'Parks and Rec' takes its final leap, into the future

By Patrick Ryan | USA TODAY

Seven seasons of laughs, tears and waffles are drawing to a close, as beloved cult comedy Parks and Recreation embarks on its final run Tuesday (NBC, 8 p.m. ET/PT).

But when fans return to fictional small-town Pawnee, Ind., for a shortened batch of 13 episodes (back-to-back each week, ending with an hour-long finale Feb. 24), things are bound to look a little off, thanks to a time jump at the tail end of Season 6 that finds Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and friends living and working in 2017.

"It's funny, like Parks and Rec now has a very necessary and real special-effects department," says Adam Scott, who plays the lovably nerdy Ben Wyatt. Futuristic flourishes such as mail-delivery drones and hypothetical celebrity news aside, Ben now has triplet toddlers with Leslie, who runs a branch of the National Parks Service out of Pawnee.

As for the necessity behind the time jump, "we didn't feel it'd be too interesting to tell stories like, 'She's got triplets and they're babies and it's exhausting and she's up all night!' " co-creator Mike Schur says. "So we were just like, 'We can just fast-forward all of that stuff and make this creative jump.' ... We knew it was going to be our final year, too. It's a move you make when you know you're reaching the end."

At the beginning of Season 7, Leslie tries to rally the old Parks Department troops to do one last big project for the town; the last few episodes are focused on tying up loose ends and saying goodbye to the show's many colorful personalities. But for Poehler, it's less about bidding farewell and more about saying thank you to her sunny, decidedly feminist character.

"She was always so fearless and optimistic and inclusive, and she just was the kind of character that you couldn't be in a bad mood if you wanted to play her," Poehler says. "She would often get me out of my own head and remind me what was important and what to focus on. I'm going to miss that, just selfishly, getting to play someone who's open and pretty straight-ahead. That was a lot of fun and it was just good for my heart."

Over the series' 125 episodes, Parks has helped launch the careers of many of its young cast, including multi-franchise star Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy), deadpan comedian/actress Aubrey Plaza and spry stand-up comic Aziz Ansari. It has also turned Nick Offerman into something of an Internet sensation, thanks to his character Ron Swanson's choice words of wisdom on manliness, woodworking and breakfast food.

But even more than Ron's "Pyramid of Greatness" chart or saxophone skills as alter ego Duke Silver, fans have come to cherish his friendship with Leslie, which has been the glue that's held Parks together since the start.

"It seems clear, the main reason would be because the actors are just inescapably attractive," Offerman jokes. "When you see beautiful animals in proximity to one another, you can't help but feel a deep and abiding love for them. And then once you get past the superficial attraction, I think it was just the way the show evolved. Ron and Leslie were sort of a de facto mom and dad to the gang, and the cast of the show really became a family."

And if fans got weepy watching Ben and Leslie's wedding in Season 5, or Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe) and Ann Perkins' (Rashida Jones) sayonara to Pawnee last season, they may want to brace themselves for more waterworks in the episodes ahead, Schur says.

"You'll get a healthy dose of those moments spread out through the whole (season)," Schur says. "Many episodes have a dual message in them, which is both the characters wrapping up things in their own lives, and it's being written and acted by people that are wrapping up something in their own lives."

The finale, in particular, "is really special and really funny," Poehler says. "Our show had a lot of heart, but at the end of the day, it was just about characters and jokes. So I'm proud that we continue to do that."