The final press conference for “Parks and Recreation” Friday at the TV Critics Association winter press tour was less a sad occasion, the way the one for “Mad Men” was, and more a chance to appreciate what the network chief called “one of the best shows that has ever been on television.”
Accordingly, the network said it has deals with Amy Poehler, the star of the show that is calling it quits after seven seasons, as well as “Parks” creator Mike Schur and is working with Aziz Ansari on future series. With Poehler, Schur and Ansari joined on the panel by Chris Pratt, Adam Scott, Jim O’Heir and Retta, there was less speculation about how the series would end and more a quiet recognition about what they achieved and how.
Still, someone asked whether the cast would all gather at the finale.
“Everyone is there at the end,” Schur said. “I haven’t edited the episode yet, but, like, the last moments of the show are everybody in the same place at the same time.”
But before that, Poehler added, “We do say goodbye to some of the people in the town…some ancillary characters. We get to a lot of them get to say goodbye in different ways, by leaving — or dying.”
One odd ending they’ve toyed with is having Andy become mayor.
Ever since he graduated from what he called the “douchey guy” in the pit in season one, Pratt’s character has worked himself up.
“He became a shoe shine guy because we started early on in season two [thinking] about how if we stayed with him for a long time, he was going to be this real Horatio Alger kind of guy,” Schur said. “We were like: the end of the show is Andy is the mayor.”
There will be little salutes to what Shur calls “people who have been close watchers of the series.” But, he adds, “what’s important is to keep those things in the margins a little bit and make them more Easter eggy and like little hidden treats than moving them to the center of the show.”
That’s because throughout its run, he said, “the goal is always to do a good funny half hour of television that is relatable.”
Shur says he’s glad the show ended on their own terms. “As we were heading toward the second half of season six, it was. ‘I feel like it’s one more year, and I feel like it’s a short year.’
“And I remember Amy going like, ‘Yeah, I think that’s right.’ That’s just what we felt in our guts was the right move.” The network quickly agreed.
So it wasn’t about network cancellation or an actor wanting to leave.
“It was a pure internally generated gut feeling of like: this feels like the way to go,” said Schur, who added that as he is editing the final three episodes, he’s been reflecting “how lucky we’ve been this whole journey and how few people get to be in our position where we get to do what we want, as long as we want, and end it on our own terms. We feel very, very fortunate about that.”
Along the way, they’ve enjoyed a wide range of fans, including, Poehler said, including a lot of young fans.
“I can’t tell you how many people have 15-, 16 year-old kids who watch it with [their parents]. I think that’s really great to have a show you both find funny. I imagine when you have a 15- or 16 year-old child, it must be nice to find one thing that you agree on that’s funny. So there’s like a family element to the watching of the show that’s been really nice, and I do think that the characters are characters that the viewers have really grown to love and care about, care about what happens to them, which is due to the writing and actors who inhabit them.”
One key thing about the show has been its civic-mindedness, Shur says.
“Part of what makes Leslie Knope a very hopeful and optimistic character is that her chosen field was to preserve public spaces for the community,” he said. “That was why Greg Daniels and I chose this as her job, because like that’s the essence of if government can do good, that’s when it does good is when it finds ways to hold communities together and present ways for people to meet each other and shake hands and walk their dogs and get to know each other and know who their neighbors are and who the people in their town are.”
The actors enjoyed working there so much, they were never lured away even though Aziz Ansari was selling out Madison Square Garden with his standup and Pratt was becoming a big movie star in “The Lego Movie” and “Guardians of the Universe.”
“I don’t care how much money someone would offer me or what I could be offered, I wouldn’t abandon ship,” Pratt said. “This team was awesome, and the process of making this show spoke to me and was so perfect for me like the way I like to work. Like it’s loose, and it’s fun, and you get to try something new every take, and you get to you have the opportunity of making Amy Poehler laugh or making Adam Scott laugh or making these professional people …
“Professional grumps, sounds like,” Poehler said.
Schur says he doesn’t worry about the extra scrutiny given to a series finale and the notion it has to sum up or surpass all that came before. He said a finale is “less of a question of trying to guess what an audience is going to like and more a question of trying to honor the characters and the show and the plot lines and trying to do something that we think is good and let the chips fall where they may.”
The much criticized “How I Met Your Mother” finale last year was fine, because it’s how those makers wanted to end the show. “’The Sopranos’ ending to me is one of the greatest moments in the history of filmed entertainment,” he said, “and a lot of people will like tell you why it stinks.”
A good show with talented people and good writing “gets noticed most of the time,” Poehler said. So all that’s left for people in a show to do, she added, was “put your head down and control what you can control, which is the work and the quality of the work and the people you work with and how you work.”
Sounds like something Leslie Knope would say.