Amber Ruffin to play a Non-Evil Twin in NBC comedy pilot

Though it’s almost certainly seen as a harmful stereotype in the twin community, everyone operates under the assumption that each pair of twins has an “evil one.” Or at least, you know, one is a Phoebe and one is an Ursula. Or a Bart and a Hugo. Or a Drew and a Jonathan. Again, we think this is probably offensive, so we’re not the ones introducing this concept, we’re merely acknowledging it. Also acknowledging it is NBC, which Deadline says has ordered a pilot for a multi-camera comedy series called Non-Evil Twin.

Written by and starring Amber Ruffin (of her eponymous late night show, The Amber Ruffin Show), the show—should it go to series—will be about a woman who is “forced to step in to her sister’s role” as the head of a major company “despite knowing little about business and even less about the way her sister has been running the corporation.” Ruffin would presumably play both women, since the “good twin/evil twin” dynamic kind of depends on them being identical twins, but it’s unclear which of the two in this premise is actually the Non-Evil Twin. Is it the one coming in to replace the sister, proving that she was non-evil while the corporate sister was a cutthroat dealmaker? Or is the sister stepping in to replace the other sister the bad one, and she now has to learn how to be the Non-Evil Twin convincingly? Honestly, both shows seem like they would work just fine… if you are okay with the idea that real twins are probably sick of this whole “ooh, which one is the evil twin?” gag.

If Non-Evil Twin gets picked up, it will probably be part of NBC’s comedy lineup during the 2023/2024 TV season.