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.

On first blush, doing a sitcom about the trials and travails of local government doesn't sound like it would be very interesting or funny. But, then again, I'm sure Ricky Gervais got hoots and hollers when he told people he was going to build a sitcom around the daily life of a paper company. With Greg Daniels, Mike Schur, and the rest of the American Office's crew behind it, though, I'm sure it's going to be good.

Now all we need is a name, a premiere date, and a timeslot. I guess those little details will be filled in soon enough.

[via TV Week]