Parks and Recreation: The Complete Series

This collection just did it right. Each season in a separate case, yes. Each disc in a separate spindle, yes. Menus that can be easily navigated, check. Brilliant picture, check. Many extra features, yes.And of course, this is one of the best comedy TV series ever made. If you’re a fan of the show or are interested in the show, this is a no-brainer and an excellent Blu-ray collection. Many TV series collections try to shove everything into some weird case where it’s hard to get the discs out or there’s multiple discs on a spindle and it just scratches everything and the menus are crap. This is not that. Whoever was in charge of this collection was spot on correct in nearly every decision made. Maybe it was Leslie Nope.

Parks and Rec was another mockumentary show from the creators of the US version of The Office. It starred Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, an overeager and chipper worker in the Pawnee Indiana Parks and Recreation department, who wants to do her part to save the world. She is gung ho about civil service, politics, government, etc. In contrast, her boss, Ron Swanson (played by the great Nick Offerman) is a Libertarian who hates government and is only working in government in order to grind it to a halt. The supporting cast includes Aubrey Plaza, who plays the apathetic twenty-something April, her doofus of a crush Andy, played by Chris Pratt, the guy who was always looking for a side gig, Tom, played by Aziz Ansari, Leslie's "best friend" Ann played by Rashida Jones, Donna played by Retta, in later seasons Ben played by Adam Scott, Chris played by Rob Lowe, and Jerry/Larry played by Jim O'Heir.The show is a pretty standard sitcom that has a story or theme of the week that the characters have to navigate. The comedy style is much like the other mockumentary shows like The Office and Modern Family in which the jokes are either set up or performed and then there is some kind of follow-up either a reaction shot of characters in the background or cutting to one of the characters being interviewed by the documentary crew, or something like that. The humor is all over the place given the wide range of acting styles. Ron's humor is much more gruff and deadpan while Leslie's is more chipper and upbeat. Chris Pratt does a great job playing a dimwitted doofus who thinks he is a rockstar, and pretty much everything Aubrey Plaza does is awesome.The complete series set is just the individually packaged DVD seasons in a box set. There is nothing new if you have already purchased the individual seasons. There is also a blu-ray version of the complete series set out there, that from the looks of it, has the same overall content as the DVD set. The big reason to get the physical discs (beyond just preferring them over streaming as many of us do) is for the extras. Each season has a bunch of extras including commentary tracks on many episodes, deleted scenes, gag reels, fake PSA spots, and more. One of the best extras is a great joke that Chris Pratt made during the comeback story scene that cracked everyone up that is included in one of the gag reels.Overall, the series is wonderful. It is very well-written and acted. It did take a couple of seasons to really find its footing and did have some cast turnover after season one. But, once it found the formula that worked it was strong all the way to the end. There were a ton of great guest stars including people like Will Arnett, Tatiana Maslany, Jenny Slate, Patton Oswalt, and even the occasional DC politician. While the entire cast is great, Aubrey Plaza and Nick Offerman were the standouts to me. His scenes with his real-life wife, Megan Mullally, who plays his ex-wife, Tammy II, were pure gold. While it is a show about politics and certainly it was easy to tell the political leanings of the showrunners, it made fun of both parties, Democrats and Republicans alike. And, it holds up well even after having been off the air since 2015. I highly recommend it, especially if you like political comedies.

So, to review the show itself, I tell everyone it's a must watch. It's a little slow in the first season, but trust me, just keep watching. Also, I highly recommend watching it more than once! If you're a fan of The Office, you'll understand. There are so many hilarious moments that you'll pick up on once you know the characters from watching the first time. If you like comedy, you gotta watch this series.As for this specific product and DVD set, I think it's a nice set for the money. The packaging is good and the discs all played flawlessly.

I loved watching Parks when it was on TV but I stopped watching after a few seasons so I wanted to catch up on the rest of the series while rewatching the beginning seasons. This was a great show, extremely funny and well done. I would not put it up with The Office but it has a lot of the same charms (it was done by some of the same team that brought us The Office). This is a bargain at Amazon's price and I would recommend it despite the last couple of seasons not being up to the quality of the first several seasons.

We have begun the series and have not had any issues with the discs playing. It's a funny series with each episode being pretty short, like 20 minute or so. The DVD case that it comes in is the coolest we have ever seen. It's really smart design for longevity, space saving and function. Sturdy plastic box style cover/case with sturdy plastic disc holder inside, that is removable.

I hesitated, because the description listed "one disc".This is in fact a large pack of discs, which includes every episode and extra scenes.Season one is a bust.The cast hits their stride in season two, and there are some pretty funny bits throughout.

Complete series collections are usually a superb money to entertainment time ratio - hundreds of hours per dollar. However, not all packagings are created equal. Sometimes you get one giant spindle with 25 discs (bad). In this case (pun intended) there are individual cases per season and make things alot easier to manage and less likely to scratch up.Of course the content itself is highly recommended as well!

Box set was not split by season's like some of the older pictures but was one disc box containing all disks. The actual disks where in one large "book" that is not secured in the case so they freely move around even when closed. The disks all work, and the show is still the show so it only loses 1 star for such an odd and possibly damaging housing for the disks themselves.