No Sound Television Watching

I chose to watch Parks and Recreation because I had just seen one of the stars host the Golden Globe Awards and I thought she was very funny during the award show and I had never watched her television series.

This show had many different scenes and basically involved a group of women from an office at City Hall and a group of men from the office.  The story line of the women focused on two topics.  One involved a Native American man, and two people with Bulging Burger jackets on and a construction site with the Bulging Burger sign posted.  The interaction with the Native American man showed that they were nervously trying to impress him.  He appeared to have a position of power.  They did not agree with the two people from the burger place because their interaction involved angry faces and a refusal to shake hands when they met at the site.   They were also involved in a story line that involved a bachelorette party and I figured out the main character must be the bride to be because she was wearing a special hat.  During the party the women go out to the construction site and bury Native American artifacts.  That story line ends with construction workers digging up the articfacts and a meeting between all parties involved.  I assumed the Native American man supported the women because they were smiling and exchanged winks and the man and woman from the burger place looked angry. 

 The other story line of the men followed them around to different venues laughing and drinking and at each venue a different one was wearing a Bachelor Boy hat so I assumed they were haing a bachelor party but each person took a turn wearing the hat so I wasn't sure who was actually getting married.  At one point they called the women and were laughing and having a good time while the women were in the middle of their digging adventure and looked like they were responding to the phone call with fake laughter.

When I turned the sound up I understood which man was getting married and realized they were giving each man a chance to wear the hat and pick his favorite place to have fun.  The women's story line turned out to be that they did not want the burger place to go up on sacred Native American land so they buried the artifacts to prove the land was sacred and therefore could not have a burger place built on it (the dialogue also revealed they wanted that land for a playground) and the Native American man was the one who had the authority to decide how it would be used.  And, finally, the men and women were having a competition as to who would have the better party. 

I will have to say that was a very long half hour. Though facial expressions were at times humourous, most of the humor of the show was lost because the dialogue contained the punchlines.  Most of the nonverbal communication involved very pronounced facial expressions which helped create the mood of each scene and reflected the emotions of the characters involved.  I think if I had already known something about the characters and had developed an interest in them before watching it would have been more enjoyable.  As it was, I found myself struggling to keep focused and awake!