The Office and Extras co-creator Stephen Merchant’s HBO pilot Hello Ladies just got picked up by the pay cable network for an eight-episode run, Deadline reports. Merchant writes, directs, and stars in the new series, in which he’ll play a gawky Englishman looking for love in the States. The pilot co-starred Nate Torrence, Christine Woods, and Kevin Weisman, and the show will be produced by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, who worked on the US version of The Office. We’ve seen a lot of Ricky Gervais since Extras went off the air, but it’ll be nice to get some more Stephen Merchant on the TV screen for a change, that is if he doesn’t have any trouble slipping into the role of a gawky Englishman.
