THE BRITISH ARE COMING
A little bit of England will be visiting “The Office” next season.
Ben Silverman, the executive producer of the hit NBC comedy, says that there will be something of a cross-over episode of “The Office,” with some of the cast from the U.K. edition making an appearance at the dreary factory in Scranton, Pa., where the U.S. version takes place.
“There’s a lot of love between [the casts and crews] of the two versions of the show,” Silverman told The Post, declining to reveal plot details of the upcoming episode so as not to spoil it for fans.
“Expect some cameos from the U.K. paper company,” says Silverman.
It was not immediately clear if the British cast members will be reprising their roles from the original U.K. version of “The Office” or simply popping up in other roles.
The original show was a mockumentary set at a British paper manufacturing company and ran for two seasons – just 12 episodes (plus a bonus Christmas special). But along the way, it snapped up nearly every major British TV award and a Golden Globe for best comedy series.
NBC’s version of “The Office” follows a similar format and nailed five Emmy nods last week: best comedy, best actor in a comedy (Steve Carell), best writing in a comedy and two technical nominations for editing.
Ricky Gervais, who created, wrote and starred in the original and serves as an executive producer on the NBC show, is writing a separate episode of the U.S. version. He is also considering a guest appearance on the show, but that’s not likely to happen for some time, Silverman says.
“We’re going to save the big man for now,” he says.
After a rocky start last year, “The Office” turned out to be one of the few bright spots on NBC’s primetime schedule. And while it has yet to generate the kind of boffo ratings generally associated with a hit comedy, the show does extremely well with those young viewers prized by advertisers.
Last year, fans of the U.K. edition lamented the creation of a U.S. version of the comedy and vented their feelings about the show on the Internet.
As bad buzz leaked out from test screenings, NBC brass became nervous about the notion of remaking a hit British sitcom like “The Office,” after failing so miserably three years ago with another Silverman-driven U.K. sitcom remake, “Coupling.”
“As the guy who delivered the television equivalent of ‘Howard the Duck,’ ” says Silverman, referring to the George Lucas’ box-office bomb follow-up to his first “Star Wars” trilogy, “I probably created my own walls to climb over for this show.”
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