It’s always a little bittersweet when a show is getting ready to air its final season, but in Parks and Recreation’s case, at least the comedy is getting ready to go out with a bang. This morning, NBC announced that Parks and Rec will begin airing in January and that fans will be treated to back-to-back episodes every week. That’s double the Ron Swanson meat jokes and double Tom Haverford’s wacky enterprise ideas.
If you plan to tune in for Parks and Recreation’s seventh and final season, the new episodes will premiere on Tuesday, January 13, 2015 at 8 p.m. ET. Those who keep track of NBC’s schedule (or at least watch the network’s hit singing competition) should realize this is The Voice’s regular timeslot. Thus, in order to get the full season of Parks and Rec out of the way by the time The Voice returns late in the winter, two episodes will air in a row every week for a month and a half. NBC has decided to spin the fact that the network is throwing a slew of episodes at us for six weeks as a positive. Here’s Bob Greenblatt’s take on the airing.
“In an effort to give it the send-off it deserves, we wanted to ‘eventize’ the final season to maximize the impact of these episodes, which really do take the show to a new level.”
Thus, I’m just choosing to consider it a positive, too. (Seriously, though, why even give the show a final season if you can’t wait to get the episodes out of the way as quickly as possible? “Eventize”—that’s one for the books)
While NBC wants to air those suckers fast, the network is magnanimously allowing the one-hour finale (which seems to have actually been conceived as a one-hour finale) on February 24, and is giving the critically acclaimed comedy the slot after The Voice. Maybe NBC hopes that Parks and Rec will have the same final season trajectory as The Office, which saw its ratings rise when the series finale aired. Also, fans should keep in mind that since The Voice will be back at that point, Parks and Rec shouldn't be airing in the Tuesday 8 p.m. timeslot any longer.
At least the back-to-back episodes should be action-packed. At the end of Season 6, the show took a huge leap and time-hopped three years into the future, so there should be plenty of fun plotlines to delve into revolving around parenthood as well as Leslie’s new career. Additionally, we also recently learned that Rob Lowe, Rashida Jones, Megan Mullally, Jon Hamm and Natalie Morales are definitely coming back. You’ll be able to catch all that and more when Parks and Rec hits the schedule on January 13 at 8 p.m. ET.
