Introducing the 'Untitled Greg Daniels-Mike Schur-Amy Poehler Non-Spinoff'

Amy Poehler will be starring in an NBC comedy from Greg Daniels and Mike Schur, executive producers of The Office.

It is not a spinoff of The Office. It will premiere sometime in early 2009, probably, but probably not after the Super Bowl. It may or may not co-star Aziz Ansari. There may yet be a spinoff. Oh, and Rashida Jones somehow figures into things too.

These are the facts as reported by NBC co-chairman Ben Silverman, who faced the Television Critics Association Monday morning and tried to explain the short but convoluted history of the project.

The network initially announced an Office spinoff at its "infront" presentation to advertisers in April. There was no set premise and no stars, but it had a premiere date following the Super Bowl in early February. Speculation swirled for weeks about whether the show would be a straight spinoff involving characters on the current show or a "planted spinoff" involving a new character who'd be introduced on The Office and then move on, a la Laverne & Shirley (Happy Days) or The Jeffersons (All in the Family).

As it turns out, the show with Saturday Night Live star Poehler will be neither of those. It will instead be a completely separate show created by Daniels and Schur that may feel stylistically similar to The Office but will have no on-screen connection to it. There's little information beyond that; Silverman says Daniels and Schur want to get a few more pieces in place before revealing any more details about the show.

Silverman also says that a proper Office spinoff is still in the works. Daniels and Schur were working on both a spinoff idea and one that developed into Poehler's show, and when it became clear she was interested that idea got pushed to the fore. When and if a spinoff happens, it's possible that a character or two from The Office would move on, along with a new lead that would be introduced in the show.

On the casting front, Silverman says that Ansari has essentially become part of the Greg Daniels Players. A story floated last month that he'd been cast in the spinoff, but Silverman says the producers haven't settled on a place for him yet. "What we did is we've brought together a couple of [actors], and we're deciding whether they'll go into a spinoff, into the mothership where they'd be planted and then go into a new show, or part of the Amy Poehler show."

As he puts it, "We're trying to build this kind of creative greenhouse with Greg, with Mike Schur, with the actors and actresses on The Office, with Amy, with Aziz, with Rashida. ... If The Office can give us the Amy Poehler show and then give us a spinoff, if it can give us Rashida and Aziz, if we can use it an environment where we can draw the best talent, then we're really excited to do that."

Wait -- Rashida Jones? "Rashida is in the mix too," Silverman says, adding that she's under contract with NBC Universal.

Just when all of this might hit the air is also an open question. Since Poehler is due to have a baby in the fall, it's unlikely her show would be ready in time for a post-Super Bowl slot; it's more likely to come along sometime in the spring. As for what will air after the Super Bowl, Silverman says "some iteration of The Office" will probably get the coveted slot, but the network is also waiting to see how things shake out in the fall.

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