'Parks and Recreation' Final Season Premiere Date Announced

At midseason, Parks and Recreation will return for its seventh and final season. But what date will the first of the final 13 episodes premiere?

NBC has announced that the final season of Parks and Recreation will premiere on Tuesday, Jan. 13 at 8:00 PM, just two days removed from star Amy Poehler co-hosting the Golden Globes alongside Tina Fey for the third time. The series will air two episodes per week, back-to-back in the 8:00 PM hour, in the lead-up to its series finale on February 24, which will air after The Voice.

“Mike Schur and Amy Poehler, along with their incredible producers, cast, and crew, have given us one of the great television comedies of all time, and we’re inordinately proud of Parks and Recreation,” said NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt in a statement. “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. The highly-anticipated one-hour finale will air behind The Voice in order to lead the largest audience possible into what promises to be a very special hour of television.”

Parks and Recreation has been a pretty great show, and I'm glad it's getting the chance to have a real conclusion. Last season's big time-jump was a huge surprise, and it's really got me interested in where the series is headed for its final season. It's a shame that NBC has no faith in comedies, otherwise they wouldn't feel the need to burn off these episodes in one month through hourlong airings in the new Tuesday time slot. But they have a lot of new dramas to make room for, I guess. And The Voice isn't going anywhere any time soon either, so I get why the network is doing this. At the very least, I'm just glad the show is getting an ending at all. With the ratings it has gotten, it likely would have been canceled on just about any other network. God bless NBC and their modest ratings standards.

Credit: NBC