NBC says goodbye to Parks And Recreation the only way it knows how: By randomly changing its timeslot
Here’s what up in the world of TV for Tuesday, February 24. All times are Eastern.
Top pick
Parks And Recreation (NBC, 10 p.m.): For a few glorious years, Parks And Recreation formed part of a Thursday night comedy juggernaut alongside 30 Rock, Community, and The Paul Reiser Show. (Or The Office, depending who you ask. If you ask anyone other than Paul Reiser, really.) Anyway, with 30 Rock and The Office having wrapped up their runs and Community realizing its destiny by moving in with the internet, Parks And Recreation endured as the last ember of that classic Thursday night lineup … so, naturally, it moved to Tuesdays at 8 p.m. for its abbreviated final season, airing two episodes a week for good measure. And now, with just one double-length episode left, it’s moving two hours later than usual to accommodate the return of The Voice. Or it might just be because NBC doesn’t know any other way to say farewell than to screw with this show one last time. Anyway, since it seems silly to mourn the end of a TV show—especially after the death of series writer and recurring player Harris Wittels—join Alasdair Wilkins at this slightly later time to celebrate the end of a comedy classic.
The people’s top pick, now and forever
Person Of Interest (CBS, 10 p.m.): Even the most ardent Person Of Interest fans might be willing to concede this week that Parks And Recreation is a worthy top pick, but we’ll admit the synopsis for this week’s episode makes a damn compelling case regardless: “Reese and Finch protect a street-savvy grifter when her plan to steal money from a medical marijuana dispensary goes up in smoke.” Is the episode also titled “Blunt”? You bet your ass the episode is also titled “Blunt.” Alexa Planje approves of all this.
Also noted
MasterChef Junior (Fox, 8 p.m.): Kind of a big night for finales, actually, as the third season wraps up with two finalists going for a trophy and a $100,000 prize. Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya would like to think that these kid chefs care way more about a cool trophy than some stupid money, and there’s probably at least a 75 percent chance that she’s right. We mean, what kid doesn’t want a cool-ass trophy to show off at school?
Marvel’s Agent Carter (ABC, 9 p.m.): The show wraps up a successful season—hopefully “first” rather than “only,” but no official word yet on whether it’s coming back—with the return of Howard Stark. Now, we’re going to go ahead that this means Dominic Cooper is returning, but we’re kind of hoping the show just randomly swaps in John Slattery as the older, Iron Man 2 version of the character. Hell, Oliver Sava thinks they could get a whole That Obscure Object Of My Desire thing going, with Cooper and Slattery trading off from scene to scene with no explanation. Kids love the Luis Buñuel homages!
Girlfriend’s Guide To Divorce (Bravo, 10 p.m.): This Lisa Edelstein-starring show wraps up its first season, and LaToya Ferguson is on hand to tell us whether the show was worth sticking with.
Regular coverage
Fresh Off The Boat (ABC, 8 p.m.)
New Girl (Fox, 9 p.m.)
The Mindy Project (Fox, 9:30 p.m.)
Justified (FX, 10 p.m.)
Kroll Show (Comedy Central, 10:30 p.m.)
Elsewhere in TV Club
There is just so, so much coming later today, with Caroline Siede taking a look at Agent Carter’s gender politics at 10 a.m., Erik Adams at the same time offering an Expert Witness on what it’s like to have Parks And Recreation film in your house, Will Harris sharing a Random Roles with Girlfriend’s Guide To Divorce costar Alanna Ubach at noon, and Noel Murray taking a quick look at the Barney Miller finale at 2 p.m.. But first, here’s Libby Hill on Parks And Recreation:
Parks And Rec has always been about characters who were resistant to change. In season seven, they fought tooth and nail against familiar surroundings being stripped away, often losing. They fought for the protection of JJ’s Diner and they fought to find April a future in Pawnee. They fought to find the perfect mayorand to be the perfect candidate’s wife. They fought to take out drones and outsmart a multi-billion dollar corporation and, most heart-wrenchingly, toretain the relationships they’d spent years painstakingly crafting. But no matter the outcome, the characters came to understand that change is grace.
What else is on?
TV’s Hottest Commercials Countdown (The CW, 8 p.m.): The Flash is resting up until March 17, and this is what’s replacing it in tonight’s lineup. We guess “a countdown of sexy commercials from across the globe” will be pretty aesthetically pleasing, but The Flash has a character who is both Robbie “Shirtless Nearly As Often As My Cousin Stephen” Amell and Victor Garber, which is pretty difficult to top.
Friday Night Tykes (Esquire TV, 9 p.m.): In case anyone was looking for a distillation of why football is so damn dangerous—not just because of the unavoidable threat of head trauma, but as a social institution—the synopsis for this reality show about young football players lays it out nicely: “Coaches for the Colts begin to question the game’s safety when dealing with a head injury; and parents of Jr. Broncos players question their coach’s gentler brand of football when it doesn’t produce wins.”
Amish Mafia: The First Chapter (Discovery, 10 p.m.): So apparently Tuesday nights are Amish mafia nights on Discovery. We refuse to look up whether this new show is some kind of prequel or something; all we really know is that this latest iteration of the quasi-reality series follows on from 9 p.m.’s original flavor Amish Mafia and 8 p.m.’s Amish Mafia: The Devil’s Cut, which we imagine involves Mila Kunis explaining how the best Amish mafia reality shows are extracted from deep inside the wood of the barrel, or something.
Gangland Undercover (History, 10:03 p.m.): This show about infiltrating the country’s most notorious motorcycle gangs is so intent on establishing its antiauthoritarian street cred that it’s randomly starting three minutes late. Hey man, Gangland Undercover doesn’t have to start on the hour just because that’s what some dumb shopkeeper wants! (Man, we wish we were hassling shopkeepers so bad right now.)
Dallas Buyers Club (HBO, 8 p.m.): As pointed out in the first part of our weekend inventory, this probably wasn’t the most deserving Matthew McConaughey performance to reward with an Oscar. Hell, it might not even crack the top five of best McConaissance movie performances, definitely coming in behind Mud, Magic Mike, and Killer Joe, maybe Bernie, Interstellar, or his brief turn in The Wolf Of Wall Street if you’re feeling a little saucy, and possibly even The Lincoln Lawyer if you’re just looking to start a fight. (And that still leaves True Detective to one side.) But McConaughey is reliably good in this, which makes it worth a look, for all its flaws.
Stoker (HBO Signature, 8 p.m.): Wait, so is this a vampire movie? We’ve been aware of this movie since like two years before it came out, and we’re still really unclear if there are supposed to be vampires in this. You know what, don’t tell us. Some things humanity was just meant never to know. For us specifically, the presence or absence of vampires in Stoker is apparently one of those things.
College Basketball: Wisconsin at Maryland (ESPN, 7 p.m.): The fifth-ranked Badgers have just two losses on the year: one against ACC heavyweight Duke and the other against first-year Big 10 team Rutgers. So how can it expect to fare against a team that is both a former ACC heavyweight and a first-year Big 10 team? Considering Wisconsin has to head to College Park to take on the 14th-ranked Terrapins, this game could get interesting real fast … well, at least as fast as anything involving a Bo Ryan-coached basketball team is ever going to get.
In case you missed it
Star Wars Rebels: This Disney XD show is hurtling toward the end of its season, with last night’s episode kicking off the concluding two-parter. Kevin Johnson has the update on all things rebellion.