'Parks and Recreation' takes over Thursdays for NBC

Just warning you: Later in this story, I mention characters from "Parks and Recreation" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" in the same sentence. So be ready.

"The Office" is still good.  There have been one or two unusually clunky episodes of the NBC standout this season, but as Thursday's "Manager and Salesman" halfhour showed, Greg Daniels & Co. still know how to make us laugh.

However, the series currently stands in contrast to its 8:30 p.m. sibling, "Parks and Recreation," for a pretty clear reason. "The Office" has peeled away much more of its onion, to the point where it just doesn't seem like there's much left to discover about its characters. "Parks," on the other hand, is practically buoyant with new discoveries about its engaging cast each week.

Nowhere is this more illustrated on "The Office" than with Jim (John Krasinski), who has been a sad sack and pawn at work much of the current season. Once the bright light of reason at Dunder-Mifflin, proof you could be goofy and intelligent at once, Jim now seems to stumble on a weekly basis and rarely engineers his own rescue.

It was interesting when "The Office" first noticed a potential parallel between Jim and Michael (Steve Carell) a couple seasons back. Jim also struggled when Ryan (B.J. Novak) leapfrogged him in the Dunder-Mifflin corporate ladder, but at least Jim was fighting back strong.

But last season, Jim's prolonged incompetence in front of temporary boss Charles Miner (Idris Elba) was distinctly out of character and hard to watch. In the current campaign, his impotence with the entire office staff while serving as co-manager became pretty painful, and not in the good "Office" way. A week ago, Jim couldn't even pull it together in front of the operator of a daycare center. The whole process echoed (not as severely, but still) the most aggravating character disintegration in my memory of watching sitcoms — the dumbing-down of anti-intellectual but street-smart Sam Malone on "Cheers" into utter mindlessness.

At the end of Thursday's episode, Jim returned to his old sales job, and maybe that will allow him to find some of his old, happier rhythms. But that doesn't exactly count very much as character development, and character development has historically been the bread and butter of "The Office." Meanwhile, with the possible exception of puppydog romantics Andy (Ed Helms) and Erin (Ellie Kemper), the other Dunder-Mifflinites have been stagnant. 

In contrast, while "Parks and Recreation" isn't necessarily funnier than "The Office," it has — after a rough first season — become the show I can't wait to watch on Thursdays. Everyone on that show, no matter what their exterior is, is interesting and frankly adorable. Leslie (Amy Poehler) and Ron (Nick Offerman) are setting themselves up as the Mary Richards and Lou Grant of the coming decade, while the rest of the cast has cool character arcs (not to mention unique romantic entanglements) that are just getting started. You can't wait to see what will happen next, whereas with "The Office," you start to wonder what they have left to show you.

Even in 8 p.m. NBC comedy "Community," a decent show but not transcendent, they had a crackling moment a week ago in which, with mere glances, every character imagined what it would be like to hook up with each of the other characters. It was just one quick scene, but probably better than any that "The Office" offered an hour later.

To reiterate my initial point, "The Office" is still good. Being less than great is not the same as being bad, not nearly. (The same could be said for "30 Rock": still funny, but struggling against the limits of most of its characters.) But each week there's less and less doubt in my mind that "Parks and Recreation" is where it's at for NBC. Nearly canceled after its first season, the show is poised to become the linchpin of the Peacock's Thursday schedule.