he was in. Jonah Weiner of Slate magazine declared Swanson "Parks and Recreation's secret weapon" and "vital to the show's improvement". Aziz Ansari, who was particularly acclaimed during the first season for his role as Tom Haverford, received similar praise in the second season as well. Many reviewers were critical of the pairing of Mark and Ann, feeling the couple lacked chemistry and were often the least funny parts of the individual episodes. Entertainment Weekly writer Margaret Lyons called Mark and Ann the show's "Achilles' heel", and Sandra Gonzalez, also from Entertainment Weekly, wrote, "No matter what they do with these two, I can’t help but be bored." Ratings Despite the critical success, the second season of Parks and Recreation continued to suffer in the Nielsen ratings. By December 2009, the average episode viewership was 5.3 million households. The average was lower than the other NBC comedy shows that aired Thursday night along with Parks and Recreation: Community drew an average 6.5 million households, 30 Rock an average 7.3 million, and The Office an average 10.1 million. By February 2010, ratings had begun to improve all of NBC's Thursday comedy shows, especially Parks and Recreation, but the network remained in fourth place among the major networks in Nielsen ratings. By the end of the season, the average viewership for the 24 episodes of season two was 4.68 million, lower than season one's average of 5.45 million households. Awards Amy Poehler was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. The episode "Telethon", in which Leslie frantically stays awake for 36 hours to volunteer for a charity telethon, was her performance submitted for Primetime Emmy Award consideration. This marked Poehler's third Primetime Emmy nomination, having previously received twice for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series during her time on Saturday Night Live. Poehler ultimately lost to Edie Falco for her performance on the Showtime comedy series Nurse Jackie. Also that year, the Parks and Recreation theme song by Gaby Moreno and Vincent Jones was for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music, but the award again went to Nurse Jackie. Parks and Recreation was also nominated for a Television Critics Association Award for Outstanding Achievement in Comedy, and Nick Offerman received a nomination for Individual Achievement in Comedy; the awards ultimately were awarded, respectively, to the comedy series Modern Family and to