Retrospective: The Office US

My significant other watched the finale of The Office with me, which was understanding of him bearing in mind I once told him Jim and Pam’s relationship was more important to me than ours. I suppose that should tell you all you need to know about what the American version of the UK hit came to mean to its fanbase. With Season 9’s finale ending the show on May 16^th this year, a grieving fan can only spend Thursday evenings watching cast interviews, gag reels, and crying over retrospective article for the Boar’s illustrious TV section.

The Office followed a similar trajectory to that formed by Friends a decade before it. A show about ordinary people in ordinary situations that was somehow extraordinary in its humour, emotion, and above all the connections it fostered between audience and character. As often happens in a show that builds a cast of unknown actors, the employees of Dunder Mifflin, a paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania, became real people to the audience. When fans met them they would unconsciously address them by their character’s name instead of their actual name.

The Office succeeded primarily because it took up a place in the hearts of its viewers, but I don’t think it too presumptuous of me to allow it a place in televisual history, too. The Office pioneered the ‘mockumentary’ style TV show, which was loved in the UK but never took off as it has done in the American sitcom scene, with successful shows like Modern Family and Parks and Recreationusing the format. After a rocky critical reception for the first series, from the second series on the show was heralded as one of the only successful remakes, honouring its origin and roots while re-interpreting scripts and characters for an American audience. The quality of writing and the sharpness of the cast’s timing had me ugly laughing into my laptop screen – the kind of laughter you catch sight of in your reflection when the screen goes dark and decide never to crack a smile in public again.

I started watching The Office when I started university, and it’s sad to say goodbye to a show that kept me company through those a-series-in-two-days periods of first year, curled up in bed with hot coffee. It was comforting, a comrade, a reminder that even in the most mundane and mediocre human existence, the very fact of existence is what creates beautiful moments and relationships.

And yes, I know the British Office was good too.