Michael Newman’s Beat Theory: Parks and Recreation
Humanities
Parks and Recreation:
“Flu Season”
Season 3, Episode 2
1) Type up a beat sheet listing the beats for the episode (Roughly 20) . 2) Type your formal two paragraph analysis. In the first few lines, set up the intro to Michael Newman’ and his Beats theory (mention the title of article***From Beats to Arcs: Toward a Poetics of Television Narrative***, out it in quotation marks; use his full name in intro, then his last name only thereafter; the first sentence of second paragraph should be about how Newman’s theory applies to the beat structure of this episode. Explain how beats theory helps illuminate your reading of this specific sitcom, and this particular episode. Then in the next paragraph, apply the concepts by explaining how the comedy works through a series of beats, and the specifics of the function of different beats in the storytelling for this kind of TV show. Specifics from Newman should come back in to sentences in the second paragraph, and you should offer analysis not just listing of beats in that paragraph. Why are the beats in the order they are in; what is the function of each, etc.
