Like the previous seasons, it focuses on Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and her staff at the parks and recreation department of the fictional Indiana town of Pawnee.

The season stars Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt, Adam Scott, and Rob Lowe, with supporting performances from Jim O'Heir and Retta.

The third season consisted of several major story arcs, including a complete shutdown of the Pawnee government for budgetary reasons, inspired by the Great Recession.

Other storylines included the parks department's organization of a harvest festival, a romance between Leslie and Ben, and the dating and eventual marriage of Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt) and April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza).

The episodes "Harvest Festival" and "Li'l Sebastian" received particularly positive reviews, as did Nick Offerman in his role as parks director Ron Swanson.

[26][27] Parker Posey, who previously starred with Poehler in the 2009 comedy film Spring Breakdown, appeared in "Eagleton" as Leslie's former best friend and rival official from a neighboring town.

Posey had been in discussions with the Parks and Recreation staff to make a guest appearance since the show debuted, and grew frustrated when it took several months before she received an invitation.

[28][29] Several actors who had appeared in previous seasons of Parks and Recreation continue to appear in the third season, including Ben Schwartz as Tom's cocky and entrepreneurial friend Jean-Ralphio Saperstein;[30] Natalie Morales as bartender and Tom's girlfriend Lucy;[31] Jama Williamson as Wendy, Tom's ex-wife who starts dating Ron;[31] Pamela Reed as Leslie's mother Marlene Griggs-Knope;[32] Alison Becker as newspaper reporter Shauna Malwae-Tweep;[33] Darlene Hunt as conservative activist Marcia Langman;[34] Mo Collins as morning talk show host Joan Callamezzo;[35] Jay Jackson as television newscaster Perd Hapley;[36] Andy Forrest as Andy's frequent shoeshine customer Kyle,[37] and Kirk Fox as sleazy sewage department employee Joe.

[24][39] Comedians Matt Besser and Nick Kroll appeared in "Media Blitz" as "Crazy Ira and The Douche", the hosts of a Pawnee morning zoo-style radio show.

[40] Detlef Schrempf, a retired Indiana Pacers basketball player who played himself in the second-season episode "Telethon", appeared again in "Li'l Sebastian".

[49][50] NBC chief executive officer Jeff Gaspin said this move was not a reflection on Parks and Recreation, and suggested the extended hiatus would not only have no negative effect on the show, but could actually build anticipation for its return.

[47] Series co-creator Michael Schur said the schedule changes were frustrating, but said: "It sounds a little corny, maybe even a little community theater-ish, but when we got the bad news our thinking was to just put our heads down and keep making the best show we could.

[59] The episode was filmed out of sequence from the rest of the season so the weather would be cooler when the scenes were shot; Schur jokingly said if this was not done, "the week that we would have been shooting it was like 148 degrees here and the actors would be dead now".

"[60] After the original broadcast of "Ron & Tammy: Part Two", NBC ran a commercial advertising "April and Andy's wedding registry" on the official Parks and Recreation website.

[61][62] Shortly after the episode aired, HitFix television reviewer Alan Sepinwall wrote that the commercial mistakenly used the wrong names and was actually referring to Ron and Tammy's wedding registry.

[70][71] The festival served as a device to bring all the characters together working toward a common goal, similar to efforts to turn a construction pit into a park during the first two seasons.

Schur also said the writers were fatigued from working on six third-season episodes immediately after the second season, so the harvest festival story arc helped "organize our tired, end-of-the-year brains".

[73] The development of Ben's feelings for Leslie coincide with his growing appreciation for Pawnee; the character never had a firm sense of home due to the excessive amount of traveling with his job, but throughout the season Ben gradually falls in love with the town due to the optimism and enthusiasm Leslie Knope shows for Pawnee and her job.

[36] During the season finale "Li'l Sebastian", Leslie is encouraged by political operatives to run for office, but is asked whether there any potential scandals that could risk becoming public.

[75] The two reconcile in "Media Blitz", which Schur described as a "key moment" in their relationship, "almost like Andy's a Knight of the Round Table, and he's got a lot of different obstacles that he's got to overcome in order to win the love of a fair maiden".

Schur said the decision to have them marry after only briefly dating stemmed from the writing staff's desire to "avoid the standard-issue TV romance plots: fights, other men/women driving them apart, and so on".

They decided a fast marriage was funny, but also made sense because the characters are "two impulsive goofballs who don’t approach their lives in a responsible, adult manner".

[41][76] This was done by placing Jones in a romantic relationship with Rob Lowe's character Chris Traeger, who is so overly-optimistic and seemingly-perfect that Ann has trouble finding any flaws and is taken aback by him.

The storyline is advanced particularly strongly in "The Bubble", when Tom becomes frustrated with an assignment by Chris, and culminates in the season finale "Li'l Sebastian", in which he ultimately quits the parks department to form an entertainment company.

[41][60] "Li'l Sebastian" ends with several cliffhanger twists including Tom's departure from city hall, Leslie being approached to run for office, and the arrival of Ron's first ex-wife Tammy, although the actress who will play her was not revealed.

Schur said the writing staff had a general idea of where the newly introduced storylines should go, but the exact stories had not been completely worked out yet when the episodes broadcast.

"[44] The Parks producers hoped the Office lead-in would bring new viewers, and so the season premiere "Go Big or Go Home" included an introductory sequence that described the previous events of the series.

The show was featured on the February 11 cover of Entertainment Weekly, where it was called "the smartest comedy on TV" and which included the article "The 101 Reasons We Love Parks and Recreation".

[25] "Harvest Festival" received particularly strong reviews,[93][96] with New York magazine writer Steve Kandell calling it the most pivotal episode of the season in terms of "resolving and resetting narrative stakes".

[114] Michael Schur partially attributed the continually low viewership to a decline in ratings for NBC in general, as well as changing viewer trends due to a large amount of available channels.