Gervais raves about ‘The Office’

Ricky Gervais says he’s just about done with the episode of “The Office” he and his partner-in-comedy Stephen Merchant are writing for NBC.

That’s a pretty quick turnaround, considering it was only about two weeks ago that the network announced they’d take a crack at the American version of the show they created.

“It was remarkably fast,” says Gervais, who’s also written an episode of “The Simpsons” that will air in March. “I suppose that’s because we’d been away from those characters for two or three years. It’s one of our favorite shows, the American “Office.’ I think it might be our favorite sitcom of the moment.”

You might expect Gervais to say that, given that he and Merchant created the British “Office” and serve as executive producers of NBC’s show. But he insists that he’s been hands-off since helping get the show off the ground: “It’s all their work. I must stress that.”

Flockhart, Griffiths spar as siblings

When last we saw Calista Flockhart on television, she was dancing into the sunset as Ally McBeal. Rachel Griffiths, meanwhile, was dying under a load of old-age makeup on “Six Feet Under.”

Both actresses are now plotting a return to the small screen in an ABC pilot.

The two multiple Emmy nominees – Flockhart earned three nods for “Ally McBeal” and Griffiths two for “Six Feet Under” – have signed on to the family drama “Brothers & Sisters,” the showbiz trade papers report. The show revolves around a group of adult siblings who run their family’s business following the death of their father.

Griffiths and Flockhart join a cast that also includes “Alias” regulars Balthazar Getty and Ron Rifkin and “Reunion’s” Dave Annable. Writer Jon Robin Baitz (“The West Wing”) and Ken Olin (“Alias”) are executive producing the Touchstone TV project.

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