Chris Pratt talks end of 'Parks and Recreation': 'I think people are ready for it to be done'

Parks and Recreation type TV Show network NBC

Chris Pratt will officially become a big time movie star with today’s release of Guardians of The Galaxy (my personal pick for best film of the summer). And considering that GOTG is coming on the heels of The Lego Movie and will be followed by next year’s sure-to-be-massive Jurassic World…well, let’s just say Pratt (who stars in all three) has a lot of things to talk about. And we talked about all of those things when he stopped by the Entertainment Weekly Radio (SiriusXM, channel 105) studio this morning. But we also wanted to chat with Pratt (hey, they rhymes!) about the impending ending (again, rhymes!) of NBC’s Parks and Recreation, which will sign off after one final season. So how does Pratt feel about gearing up for the last go round in Pawnee?

“I feel sad,” says Pratt. “It’s my home. I mean, mostly I’m excited because we’re going to start in two weeks and so I’m just thrilled to get back to work and be back home with my friends and my family on that show.”

But while there is a sadness that the wild ride is soon coming to end, Pratt also says that the show is better off exiting now rather than overstaying its welcome. “I think people are ready for it to be done,” says Pratt of the people who put the sitcom together. “The creatives, they have been working very, very hard. They’ve done what 130, or 150 episodes or something like that? And so that’s a lot of work. Day in and day out they’re writing episodes and trying to create stories that can somehow stay fresh with this same core group of characters.”

The way Pratt sees it, there are only so many hijinks his lovable children’s party entertainer Andy Dwyer can take part in before it becomes old hat. “They’ve done a tremendous job, but eventually you just run out of stories to tell about these characters without it becoming hackneyed and becoming sort of jumping the shark and turning into something that wouldn’t honor the characters. So I think everyone just got together and decided, hey, we’re going to give this thing the ending that it deserves and give the fans something that they can really enjoy — complete the stories for these characters.”

And Pratt believes that setting that ending in advance at the conclusion of this upcoming seventh season will alow the writers to work towards a finish everyone can feel happy about. “You know, every season we were on the bubble,” says Pratt. “They never knew if we were coming back so they never knew if they were writing a series finale or a season finale. This year they’re going to know they are writing a series finale so I think they can really look at it as a graceful and appropriate ending to a wonderful show full of characters that we all loved playing.”

But does Pratt know what that ending is? “Dinosaur attack,” he reveals. “Jurassic World crossover. They are killed by dinosaurs — in space, incidentally.” Of course they are. In any event, listen to Chris Pratt talk about the end of Parks and Recreation by clicking on the audio player below.