'Parks and Recreation' lets Amy Poehler down

I love Amy Poehler. She always made me laugh on “Saturday Night Live” and in her movie appearances.

Sadly, she doesn’t do the same thing in her new sitcom, “Parks and Recreation”—at least not enough. “Parks,” from "The Office" executive producers Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, suffers from humor that’s too subtle and a totally unoriginal approach.

I frankly can’t believe that Daniels and Schur would so blatantly rip off their own show’s use of the mockumentary and make Poehler’s character, Leslie Knope, just as delusional as Michael Scott.

The clueless Knope is mid-level bureaucrat in the Parks and Recreation Department of Pawnee, Ind., who compares herself to Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. She wants to move forward in politics, and plans to do that park by park. In the pilot, she awkwardly tries to help a citizen (Rashida Jones) turn an abandoned construction pit into a park by enlisting the help of people in her office.

Unfortunately, those characters aren’t as colorful as “The Office” crew, and the writing on “Parks” isn’t as sharp as that show.

“Parks” is a big letdown at this point, and mostly for Poehler.