Amy Poehler reunites with Parks & Recreation co-creator Mike Schur on new comedy Dig

Amy Poehler is returning to TV in her first regular onscreen role since the end of Parks and Recreation in a new comedy series.

The show is called Dig and Poehler is a co-creator alongside one of Parks & Rec’s brain-trust, Mike Schur, and J.J. Philbin (New Girl, Only Murders in the Building).

Based on the novel Excavations by author Kate Myers, it will centre on four women working on an archaeological dig in Greece who uncover an artifact that could upend everything we know about history. The discovery pulls them into a “high-stakes international conspiracy”.

Poehler will star but the rest of the cast have yet to be revealed.

Since the end of Parks & Rec in 2015, Poehler hasn’t committed to any onscreen roles in a continuing series. She reprised her Wet Hot American Summer character in a reunion miniseries, has been a voice actor on Duncanville and hosted several non-scripted shows including Making It (with Nick Offerman), Baking It and The UCB Show.

She has also been busy on the production side as the co-creator of acclaimed Natasha Lyonne series Russian Doll. She starred in and directed the films Wine Country and Moxie, and returned to the Inside Out franchise for Pixar.

Poehler recently launched the podcast Good Hang. Her first batch of guests have included longtime friend Tina Fey, Martin Short, Parks & Rec alumni Rashida Jones, Paul Rudd and Kathryn Hahn, Ike Barinholtz and Quinta Brunson.

Prior to their time on seven seasons of Parks & Rec, Poehler and Schur crossed over on Saturday Night Live before Schur left to join Greg Daniels’ writing staff of the US version of The Office.

He launched Parks & Rec with Daniels, and after a shaky first season, the show became a fan favourite for its stories set in the fictional American Midwest town of Pawnee. Poehler’s Leslie Knope became the paragon of a well-intentioned, competent and enthusiastic public servant.

The series argued government can be a force for good in the lives of everyday people and it attracted real-life politicians from both sides of the aisle who guest starred as themselves, including Michelle Obama, Joe and Jill Biden, John McCain, Barbara Boxer, Cory Booker, Orrin Hatch, Kristen Gillibrand, Newt Gingrich and Madeleine Albright.

Schur has built a career creating and writing for sitcoms that embraced warmth and inclusive humour. He also-created Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place, Rutherford Falls and, most recently, A Man on the Inside.

A Man on the Inside reunited Schur with The Good Place’s Ted Danson and the first series, released in November, was a hit. Inspired by documentary The Mole Agent, which was based on a real-life case in Chile, the sitcom featured Danson as a widowed retiree who answers an unusual newspaper advert to help a private investigator.

The character infiltrates a retirement community where a necklace has recently been stolen. It’s a low-stakes crime and the show is really more interested in exploring themes of loneliness and connection in old age.

For the upcoming second season, A Man on the Inside will be centred on a different case, this time at a university.

The production this week announced its second season cast will include Danson’s real-life partner Mary Steenburgen, David Strathairn, Max Greenfield, Jason Mantzoukas (a recurring guest star on Parks & Rec, The Good Place and Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Madison Hu, Linda Park, Michaela Conlin, Sam Huntington, Lisa Gilroy and Jill Talley.