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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Can Dwight turn beets into TV gold?

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 01/28/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Rainn Wilson (PAUL DRINKWATER/NBC)

TV viewers may be seeing many more bears and beets on the small screen, as NBC is reportedly considering a Dwight Schrute spinoff of The Office.

According to Deadline.com and E! News, the series would see Schrute (Rainn Wilson) return to his family beet farm and bed and breakfast, with what's called a "backdoor pilot," an episode that runs during The Office's time slot to gauge audience reaction. If the series is picked up, it will likely air as part of NBC's midseason replacement lineup in 2013.

"(Writer-director-actor) Paul (Lieberstein) 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 told Deadline. "A while ago, it started to feel like a show to them. NBC agreed (and) it's been further developed to include multiple generations, many cousins and neighbours. At its base, it will be about a family farm struggling to survive, and a family trying to stay together."

The website reports that Wilson and Lieberstein came up with the idea which, if green-lit, would see Wilson stay on with The Office next season (assuming it's picked up, of course) before branching out.

But not everyone is sold on the idea. Writing on Grantland.com, social commentator Andy Greenwald channelled the fears of many commentators. "While sitcom spinoffs have a long tradition at the peacock network, for good and ill, it's hard to imagine this succeeding, precisely for the same reasons that Wilson wasn't given the top job on The Office," Greenwald wrote, noting NBC's dire need to milk its few ratings successes.

"Dwight, while a wonderfully realized comic character, is a foil, not a star. His unpleasant eccentricities work best when others are reacting to them, not when they're driving the plot. Network yeasayers will no doubt point to Frasier as an example of a long-running show seguing seamlessly into a new iteration, but the comparison doesn't hold (beet) water."

The news has yet to be confirmed by NBC. Wilson put a damper on the reports Wednesday, tweeting, "Don't believe everything you read in the press, OK?"

-- Postmedia News

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 28, 2012 G5

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