Parks and Recreation
NBC | Release Date: April 16, 2009
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
67
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 46 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
15
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
New York Daily NewsDavid HinckleyJan 20, 2011
Season 3 Review: Poehler has great skill at delivering outrageous lines in a droll deadpan. That sets the tone for a cast, including Lowe and Scott, with similar abilities. Too many of the sketches, though, cross that fine but visible line between bemused absurdity and slapstick. Read full review
60
Kansas City Star
Season 1 Review: It all has the potential to add up. Eventually. Read full review
60
SlateTroy Patterson
Season 1 Review: This is a civil servant who has yet to be jaded, and the show is just good enough to keep you turning back in to see her unwarranted optimism curdle. Read full review
60
The New YorkerNancy Franklin
Season 1 Review: There are many of them [good moments] in Parks and Recreation, in fact; virtually every scene in the first two episodes contains good bits, with quotable quotes, twists of language that viewers feel smart for getting, and visual gags. But the minutes don’t flow; they merely accrete, one bit on top of another. Read full review
50
VarietyBrian Lowry
Season 1 Review: Series creators Greg Daniels and Michael Schur provide the show with moments of dry wit, and Poehler certainly has acting oblivious down to a wide-eyed science. Yet there's no escaping that this feels like "Office Lite," thrown together as a vehicle for the star rather than out of any grand inspiration. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman
Season 1 Review: The pilot is not especially funny. But it has potential. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan
Season 1 Review: Ron Swanson's (Nick Offerman) short “tour” of his office--a loose, throwaway moment at the end of the episode--is the funniest thing about the otherwise strained Parks pilot. Read full review
50
USA TodayRobert Bianco
Season 1 Review: Parks never expends enough energy to even approach funny, but even if it were more amusing, that sour whiff of gratuitous cruelty would still linger. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunDavid Zurawik
Season 1 Review: The problem with the pilot is in tone. Self-important and silly but optimistic and sweet is a hard mark to hit week after week. Read full review
50
New York PostLinda Stasi
Season 1 Review: In its favor, Parks doesn't have a laugh track. On the minus side, it doesn't get many laughs. Read full review
50
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen
Season 1 Review: Parks has its funny moments but the comedy's first episode also has a distant and chilly feel to it. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMatt Roush
Season 2 Review: While there is much talent associated with this show, Parks still feels pretty much like the pits, an uneasy and uneven clone that has yet to achieve a comedic purpose of its own. Read full review
40
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray
Season 1 Review: Poehler's funny because she's a smart blonde, not a dumb one. Here, she's reduced to one of TV's default settings. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley
Season 1 Review: Clueless, oblivious characters are a foundation of most sitcoms, but this show needs more of a humor base than a wall mural that shows Pawnee's first white settlers massacring the natives. Read full review
40
Washington PostTom Shales
Season 1 Review: Poehler's show unfortunately isn't worthy of her. It's dry and hesitant when one longs for it to be raucous and madcap. Read full review
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