When “Parks and Recreation” began airing on NBC in the spring of 2009, audiences weren’t quite sure what to make of it. Coming from the same production team as the American remake of “The Office,” and featuring Jones as one of its co-stars after her season 3 stint on “The Office”, some people may have figured it was a direct spin-off. But when “Parks and Rec” began, the scope was revealed to be different, with Jones playing Ann, a friendly local who ends up helping Leslie on her first major project within the show: replacing a massive pit with a beautiful park. Leslie was initially much more like the early iteration of Michael Scott (Steve Carell) on “The Office”: a self-involved, ridiculous character who is mocked by her coworkers, sometimes to her face. If you stuck with this sitcom through to the end, though, you’ll know that Leslie Knope was far from a figure of ridicule by the conclusion.
The nature of a show like “Parks and Recreation” shifting as it continues is partly what led to Jones leaving the show, along with Lowe, in the middle of the penultimate season. Within the series, the explanation is that Ann and Chris, who have had an up-and-down romance over a few years, are moving to Michigan to start a family. In real life, it was a mix of two factors, neither of which were a commentary on the show’s creative team. In fact, the first of those factors was the writing team, according creator, Michael Schur. “We had the idea creatively to sort of move in that direction and it totally dovetailed and aligned with what the two actors envisioned for themselves in their careers,” Schur said in 2013. “So it’s a big, happy, mutual hug-fest celebration.”
It’s also easy to imagine, though it’s never been fully confirmed, that there was another factor. Despite its passionate fan following “Parks and Recreation” wasn’t a big ratings hit, at least not initially. As Jones explained on an episode of Conan O’Brien’s podcast, the show always seemed to be on the verge of cancellation:
“Every single season, we were like, ‘This is it. They’re not gonna want us back.’ At one point we were canceled and then the president of NBC got off the plane and changed his mind. It was like, ‘Eh, don’t cancel it yet, I guess.'”
Being on the bubble is not wildly outside the norms of network television these days, but it’s hard to envision that being a terribly stress-free lifestyle — especially if the future of your show can be reversed on a whim 35,000 feet above sea level.
