Co-showrunner Josh Bycel talks about why the show pivoted away from its original premise:

What allowed the writers to dispose of the premise so quickly—though the Alex/Dave relationship would come up again in both the first and second season finales—was the ensemble itself, especially the surprising comedic abilities of Cuthbert and Knighton.

The story behind Casey Wilson’s “Pennyisms”

“Well, ‘amahzing’ I think is all Casey. I think it was ‘amazing’ [in the script] and she just said, ‘amahzing,’ and we all thought it was funny.” The other Pennysims come from a combination of Wilson’s ad-libbing and the efforts of the writers. “That’s sort of [creator] David [Caspe]’s style. He always likes to do that. Then she would do more, and then we would just sort of write to it more, actually. So that was a combination of both of us, I would say.”