It’s pretty rare for a TV network to skip the pilot stage and order a new show straight to series, but NBC has ordered 13 episodes of a new comedy created by Tina Fey and starring Office alum Ellie Kemper, TV Line reports. Tentatively titled Tooken, Fey co-created the show with her 30 Rock co-showrunner Robert Carlock. It’s a single-camera comedy that stars Kemper as a woman who escapes from a doomsday cult and starts life over in New York City, which sounds like a pretty ballsy and unique concept for a comedy. Like 30 Rock, Tooken will also be filmed in New York City, making it one of two network sitcoms filmed there along with The Michael J. Fox Show.
This is the first series order to materialize from Tina Fey’s four-year deal with NBC’s parent company’s TV studio, Universal TV. She also has a sitcom about a womens’ college that starts allowing male students for the first time in development at Fox and another, a workplace comedy, in the works at NBC. She’s producing both of those shows but not writing them.