A Future Finale for “Parks and Recreation”

Amy Poehler's sitcom returns Tuesday for a goodbye season set in 2017.

Last year's Season 6 finale of "Parks and Recreation" played more like a series finale: The last scene fast forwarded to 2017 with Amy Poehler's Leslie Knope as the mother of toddler triplets working in her dream job as a National Park Service official, surrounded by her hometown Indiana pals – and Jon Hamm as a dimwitted flunky.

It could have been a great ending – only "Parks and Recreation" wasn't over.

The NBC comedy, never a ratings powerhouse, but a favorite among devoted fans and critics, returns for a seventh and final season Tuesday with a back-to-the-future twist. The winning sitcom about a small-town bureaucrat who moves faster than anyone around her sets out to bend time as the clock races toward next month’s farewell episode.

TV history shows that final seasons for situation comedies with major situation changes can prove a tricky business. The introduction of a young cousin in need of a home and the shifting of much of the action to Archie's bar in the last season of "All in the Family" served as an uneasy bridge to the "Archie Bunker's Place" successor series/spinoff. "Roseanne" took an even more radical turn in its final go-around with what turned out to a fantasy lottery-win scenario that obscured sad news for the Conner family. 

"Parks and Recreation" never drew "All in the Family" or "Roseanne"-sized crowds or acclaim. But it's emerged as a strong show of its time, led by Poehler's Knope, an indefatigable do-gooder, wonk and waffle-lover who never loses her hope – or appetite – amid the harsh realities of politics on all levels.

"Parks and Recreation" charms by combining quirk and substance, buoyed by a strong ensemble cast that's yielded breakout performers (Chris Pratt of "Guardians of the Galaxy" fame and stand-up star Aziz Ansari) and breakout characters (most notably Nick Offerman's manly, government-hating bureaucrat Ron Swanson).

Fans have become as loyal to Leslie as she is to her friends, who include Rob Lowe and Rashida Jones’ Chris Traeger and Ann Perkins – both reportedly slated to make return appearances this season, along with Hamm, best known as the star of “Mad Men.”

Even if we know when the series will end, we don’t know how. As Poehler showed in her final Golden Globes hosting stint with Tina Fey this past Sunday, she’s willing to shake things up while saying goodbye.

One thing appears for certain, though, even in Leslie Knope’s Pawnee, Ind., of 2017: Everyday is still Waffle Day. Check out a preview (above) of the final season of a program that started with a quest to make a park out of a hole in the ground and wound up building a sitcom filled with heart and wit.

Jere Hester is founding director of the award-winning, multimedia NYCity News Service at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. He is also the author of "Raising a Beatle Baby: How John, Paul, George and Ringo Helped us Come Together as a Family." Follow him on Twitter.

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