The third season of "Parks and Recreation" originally aired in the United States on the NBC television network between January 20 and May 19, 2011. Like the previous seasons, it focuses on Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and her staff at the parks and recreation department of the fictional Indiana town of Pawnee. The season featured 16 episodes, most of which were approximately 22 minutes long each and aired at 9:30 p.m. on Thursdays. The season stars Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt, Adam Scott, and Rob Lowe, with supporting performances from Jim O'Heir and Retta.
All of the members of the original cast returned for the third season except Paul Schneider, who previously played city planner Mark Brendanawicz. Rob Lowe and Adam Scott, who appeared as guest stars in the second season, began season three as regular cast members playing Chris Traeger and Ben Wyatt, respectively. The season also featured guest appearances by Megan Mullally, Will Forte and Parker Posey, among others.
To accommodate Amy Poehler's pregnancy, the first six episodes of the third season were filmed immediately after season two wrapped so they could be saved for a projected an air date for September 2010. However, after the episodes were finished, NBC postponed the season premiere until January to accommodate their new series, "Outsourced". The third season consisted of several major story arcs, including a complete shutdown of the Pawnee government for budgetary reasons, inspired by the Great Recession. Other storylines included the parks department's organization of a harvest festival, a romance between Leslie and Ben, and the dating and eventual marriage of Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt) and April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza).
As in the previous season, "Parks and Recreation" was critically acclaimed during its third season, and was declared by several reviewers to be one of the best comedies on television. "Entertainment Weekly" featured it on its cover in February 2011 and declared it "the smartest comedy on TV". The episodes "Harvest Festival" and "Li'l Sebastian" received particularly positive reviews, as did Nick Offerman in his role as parks director Ron Swanson. "Parks and Recreation" received its first nomination for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for its third season, and Poehler received her second nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Nevertheless, "Parks and Recreation" continued to struggle in the Nielsen ratings and averaged about 4.75 million household viewers per week.
Episodes.
† denotes an extended episode.
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Production.
Cast.
Almost the entire original cast from season two returned for the third season, including Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza and Chris Pratt. The only permanent cast member not to return was Paul Schneider, who previously played city planner Mark Brendanawicz. Schneider departed from the series at the end of season two. Jim O'Heir and Retta, who made regular appearances as parks employees Jerry Gergich and Donna Meagle during the first two seasons, were considered members of the regular cast starting in season three, although they still do not appear in the opening credits. Adam Scott, who portrayed state auditor Ben Wyatt in the final two episodes of the second season, became a regular cast member starting in season three, and Rob Lowe, who appeared in the same two second-season episodes as state auditor Chris Traeger, also joined the cast in season three. Lowe was originally meant only to make a string of performances in seasons two and three and then depart the show, but he instead become a regular cast member starting with the third season, having signed a multi-year contract to remain on the show. After actor Charlie Sheen was fired from the CBS comedy series "Two and a Half Men" in March 2011, rumors circulated that Rob Lowe would depart "Parks and Recreation" and replace Sheen, but they proved unfounded.
Nick Offerman's wife Megan Mullally, who previously played Ron Swanson's ex-wife Tammy in the episode "Ron and Tammy", reprised that role in "Ron &amp; Tammy: Part Two", and briefly appeared as the character in the season finale "Li'l Sebastian". Will Forte, a comedian who previously starred on the sketch comedy series "Saturday Night Live" along with Amy Poehler, guest-starred in "Time Capsule" as a Pawnee resident demanding the "Twilight" books be added to the town's time capsule. Parker Posey, who previously starred with Poehler in the 2009 comedy film "Spring Breakdown", appeared in "Eagleton" as Leslie's former best friend and rival official from a neighboring town. Posey had been in discussions with the "Parks and Recreation" staff to make a guest appearance since the show debuted, and grew frustrated when it took several months before she received an invitation.
Several actors who had appeared in previous seasons of "Parks and Recreation" continue to appear in the third season, including Ben Schwartz as Tom's cocky and entrepreneurial friend Jean-Ralphio Saperstein; Natalie Morales as bartender and Tom's girlfriend Lucy; Jama Williamson as Wendy, Tom's ex-wife who starts dating Ron; Pamela Reed as Leslie's mother Marlene Griggs-Knope; Alison Becker as newspaper reporter Shauna Malwae-Tweep; Darlene Hunt as conservative activist Marcia Langman; Mo Collins as morning talk show host Joan Callamezzo; Jay Jackson as television newscaster Perd Hapley; Andy Forrest as Andy's frequent shoeshine customer Kyle, and Kirk Fox as sleazy sewage department employee Joe. Eric Pierpoint appeared in "Ron &amp; Tammy: Part Two" and "Eagleton" as Hugh Trumple, chief of the Pawnee police department. Comedians Matt Besser and Nick Kroll appeared in "Media Blitz" as "Crazy Ira and The Douche", the hosts of a Pawnee morning zoo-style radio show. Besser had previously been on the sketch comedy show and troupe "Upright Citizens Brigade" with Poehler. Detlef Schrempf, a retired Indiana Pacers basketball player who played himself in the second-season episode "Telethon", appeared again in "Li'l Sebastian". Jonathan Joss, who previously voiced John Redcorn in the animated television series "King of the Hill" — which was co-created by "Parks and Recreation" co-creator Greg Daniels — guest starred in "Harvest Festival" as the local Native American tribe leader.
