In the NBC comedy "Parks and Recreation," Amy Poehler plays Leslie Knope, an upbeat, low-level bureaucrat determined to make the fictional town of Pawnee, Ind., a better place.

Leslie's cheerful, tireless ambition in the face of cynics is echoed by series creators Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, who previously gave us "The Office." And who can blame them? Few industry observers thought "Parks," which launched as a midseason replacement last spring, would survive this long.

First, there were production delays to accommodate Poehler's pregnancy. Then there were the early test screenings and poor scores that landed on the desk of influential Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke, who practically declared the show DOA before its premiere. Many critics said the show was needlessly similar to "The Office" - both in its mockumentary format and naive lead. Not surprisingly, ratings for its six-episode first season were low.

"My sense is that if we had built 'Parks and Recreation' around a 90-year-old Maasai warrior, people would still have said, 'He reminds me of ("The Office's") Michael Scott,' " Schur said. "There was just no way to escape it."

But "Parks," in its second season, has emerged as a critical darling. Time magazine's James Poniewozik, a fan from the get-go, called it a "very very good, very very funny" series that "has found its rhythm" and The Star-Ledger's Alan Sepinwall declared it quite possibly "the best comedy on TV right now."

He could also add "that you're not watching." "Parks" averages a lowly 5 million viewers, which puts it roughly in the same neighborhood as first-season audiences for NBC's reigning Emmy magnet "30 Rock."

The show, as they say in the industry, is gaining traction with the right crowds and already has landed a full second-season order. So what happened between Seasons 1 and 2 that flipped "Parks" from flop to hot?

"We needed to tell a certain number of stories before people got it," Schur said.

It helped that Daniels and Schur (the latter was a writer on "The Office" before moving over to "Parks" full time) had solid track records. Daniels spent several seasons on "The Simpsons" and co-created "King of the Hill" before adapting Ricky Gervais' British hit "The Office," and he and Schur credit stints on "Saturday Night Live" with shaping their comic sensibilities.

Rather than do a straight spinoff of "The Office," as many expected, the pair instead were inspired by the local politics of "The Wire" and the theme of optimism from the 2008 presidential election.

This season Leslie is a little less wacky, but she remains ever-positive about making government work for the people.

"She is a hard worker, very well-read, very intelligent - these are not Michael Scott traits," Daniels said.