The Messy Messy Parks and Recreation Timeline

[jncar]

I'm sure I'm not the only fan writer in Parks and Rec fandom to be utterly baffled/frustrated/annoyed when trying to figure out the timeline of the show since Ben and Chris arrived. The whole mess derives from the fact that the makers of the show thought they'd be airing in the Autumn of 2010, but were bumped back to mid-season instead

Comments

[annakovsky]

Oh man, valiant work with a clearly unresolvable canon clusterfuck! I think this is the closest to resolved it can possibly be.

Haha, honestly, though, I have chosen to believe that season 3 was just a year that no winter took place, and the months went directly from November to March rather than that there was a 3.5 month gap. They really do not act like that much time has been skipped between those episodes, but also there's no way in fuck that the Harvest Festival took place after, say, November at the VERY OUTSIDE LATEST, so there we are. I just wish the writers would stop, like, PINNING DOWN impossible dates instead of leaving it super nebulous (which it seems like would be their best bet).

(Haha, still so bothered by Leslie saying they were dating a year! BUT IT'S SNOWING. IT IS CLEARLY NOT MAY 2012 IN THIS EPISODE AND YOU JUST SAID YOU STARTED DATING MAY 12th. UGH.)

[jncar]

clearly unresolvable canon clusterfuck!

Best possible description of the situation.

Haha, still so bothered by Leslie saying they were dating a year!

Me too!

[sullen_aquarian]

She was just rounding up. See, May to December is 7 months, which is .56 (roughly) years, which would round up to 1.

Yeah, that's the best I can do.

[rikyl]

Ha ha ha, I've actually theorized something similar at some point. I wrote a post about it back when The Fight aired and it was suddenly spring in Ann's front yard. That year just had fewer months. And whatevs, Indiana, they didn't even follow Daylight Savings Time until 2005, and if I remember right, it was huge fucking deal where everyone was really upset, and I wouldn't be surprised if part of the compromise was just to modify the whole space-time continuum. And the Parks writers can't be held accountable for that.

[sassynach]

My head hurts trying to keep this all straight. God bless you for doing it. :)

[fromahippie]

Kudos for doing this!

[lizinstereo]

This is so confusing. The season three delay totally messed everything. I don't understand why they didn't just do a few reshoots and have the episodes focus on the Winter Jamboree. By the time Mike and Co. found out it was probably too late to do anything. Thanks for trying to make sense out of nonsense.

[jncar]

Yeah, I think they were beyond the point of major reshoots by the time they found out about the whole January thing, hence the current mess.

[anonymous]

However, not to throw another wrench in the timeline, but in the ending tag of Fancy Party, April and Andy talk about going waterskiing. In November? I know we get some crazy warm days in November here in the midwest, but not warm enough to be out in Lake Michigan waterskiing.

[jncar]

Given that the other most likely option for the date of their marriage is late February/early March, when it is ALSO too cold for water-skiing Lake Michigan, there is no solution for this particular conundrum. On this one I'm going to chalk it up to the California-based writers forgetting that most of the country can't do water sports year-round.