Filming.
Toward the end of production on the second season, lead actor Amy Poehler became pregnant and the producers of the show were forced to go into production on season three early and film an additional six episodes to accommodate not only Poehler's pregnancy, but also a projected September 2010 air date. Amy Poehler said the cast was "a little fried" by the intense shooting schedule, but that the addition of Adam Scott and Rob Lowe to the cast provided an energy boost. Since Poehler was six months pregnant at the time of filming the first six episodes, she was often strategically placed behind items to conceal her belly. Although the third episode to be shown, "Time Capsule" was the last of these six episodes to be filmed because the story presented the highest amount of props to place Poehler in front of objects to hide her pregnancy, most notably the time capsule itself.
However, NBC eventually opted not to put the show on the fall schedule, and instead delayed the premiere of the third season until the beginning of 2011. This allowed for the network to run its new comedy, "Outsourced", in two-hour comedy schedule block rather than "Parks and Recreation". The schedule change meant that all sixteen episodes from the third season would be filmed before any of them were shown; the rest of the episodes, starting with the seventh, were filmed in the fall of 2010. NBC chief executive officer Jeff Gaspin said this move was not a reflection on "Parks and Recreation", and suggested the extended hiatus would not only have no negative effect on the show, but could actually build anticipation for its return. Series co-creator Michael Schur said the schedule changes were frustrating, but said: "It sounds a little corny, maybe even a little community theater-ish, but when we got the bad news our thinking was to just put our heads down and keep making the best show we could." Amy Poehler said of the hiatus, "It was an NBC decision and certainly we were confused. But I think, weirdly, there's a momentum that comes from people waiting for us, which is nice." Poehler also said it gave them the luxury of time to go back and reedit episodes or shoot and add new material.
As in previous seasons, filming of the third season of the series included a large amount of improvisation from the cast. For example, during one scene in "The Fight" in which almost the entire cast becomes intoxicated at the Snakehole Lounge bar, each actor spent about two days on their own filming their own individual scenes. Much of the filming was improvised, including shots used in a montage sequence that showed how drunk each character had become by the end of the night. Amy Poehler described the filming as "the most fun I've ever had". Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally also improvised a great deal of their scenes during the filming of "Ron &amp; Tammy: Part Two". The third season continued to use several visual and camera techniques that had been introduced in past seasons. In the past, Poehler would improvise several different jokes during a take, and they would be intermingled into a montage of jump cuts featuring many of the jokes. That technique was used prominently in "Indianapolis" during a scene in which Leslie comforts Ann with stories about multiple times Leslie was dumped in the past. The same technique was used by Aziz Ansari in "Soulmates", during a scene in which Tom describes many slang nicknames he has given to foods, and in "The Fight", in which Tom describes many strange entrepreneurial idea he has come up with.
The "Harvest Festival" episode featured an elaborate festival setting and corn maze sets. Due to budget restraints, the "Parks and Recreation" set department did not build the set, but instead used a real-life setting at Los Angeles Pierce College, a community college in California which holds an annual festival event. Michael Schur said the aerial shot of the harvest festival at the end of the episode was the most expensive shot in the entire series. The episode was filmed out of sequence from the rest of the season so the weather would be cooler when the scenes were shot; Schur jokingly said if this was not done, "the week that we would have been shooting it was like 148 degrees here and the actors would be dead now". The Eagleton public forum scene in the episode "Eagleton" was shot at the Toluca Lake Sports Center in the Toluca Lake district of Los Angeles. The season finale "Li'l Sebastian" saw the introduction of the headquarters for Tom and Jean-Ralphio's new company, Entertainment 720. The setting was a completely white room with modern decor and unusual furniture, and Michael Schur described the setting as, "Maybe the craziest thing that's ever been on our series ... It's truly nuts. It's like a hallucinogenic nightmare."
After the original broadcast of "Ron &amp; Tammy: Part Two", NBC ran a commercial advertising "April and Andy's wedding registry" on the official "Parks and Recreation" website. At this point in the season, April and Andy were separated and had not yet reconciled. Shortly after the episode aired, HitFix television reviewer Alan Sepinwall wrote that the commercial mistakenly used the wrong names and was actually referring to Ron and Tammy's wedding registry. However, after "Andy and April's Fancy Party" aired, Schur admitted the commercial was intended to run with that episode, but ran with "Ron &amp; Tammy: Part Two" due to an error by NBC employees: Schur said afterward, "We sincerely hope that fans of the show are cool with us gently lying to them, in an effort to maintain the surprise nuptials as much as we could."
Writing.
The financial difficulties Pawnee experiences during the third season were reflective of the Great Recession facing the nation and much of the world when the episodes were produced. The idea of state auditors visiting Pawnee, and the subsequent government shutdown, were inspired by news reports at the time of a number of states that were considering a shut down of schools, parks and other services due to the global recession. Amy Poehler described one of the early themes of the season as Leslie Knope trying to maintain her optimism about public service in the face of economic cutbacks and cynicism