Workplace comedies are certainly nothing new on TV, but NBC’s new sitcom “Superstore” is offering up a lesser-seen version of this trope — by focusing on the lives of employees who are just there to punch a clock.
The comedy — which airs a two-episode sneak preview Monday at 10 p.m. before premiering on Jan. 4 — centers on a diverse group of co-workers at a Walmart-like big box store in St. Louis, Mo.
“I love the idea of doing a show about people whose jobs are literally a paycheck,” star America Ferrera tells The Post. “We’ve gotten used to television being so aspirational … You’re always shooting to be the best DA or the best detective or the No. 1 spy or the best athlete, and yet for the majority of people in this country, their job is not their life. Their job is this thing that they go to, check in and check out. They pay their bills and then life is defined by other things.”
Ferrera, best known for her starring role in another workplace comedy, “Ugly Betty” (2006-10), plays Amy, the store’s responsible floor supervisor who holds all the wackier employees together. Her no-nonsense attitude clashes with that of new hire Jonah (Ben Feldman, “A to Z”), a naive dreamer with whom she engages in a workplace flirtation. There’s just one hiccup — she’s married with a daughter, which removes some of the usual will-they-or-won’t-they tension.
“It frees them to have a relationship that is based on other things,” Ferrera says. “You get the sense that they’re really challenged by each other. As the season goes forward, you can see their world views and their walks of life really crashing up against one another, and that may really begin to change them in certain ways.
“I kind of love that the love aspect is removed, so they just have to engage with each other on a different level, even if that chemistry is there,” she adds.
Beyond workplace romance, “Superstore” (which is created by Justin Spitzer, a former writer and producer on “The Office”) will also take on more serious themes. With issues like raising the minimum wage currently being debated in the news, the show plans to explore various social, political and economic themes related to blue-collar workers as its 11-episode season progresses.
“You’re focusing on the lives of the working class that makes corporate America run. There’s a lot of feelings about that at the current moment,” Ferrera says. “The setting will give us the opportunity to really spark those conversations and we get to do it in a funny and entertaining way.”