.1 million for The Office. In the world of meager TV ratings, the line separating a loser from an underdog can be blurry, but with its second season, Parks and Recreation has vaulted definitively into the latter category. Contributors to Salon, the Los Angeles Times, and New York are among those who have rallied on behalf of the show, which has gone from an erratically funny nonevent to astonishingly good.

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