With the complete shutdown of the Pawnee government for budgetary reasons, dedicated government employee Leslie Knope and her colleagues plan their most important project yet: The Harvest Festival. Other series challenges include saving a painting depicting Leslie as a powerful and bare-chested Greek goddess, the search for Pawnee’s missing beloved miniature horse Li’l Sebastian - and a resident’s demand for the Twilight books to be added to the town’s time capsule...

Season three of Parks and Recreation includes another 16 episodes of this mockumentaty series that takes the basic genre idea that was made famous by shows like The Office, and takes it a step further.

The show opens with a story arc that sees the team attempting to convince the powers that be that they should put on the town's annual Harvest Festival event. In addition one couple gets married; one character's ex comes back to haunt him... again; two colleagues start dating and two friends have a huge fight.

Highlights in this season include:

Time Capsule: When Pawnee decides to bury a time capsule, the locals are asked for ideas of what should go in it. When one man's request that the Twilight novels are included is turned down, he handcuffs himself to Leslie's office radiator and refuses to leave until his demands are met. When Leslie finally comes up with a solution to solve the problem, it ends up causing more problems, with everyone in the community wanting to put their favourite things in the time capsule.

Ron & Tammy 2: This is a joy for no other reason than it revolves around Ron and Tammy. Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally (Ron and Tammy) are married in real life, which obviously helps some of their more off-the charts scenes. The scenes of them fighting before making out are hilarious, as are the antics they get up to whilst together. Even though these are shown in short flashback scenes, it's doubtful whether a couple without the same off-screen chemistry could have pulled it off quite so convincingly.

Harvest Festival: The day of the Harvest Festival is finally upon them, but when Pawnee's much loved mascot, a miniature pony called Li'l Sebastian is left in the care of Tom and Jerry it doesn't take five minutes for them to lose him. Everyone spends the rest of the day looking for Li'l Sebastian.

Soulmates: When she joins an online dating site, Leslie is distraught to find that the computer matches her with Tom, with a 98% compatibility rating. Without letting Tom know what she is up to, Leslie asks Tom to lunch to see if they really do have so much in common.

Jerry's Painting: Jerry submits one of his paintings to a local art show. It's of a topless, female centaur who has more than a passing resemblance to Leslie, in addition the tubby little cherub also looks a lot like Tom. While Leslie embraces the painting, several locals feel it is disgusting and demand that it is destroyed.

Li'l Sebastian: Li'l Sebastian has sadly passed away, and it's down to Leslie and her team to put on a memorial service. Tom's friend, Jean-Ralphio has just started his own entertainment production company and Tom convinces Leslie that he would be the man to provide this fitting tribute.

As we've come to expect, this collection has an impressive collection of extras. Extras on disc one include Deleted Scenes (21 min, 47 sec); Gag Reel (23 min, 27 sec, which also include fake ads); Ron & Tammy 2 Trailer (2 min, 04 sec which was also in the Gag Reel, and is a spoof movie trailer); Crazy Ira and the Douche Commercial (26 sec, which again was in the Gag Reel); and audio commentaries on Flu Season (highlights include the fact that this season's funniest gag, for me, where Andy is looking up the symptoms on the computers and informs everyone: "It says here you could have connectivity problems", was actually an ad lib) and Ron & Tammy 2 (where we learn this was one of the six episodes they had to shoot at the end of Season 2, because of Amy Poehler's pregnancy).

Extras on disc 2 include Harvest Festival - Producer's Cut (which has a running time of 26 min, 12 sec when compared with the broadcast episode's length of 21 min, 21 sec); Deleted Scenes (15 min, 35 sec); and audio commentaries for Harvest Festival - Producer's Cut and Camping (which is interesting as it includes lots of different participants from various departments).

Extras on the third disc include The Fight - Producer's Extended Cut (which is 25 min, 02 sec long compared to the broadcast version which was 21 min, 21 sec); Li'l Sebastian - Producer's Extended Cut (which lasts 27 min, 53 sec rather than 21 min, 20 sec of the broadcast episode); Deleted Scenes (10 min, 41 sec); Commercials (3 min, 01 sec spoof commercials which were also included on the Gag Reel); Promos (6 min, 20 sec spoof promos, which are pretty amusing. There's one where Rob Lowe goes nuts, another where Aziz shows the other cast members a new opening credit sequence he's put together, and some of the cast trying to sell to the audience that season three is in 3D - which obviously it isn't); Li'l Sebastian Tribute (2 min, 01 sec which is the full tribute that was in the episode); and audio commentaries on the producer's cuts of The Fight and Li'l Sebastian.

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Darren Rea