Punctuated Equilibrium and Gradualist Evolution in Television (Especially Parks and Rec)

One of the things I like about tv shows is monitoring their evolution, thinking about the ways they mutate over time, as the writing staff adds and adjusts and edits the concept, the character dynamics, the worldbuilding to make it better. I like how in those early Star Trek episodes, things we now take for granted aren't fully formed. In the twelfth episode McCoy implies that the Vulcans were conquered; even in the third season, Kirk indicates that he and Spock wouldn't be "brothers" if not for a peace mission carried out when he was a cadet. Both of these things point at a much more recently formed Federation and perhaps more violently formed one than The Next Generation and Enterprise would indicate. More recently, the early episodes of Star Trek: Discovery had this thing about officers on board with mysterious black badges... which were 1) clearly seeding something, and 2) never mentioned again.

Me to my wife about once per episode: "But what about the BLACK BADGES!?"

Sometimes you can blame the transformations on character development. But not always. In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's early episodes, Jadzia Dax is portrayed as a serene ancient, above worldly things. By season three, she's a party girl. She didn't change into a party girl; she always was one. The writers figured out what worked with the actor and the ensemble, and leaned into it.

TVTropes of course has a name for this: "Early Installment Weirdness," though I don't think that covers the entirety of it, as these things can keep on changing throughout an entire show. For example, each season of Blackadder is subtly different from the previous one, as Blackadder gets cleverer and cleverer, and the people surrounding him get dumber and dumber. Blake's 7 is a good example of this: the first two seasons are basically of a piece, but season 3 is very different from season 2, and then season 4 is different again from season 3. To the extent that the last two seasons don't even include Blake!

Probably the best example of this is Doctor Who, which has evolved considerably over its thirty-six television seasons and continues to do so, sometimes slowly (witness the way the Doctor's character is slowly redefined across the first two seasons, or how "regeneration" isn't said until eleven years in, and not really implied to be a standard thing until seventeen! Other times, it would evolve very quickly, reminding me of what biologists call "punctuated equlibrium": at the beginning of season seven, the Doctor is suddenly an Earthbound scientific advisor to a military alien-fighting organization, which would remain the status quo for the next few years.

(Most of the shows I've talked about above retool/evolve to good effect, but some shows do it to no effect. I even enjoy reading about this kind of thing in shows I've never actually will never watch: this AV Club article about the mediocre-to-awful sitcom 'Til Death is fascinating.)

All of this is a long wind-up to the fact that Hayley and I are watching Parks and Recreation. We're now in the fourth season, and I've found the show's slow evolution really interesting. A lot of people say to skip the first season, and just start with the second, and that the first is almost a different show, but I don't think is quite true. The first season is really of a piece with the early second; the changes bed in pretty slowly with a couple exceptions.*

The most abrupt change is the character of Mark Brendanawicz. You can make a lot out of the fact that Brendanawicz vanishes at the end of season two-- he takes a private industry job and is promptly never heard from again (literally never even mentioned), even though you think he might, say, drop in to his old pals at the Harvest Festival, or come to April and Andy's wedding. (Maybe he's there, just off screen.) But even between seasons one and two he's retooled slightly; in season one, he's a member of the "boy's club" of City Hall, he's the guy who knows everyone and can get things done, and is maybe a little slimy. This is all completely gone in season two, where he's just "Ann's boyfriend." The show attempts to make something of the idea that he's never been in a committed relationship before, but it doesn't go anywhere.

Actually, Ann is a good example of this too. "Andy's girlfriend" in season one, "Mark's girlfriend" in season two, "Chris's girlfriend" in early season three, and then the show just cuts her loose, letting her exist on her own terms and figuring out who she is, becoming slightly weird, a little too nice, something of a pushover who begins to stand up for herself on occasion.

One of the most striking changes is in Leslie Knope herself, who in the first season is well-meaning but essentially ineffective. She's never even ran a subcommittee before she becomes the chair of the one to turn the Pit into a park, and in "The Banquet" she's a total nonentity when trying to interact with characters from other sections of the government. By season three, not only is she highly competent to the extent that the department falls apart if she takes one day off, but everyone across the whole government knows who she is. And this isn't character development-- we're clearly meant to believe she's always been this way. Similarly, her relationship with Ron evolves over time. Season one Ron is unpleasant and wants her to fail; by season four, they have a charming, understated friendship that I really enjoy.

We're only partway through season four, so I'm not sure how this will all play out-- I am sure there is more to come. (Jerry and Donna keep being given more and more to do, for example, to the extent that Jerry actually had a subplot of his own this season.) I also kind of feel like the show was pushing a subtle retcon when Ben Wyatt (not from Pawnee, unlike most of the cast) pointed out that the city was full of weird people who got passionate about strange things. Earlier seasons, I think, were mostly implying that local government is like this. This hasn't been developed much of late, though, so who knows.

But what I do know is that it all paid off. The last five or so episode of season two felt like a real step up for the series, as the ensemble and characters start to click in ways they haven't, and the show starts to lean into niceness. Plus a real sense of threat emerges when two auditors arrive from the state.

As much as late season two feels like a lift up, the beginning of season three comes and the show suddenly gets super-enjoyable. I mean, I never hated it, but the season one and early season two episodes were often just kind of mildly amusing. This often happens during season breaks, as the writers use their summers "off" to regroup and figure out what works and how to tweak before diving into the next. For example, I know a lot of people claim Star Trek: Deep Space Nine suddenly got good in season three, but they're wrong, it actually suddenly got good with the opening three-parter of season two. The ensemble just clicks in that story, as the writers have figured out all the characters and their places in the world. So too with the opening of season three of Parks and Rec.

Except that, astoundingly, the first six episodes of season three were actually written and filmed with season two, so that the production break could accommodate Amy Poehler's pregnancy.† So while for its original viewers the show got better after taking eight months off, in reality, it literally got better overnight.

* I should also point out, however, that the TVTropes entry for Parks and Recreation's "Early Installment Weirdness" is filled with things that I don't think are actually true.

† Fun fact I learned from Wikipedia: "Time Capsule" was the third episode aired in this batch, but actually the last produced, as it featured the most objects Poehler could stand behind to disguise how pregnant she was.