It hurt me today to find out that my beloved The Office has received a record lowrating. This was the lowest for the American version of the series since its
premiere in the spring of 2005.
The history of NBC’s The
Office was not a smooth one in its inception. Initial critical reception
was generally favourable, but also cool, with many noting its inferiority to
the original British series starring Ricky Gervais (admittedly I was not a
stark raving fan of it but that’s another blog post). The ratings were
generally low-rated, but enough for NBC to continue with the series. Clearly
they saw more potential in it than in the wildly misbegotten 2003 version of Coupling, which lasted exactly two
terrible episodes. The cast developed and grew into an ensemble, headed by the
brilliant Steve Carrell as Michael Scott. The lynchpin of the series was his
continually embarrassing efforts to befriend the staff by trying too hard. In
other words, perpetual social experimentation and wild failure was the engine
of what drove the show, and how the staffers reacted to it. By the time Carrell
left for his successful movie career in 2011, having led the cast for seven
years and earning numerous honours including a Golden Globe and SAG Award, and
half a dozen Emmy nominations, the show had become a respectable long-running
hit. The question was: would the series survive, let alone thrive, without him?
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| New boss: Catherine Tate |
The answer appears to be a hesitant “no”, at least for the
moment. There has been a tortured attempt in the show’s narrative to fill the
gap left by Carrell. He may have been incurably dorky, but he also drew the
entire staff together and they came to care for him in the end. The humanity
was what was missing from the original Gervais version of The Office in Britain. For Dunder-Mifflin’s Scranton branch, the quest
to fill the void Michael left behind mirrored his actor’s departure. Michael
was Carrell’s signature role, and the problem was like any good pen, he left an
indelible mark that could not be erased and would always be woven into the
show.
Let’s liken it to what happened with Diana Ross when she
left the Supremes. Without their biggest star, the one who defined the group, the
effect was that the air was let out of the room. The Supremes carried on and
did respectably, but they were never quite the same no matter how talented the
members were who remained. Carrell’s from The
Office departure echoes similarly, even a year later. The cast still has
moments of brilliance and the ensemble plays well with one another, but the
dynamic has changed radically. Sure, there’s great promise in British transplant
Nellie as the by turns vicious and loopy new manager, played brilliantly by
Catherine Tate in a turn balancing deft comic timing with a hint of dark
turmoil, but she will need another year to make the show her own and to erase
Carrell’s influence.
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| Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling) |
It’s a bit disheartening that the show seems to be on its
last legs. Longtime showrunner Paul Liberstein, who plays the harangued human
resources manager Toby, has stepped down and NBC is advertising for a new
showrunner. Mindy Kaling, fresh off the success of her terrific comic memoir Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, is
filming a pilot that hopefully gives us more of an opportunity to see this
refreshingly bubbly actress on a regular basis. And Rainn Wilson has been
offered a spin-off with his one-of-a-kind character Dwight Schrute, in a
backdoors pilot that will be aired sometime within the next year. (I am looking
very much forward to this project.)
Like every office after a major shift in management, The Office is still in a transition
stage. What we need to determine is whether or not the company will survive the
change and grow into a stronger whole, or be finished off for good. Stay tuned.
