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SCRANTON, Pa. -- Bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica. We may be getting more of all of those things. NBC is in the process of creating an "Office" spin-off series centered on Dwight Schrute.
"Schrute - played by Rainn Wilson — would conceivably return home to the family beet farm and bed & breakfast," reported Lynette Rice of Entertainment Weekly's Inside TV. "A backdoor pilot would air later this season and take place at the Schrute Farms. If picked up to series, the show would likely air as part of NBC's midseason lineup in 2013."
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NBC had to overhaul the show at the end of last season after the star of "The Office", Steve Carell, decided to throw in the towel. The show has beefed up Wilson's role and added James Spader to the cast, but that doesn't seem to be enough.
"So far, the strong ensemble cast has struggled to find its legs without Carell's outrageously clueless Michael Scott to ground them and average ratings have slipped down by more than a million viewers since last season," wrote MTV's Gil Kaufman.
The spin-off is the brainchild of Wilson and his Office co-star and friend, Paul Lieberstein (Toby).
"Paul and Rainn have been joking for years about Dwight's life on the farm, his family and how ill-suited he is to run a B&B," a source close to "The Office" told Nellie Andreeva of Deadspin.com. "A while ago, it started to feel like a show to them. NBC agreed, it's been further developed to include multiple generations, many cousins and neighbors."
The NBC hit is in its eights season, but a ninth is still a question mark.
"'The Office' has not been picked up for a ninth season," Lacey Rose of the Hollywood Reporter wrote. "Though given the show's legacy and younger male appeal as well as the health of the network, a renewal seems very likely."
While that's true, I'm pretty confident that if the show lost Wilson's Schrute to his own show and adding the recent loss of Carell's Scott that the show would die a quick ugly death.
We will just have to wait and see if Schrute farms will invite us into their creepy dysfunctional home on a weekly basis, but I hope they do. "The Office" has been losing team for the past few seasons and a karate chop to the jugular and a warm glass of beet juice may be just what the doctor ordered.
