The Harvest Festival Detail In Parks & Recreation That Has Fans Scratching Their Heads
"Parks & Recreation" shows how a group of people can come together to make wonderful things happen. Or, at the very least, they can come together to do their jobs somewhat competently to the point of making their constituents moderately pleased.
Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) may have needed to fight her coworkers tooth and nail to get them to do anything, but she served as a shining beacon more times than not. Even when the team faced adversity, she persevered. Viewers could most readily see this following the Season 2 finale when the municipal government had to shut down for three months. When they came back for Season 3, Leslie spearheaded a movement to get the Harvest Festival back off the ground. The long-dormant event was a popular festivity that fell to the wayside, but it came to fruition with Leslie at the helm.
Fans got to see this festival during Season 3, Episode 7, and while the event goes off mostly without a hitch, it's just a tad strange that they don't try to replicate the success in future seasons.
Apparently, the Harvest Festival was a one-off
The Harvest Festival comes together relatively quickly. It doesn't even span the entirety of Season 3, as they manage to put it together in only seven episodes. And in many of those episodes, assembling the Harvest Festival isn't even a focal point; they merely mention it in passing. But luckily, we get one of the best episodes in the series once "Harvest Festival" finally arrives, featuring Li'l Sebastian in all his glory.
Given that it didn't take very long to put together, one must wonder why they didn't turn it into an annual tradition. The last time the festival happened was in 1987, and after some hiccups, it seemingly went off swimmingly. So why not do it again and turn it into an annual thing?
Granted, Leslie had her hands full in the seasons that followed. She ran for a city council position and faced a tough recall cycle as a result. The show probably didn't want to return to a well it had already visited before, but surely, she could've delegated the task of getting the festival off the ground again to someone else. After all, more of Li'l Sebastian is always a good thing.