the office news

As if this whole Office spinoff mess wasn't convoluted enough...

At the TCA Awards this week, NBC honcho (and the guy behind bringing the OFFICE to the US) Ben Silverman told everyone that the show created by Mike Schurr and Greg Daniels starring Amy Poehler that's going to air AFTER The Office and debut after the Superbowl, isn't, in fact, The Office spinoff show.  To top that off, because of Poehler's pregnancy and SNL commitments, the actual show ISN'T going to be debuting after the Superbowl anyway.

But, says Silverman, there *IS* an Office spinoff that exists... it's just not THIS show, and they have no idea when it's going to air or who it's going to star.  Here's the quote, from The Washington Post:

"Well, fortunately for Amy and [her husband], she's pregnant right now. So the target was to have it be ready after the Super Bowl. . . . So the timing will be tough to be able to turn that show around to fit into the post-Super Bowl slot. It's much more likely we're going to have to launch that in March. What happened was ['The Office' show runners Greg Daniels and Mike Schur] came up with two ideas. One of which is totally a spinoff, which they're pursuing and [is] planted inside 'The Office' and maybe would involve characters who are already on 'The Office' who would then migrate to a new show. And then they developed a different parallel, which was kind of set stylistically and formed by 'The Office' but not characters based in 'The Office,' or storylines based in 'The Office.'

"And, as they pursued both, we decided to put all our energy to get Amy locked in, and she agreed, and then we started a negotiation with her and also focused on making sure that Mike and Greg's creative was something that she really was going to respond to. And that kind of took position A in what Greg and Mike were going to focus on right now. So that's kind of where the process went.

"We're still pursuing the spinoff, but when you get a talent like Amy Poehler at the top of her game coming off what easily could have been a decision to become a full-time movie star, this was a great chance for us to land her, and Mike and Greg and everybody at NBC think she's just the ideal talent to fill out what they're working on."