TVSquad

(S01E01) While at its heart, and based on its creators (Michael Schur and Greg Daniels of The Office), you can't help but compare Parks & Recreation to The Office. They both film in that mockumentary style, they both feature clueless leads, and they have some of the same comic sensibilities. But how many multi-camera family sitcoms were on the air back in the '80s? Seinfeld and Friends clones in the '90s? Crime procedurals in the '00s?

It doesn't matter if a show shares similar traits with another if it has a voice all its own. And as I indicated in my "Early Look" of Parks & Recreation, they even use the documentary-style camera work differently. But the real difference for me is in the work of Amy Poehler.

For a variety of reasons, I decided to not go to the Winter edition of the TCA press tour. So far, my choice to stay in frigid Jersey has been justified; not much in the way of big news has come out of the tour, and it seems like the networks are very happy about that.

However, if I was there, I would have apparently received the pilot script to the new Amy Poehler-led sitcom that's being written and produced by the folks from The Office, as Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette did yesterday. He revealed some details about what the show's going to be about, and they're... interesting.

The show will be shot documentary-style like The Office. In it, Poehler plays Leslie Knope, who is, according to Owen, a "mid-level bureaucrat in the Parks and Recreation Department of Pawnee, Indiana." She works with a local nurse (Rashida Jones) to turn a construction site into a park, and has to battle the usual local-government nemeses at every turn, including those "traffic and noise" complainers and a town official (Aziz Ansari). All the while, she's followed by an intern (Aubrey Plaza) that she hopes to inspire.

One of the more interesting things to come out of the Silverman-Graboff executive session (which I promise will be up later today ... probably this evening) is that, though Amy Poehler has been signed to be in a show produced by The Office's Greg Daniels and Mike Schur, that show will not be an Office spin-off. It'll have the same comic sensibility and style as The Office, but the characters won't be part of the Office universe. However, a real Office spin-off is still in play, and there's potential for Rashida Jones to be a part of it.

Got that? Neither did the critics, who repeatedly asked mostly Silverman to clarify the situation during both the panel and the scrum that followed.

Aziz Ansari seems to be the hottest name around Hollywood casting circles. According to Variety, the stand-up comedian, who's also one-third of the MTV's acclaimed sketch team Human Giant, has been cast in the upcoming Office spin-off. He's also signed a one-year talent hold deal with Universal Media Studios.

What's interesting about this news is that Ansari was also tapped to play one of the new interns on the eighth season of Scrubs, which is produced by and will now air on ABC. What I'm guessing is that, since Scrubs will finish shooting in August, this deal will start after his deal with the veteran medical comedy ends. If there happens to be a ninth season of the show, as Bill Lawrence told me might happen, I'd imagine he'd come back after his Universal deal ends or they'll just replace him with someone else.