NBC's scheduling shuffle banishes Parks And Recreation's Halloween episode to mid-November

By Sean O'Neal | October 21, 2013 | 5:30pm

Aux Features TV

As was reported on Friday, NBC announced the return of Community by also announcing the preempting of Parks And Recreation, thus ensuring the continued balance of good/irritating NBC news that keeps our planet from wobbling off into the sun. Sensing that we may still be getting a little too close for comfort to Mercury, the network today clarified that, not only will Parks not be seen again until Nov. 14, when it will “catch up” by burning off two episodes back to back, that delay means bumping both this week’s scheduled second appearance from Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany, as well as the Parks Halloween episode that would have fortuitously fallen on actual Halloween, were NBC not determined to squander its every good fortune.

And so, in the place of the conclusion of Maslany’s guest arc, this week that 8 p.m. hour will be filled—as NBC would do for all hours of the day, if it could get away with it—by another episode of The Voice. And on Halloween night, rather than see Amy Poehler and Adam Scott in their Princess Bride costumes, as glimpsed above, instead you’ll get a Saturday Night Live Halloween special, so you can see that old Richard Pryor-starring Exorcist spoof again. “As you wish,” NBC said—and Parks fans were amazed to discover that , when it was saying, “As you wish,” what it meant was, “I hate you.”