TV Review - Parks and Recreation
Amy Poehler Headlines a New Comedy from Makers of the Office
Apr 10, 2009
Amy Poehler is charging up the fame ladder. She went from long standing MVP status on Saturday Night Live to a hilarious turn as a slacker surrogate mom in the film Baby Mama. She helped develop a top notch kid’s cartoon series, The Mighty B, where she lends her voice to the titile character. And now she’s lead performer in Parks and Recreation a much hyped new comedy from executive producers of The Office.
Poehler, who also has a producer credit on the show, plays Leslie Knope the eager to impress Deputy Director of the Parks and Recreation Department of Pawnee Indiana. In a frumpy wardrobe, Knope valiantly tries to raise the level of enthusiasm of her much jaded co-workers.
“She’s not savvy at all but she’s smart, she’s capable, she works hard. I want her so badly to succeed.” The actress said of the character in the story “Poehler Express” published in the April 10, 2009 Entertainment Weekly. “I just wanna pick her up like a little baby and tell her how to flirt with guys and take her away from the dress barn”
The Series Pilot: Make My Pit a Park
The first time we see Leslie Knope she is crouching down in a playground asking a little girl to rate her overall play experience. She then hilariously works to pry a sleeping drunk from inside a plastic slide.
Later we really see what Leslie is about when she hosts a public outreach community forum beside her libido driven work associate Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari). Knope refuses to get rattled as the complaints from the public get more intense. In an inserted aside to the mockumentary camera she says “What I hear when I’m being yelled at is people caring loudly at me.
In the meeting Leslie Knope learns from local nurse Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones), of a large neighborhood pit where Perkins slovenly boyfriend was seriously injured. From there the balance of the episode deals with the many machinations Leslie must go through to get her surly, apathetic boss (Nick Offerman) to approve her efforts to try and convert the pit into a park.
The Office Comparison: Fair or Foul?
Running back to back on both NBC and Canada's Citytv, made by some of the same people, shot in similar fashion, with an actress who has been on both shows (Rashida Jones); it’s almost impossible not to compare Parks and Recreation to The Office. But does the similarity of the two shows really have to be a negative? There are just two of them. Viewers have found a way to embrace numerous variations of CSI and Law and Order.
While The Office seems to remain the more subversively funny of the two series; Parks and Recreation has one thing the Steve Carrell driven white collar comedy doesn’t have. That’s Poehler, a one of a kind, inventive comedienne who’s impossible to ignore. She’s already well imbedded in Leslie Knope, a sweet natured, naïve character that’s easy to root for.
The Outlook for Parks and Recreation
While it’s not yet known how the initial six episode run of the series will do in the ratings, the impressive lineage of the show and the Poehler factor bode well for a second season pick up. Being snuggled into an NBC Thursday Night comedy lineup with established hits The Office and Thirty Rock doesn’t hurt either.
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