TV’s warmest sitcom ends with a look toward a bright future. Review by Brandon Wolfe Like many of the great sitcoms, Parks and Recreation had an inauspicious start. Debuting as the new project from the creators of NBC’s The Office , Parks and Rec utilized that series’ mockumentary format in service of examining another collection of kooks in a workplace environment, this time state government rather than a paper company. And in those early days, it was extremely easy to dismiss the show as a needless rehash of a better series that the very same people had already made. Even its protagonist, dedicated public servant Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), initially seemed little more than a female version of Steve Carell’s hapless boob of a middle manager, Michael Scott. Throughout its brief first season, Parks and Rec struggled to carve out its own identity, to make its estimable components amount to more than a limp repackaging of something of which we were already getting a steady diet...