Taika Waititi’s Open-Hearted Television Empire

One of the most common comedic arcs in twenty-first-century TV is the journey from cynicism to hope. Mockumentaries like The Office, Parks and Recreation, and even Abbott Elementary often begin as pinched indictments of the failing institutions they represent. Characters are moronic villains, lifeless cogs, right-angle bureaucrats, dissociated bystanders, wizened elders, or naïve strivers. But as the show wears on, and as the systems either bend to the will of the optimists or are transformed internally by them, hope enters the screen. An acid tongue becomes a sweet tooth, the meaninglessness of a life under capitalism becomes the profundity of a family forged under its gaze.