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O'Heir, Retta and a few others are good in small doses, which is all the show asks of them so far – particularly Retta who I would like to see used a bit better and more frequently. I'm not a big fan of Ansari, but he is pretty funny here.

FREDDY SPAGHETTI NATALIE MORALES FREE

Jones is funnier and the drifting away from the pit storyline helps her be a more free character now same happens to Pratt, who is more fun once he is working in the department and is able to have good chemistry with Plaza (who gets the balance right between sarcasm and real person just underneath). Same is true of Offerman, who becomes a stronger comedic character the more it plays to his excesses and stereotypes. Poehler continues to be as good as the material and as it improves, so does she. The dropping of Schneider is a good move too since he is less of a funny character and has generally drifted around as a plot device – although it seems rushed, it frees up Ann and brings in a dynamic with Lowe's Chris.

This is different with the addition of Lowe and Scott, both of whom work well within the show and hopefully will be around for a while Lowe in particular gives good 'asides' while Scott seems like he will be used well as a narrative device – certainly they did not feel quite as 'dropped in' as the guest stars earlier in the season. So Will Arnett, Justin Theroux, Andy Samberg and Louis CK all come and go for varying amounts of time but their arrival often seems sudden and when some of them are written out it just occurs with one line of convenience – which backs up the feeling of them not really being in there so much as just lending their names to help out. Some of them work, some of them don't but I did struggle with the feeling of them being marketing-led rather than being really part of the show or episode. On the way it tries quite a few things that I didn't care for, in particular the frequent famous faces showing up as guests. This isn't to say that the first half of the season isn't fun too, but it really did seem to get going better in the second half. Jokes were funnier and hit more frequently characters worked better and/or were made better use of and the cast generally seemed to respond to the material with good delivery and timing. I'm not sure why, but moving into the second half of the season things started to get tighter. The show is funny but in the first half of the season it is sporadically funny and amusing for the rest of the time and some of the material felt a little forced or the characters unnatural.

We retain the same characters and we have some of the same running plots even though we get more into a distinct story- per-week flow which suits the sitcom better. The second season did feel like a massive jump away from that for the most part. When I watched the first season of Parks and Recreation it did not really wow me so much as show potential that it wasn't really fulfilling.

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