I think they have to be. Their pilots seemed to be so closely tied together.
My guess is that Tina Fey wrote her comedy first, then the network realized the potential for a big budget hour drama and co-opted it.
I doubt it could have happened in reverse, because if that were the case Tina would not be credited at all. So I think they correctly decided that she would accept that she could not get credit for both shows, and that the thrill of having her comedy version aired would be enough to let her give up any credit for the drama.
Aaron Sorkin was shopping the pilot script for what was then known as “Studio 7 on the Sunset Strip” back in September of '05, and but for a huge offer from NBC, it would have been on CBS.
They’re not connected any more than sharing a basic premise: behind the scenes of a sketch comedy show.
I agree. Of the 8,730,981 stories on the two shows before the season started, at least 8,730,980 of them made a point of talking about the weird coincidence that two such shows would wind up on the same network schedule. There’s no connection, and neither show was happy about the existence of the other. Nobody planned it that way.
I personally cannot see any NBC executive approaching Aaron Sorkin and saying, “Tina Fey came up with this idea for a drama series but she’s going to be too busy to develop it. So we figured it might be a good vehicle for an up and coming young writer like yourself to build his reputation on.”