Last night marked the end of NBC’s Parks and Recreation, which ran for seven great seasons. Sure, it never got high ratings, but it did bring the phrase “Treat Yourself” into the lexicon. Let’s see Two and a Half Men invent something that gives you an excuse to go shopping for toys.

Parks and Rec was good for more than just a laugh (although, it delivered plenty of those), it marks the end of an era for network sitcoms as NBC tries to wade in the murky waters of the current TV landscape of streaming and cable. There was something about Parks and Rec that made me feel warm and fuzzy inside each time the opening credits rolled.

But there is something else that sets it apart from all other sitcoms. All of you literary snobs out there might be familiar with the Great American Novel, which is the idea that one book possibly encapsulates the culture and values of the United States. Some think its The Great Gatsby. Others say its The Catcher in the Rye. I say its whatever you were forced to read in English class during sophomore year of high school. Anyway, the idea of America seems to hard to capture in just one thing, but if there ever was a Great American Sitcom, it would be Parks and Recreation.

And why not? If something is going to be “great” and “American,” it might as well be a TV show, which has the luxury of time to explore a lot of huge ideas. And much like our soft drinks and our cars, the idea of America might be just a bit too big.

Parks and Rec is a beautifully uncynical look at American politics, highlighting everything from the inefficiency to the effectiveness of local government. If you have ever attended any kind of public forum, then the town hall meetings depicted on the show, which mainly turned into (sometimes physical) shouting matches, rang all too true. Parks’ satire extended far beyond the reaches of bureaucracy; it always seemed to have a strong grasp on the lexicon. After all, season seven was set in the future and was partially about data mining and drones. From Entertainment 720 to Gryzzl, Parks and Rec was about the only show on television addressing startup culture. That is, of course, until Silicon Valley came along.

Part of what makes this show the Great American Sitcom is that each character inhabits and defines some part of the social or political landscape. Wide-eyed Leslie Knope embodies strength, optimism, and the idea that people actually want to do good things for each other. For years, Ron Swanson was her ideological counterpart. As a libertarian who enjoys hiding out in his cabin in the woods, Swanson is basically Henry David Thoreau by way of Ron Paul. Despite their differing beliefs, the two of them formed one of the truest friendships in TV history. Mainly, they were able to find common ground over JJ’s Diner, a Pawnee institution. Seriously, is there anything more perfectly American than kibitzing in a diner? Edward Hopper probably wants to create a painting about it.

One of the most impressive parts about Parks was its ability to give life to its entire ensemble. Plenty of other American archetypes were present as well. Beloved Jerry (or Garry or Larry or Terry) represents the mentality of doing the least amount of work possible that still gets you paid and home to your family. So of course, he became the mayor. Tom is the worst of the tech bubble, yet for every terrible idea he had, there was one or two that he actually put a lot of thought into. This show had such a bright and sunny point of view that, in the end, Tom’s greatest success ended up being a book he wrote about all of his failures. Few things define the show as well as that.

At first, it might sound strange to label this as the Great American Sitcom. When people look for the Great American TV Show, they probably look right to HBO. Sure, it is just human nature to view the current time as dark and gritty. But Parks and Rec is the show people will look at in the future when they want to feel nostalgic for the 2010s. I am not sure if that is a good thing or not, but it plays into what is so great about this show. Parks and Rec is partially about the America that exists, but mostly about the one that should exist. What Michael Schur, Greg Daniels, and Amy Poehler have put together is an America in which red tape is no obstacle and goals can actually be accomplished. It showed that it takes a lot of hard work to get these things done, but they are not impossible. This is the kind of skeptical optimism not seen anymore. Cynicism is fun and funny at times, but at a certain point it just gets unproductive.

The fictional town of Pawnee which Leslie Knope and her work family inhabits is a special place. Sure, it isn’t perfect. It’s a little unsanitary and it suffers from a candy addiction. The neighboring town of Eagleton seems a lot nicer from a distance. However, Pawnee is a place that all of these people can love and call home both in spite of and because of its flaws. And thus, the most truthful and nuanced view of patriotism came from a sitcom on NBC once meant to be nothing more than a spinoff of The Office. I would say that I want to move to Pawnee, but I feel like I already live there, because Pawnee is both the America that currently exists, as well as what America could potentially become.

Goodbye Harris.

And students…here we see a breathtaking wide shot of product placement. Image via Lifetime

I promised the world that I would review Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever. Nobody asked me to, but still, I said what I meant, and I meant what I said, an elephant’s faithful 100%.

So here I am covering a series of firsts. This is not only the first TV movie I’ve ever reviewed, but one of the first Christmas movies I’ve ever reviewed in the history of this site. And to my knowledge, this is the first movie ever made based on an internet meme. Man, I hate that last sentence.

Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever is based off of the extremely popular Grumpy Cat meme. The cat in question suffers from feline dwarfism, which gives her the trademark grumpy look. Haha, cat diseases, good one. I wasn’t expecting Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever to be a good movie, which is exactly why I added it to my DVR in the first place. However, what I saw on the screen worries me for the future of bad movies.

I am not going to go into a detailed plot explanation because, come on. Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever takes place almost entirely inside a shopping mall. For something with this much guaranteed financial success, it looks like Lifetime barely spent a penny on it. I hold no resentment against the incredibly funny and talented Aubrey Plaza for starring in this as the voice of Grumpy Cat. This will probably give her enough money to fund some cool projects once Parks and Recreation ends and, let’s be honest, it is hard to imagine anybody else doing the voice of the titular cat.

To the movie’s credit, it is at least aware that this is a terrible idea. At the very beginning, Plaza’s voice chimes in and says, “you don’t have to watch it, but you know you’re going to.” This is true; the movie is there, and that means that it must be watched. What do we want? Convenience! When do we want it? Whenever it’s all available online to binge watch! Anyway, while Worst Christmas Ever is very self-aware, it doesn’t do anything good with its meta humor. If you were wondering why exactly The Lego Movie is so good, its because it took a bad idea and actually cared about making it entertaining. Meanwhile, the makers of Worst Christmas Ever (one of them being a relative of the legendary director George Roy Hill), seem to have no idea what exactly an audience is looking for when they choose to watch a movie.

In fact, to call this a movie is an insult to movies everywhere. You know your movie is in trouble when the funniest character in it is a dog who says “I like pot roast” and the best pun it could muster is, “devil’s advo-cat.” If your characters are going to be aware that they are in a movie, then don’t have them look directly into the camera and say “hey! I’m in a movie right now!” I never thought I would say this, but this movie about a cat who is grumpy has some really lazy writing.

The saddest thing about Worst Christmas Ever is that it makes me think that sincerity is dead. When is the next time we will get to see a bad idea with good intentions crumble and fall? Sometimes, we need to let bad ideas gestate without a cat popping up on screen to tell us it’s a bad idea. Sure, it sounds terrible to root for the failure of a movie, but this is how successful cult classics are made. That is why this holiday season, we can all be thankful for Jingle All the Way.

I honestly have no idea who this movie was made for. The trailers make it look like it was made for kids. The sneering attitude of the final product makes it look like it was made for a small group of hipsters that live in Silver Lake. Ultimately, this movie isn’t playful enough for kids or smart enough for adults. Instead, Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever is made for nobody, except for the advertisers that it tries so hard to mock.