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In my world, there are the people who love The Office, and then there’s everybody else. It’s just one of those shows that becomes the barometer for the type of friendship you’re going to have with someone. Because it’s important they understand you when you randomly say, “That’s what she said,” or “Fashion show at lunch” or when you talk about the Scranton strangler earnestly. These are important things, and you need to surround yourself with people who know them. Well, apparently, we’re about to get something more to add to these friendships, because it was reported over the weekend that Greg Daniels was rebooting The Office.
NBC
I know, you probably just fell off your chair, I did too. But you heard me right. Matthew Belloni and Jonathan Handel of Puck News reported in a piece about the projects set to be announced in a post-WGA strike Hollywood that, “Greg Daniels is set to do a reboot of The Office, for instance.” Um, insert head exploding emoji here, right?
It should be noted that the only news about this development is that one sentence. Daniels, who adapted the American series from the British version, has confirmed nothing about this, so don’t start your rewatch just yet. (But, if you’re anything like me, you’re always in a state of rewatch with The Office.) But this news does beg the question that’s often discussed: should The Office be rebooted?
Recent reboots and revivals have had a spotty record. There really have only been a handful of successes. And Just Like That, the Sex and the City revival-slash-sequel, while fully unhinged, is a success for Max. NBC‘s Will & Grace revival received huge ratings and critical acclaim. Reboots of classic procedurals like NBC’s Quantum Leap and CBS‘ Hawaii Five-0 do big business for their respective broadcasters. But other than that, the recent history of returning favorites is a graveyard of cancelations (xoxo Gossip Girl 2.0, we hardly knew you).
Of course, The Office reboot would be very different. It’s still a huge moneymaker for NBC, with their streamer Peacock actively promoting the series despite it having ended back in 2013, and Nielsen revealing that the show was the most-streamed TV show of 2020 racking up 57 billion minutes of watch time while it was on Netflix. So it stands to reason that any new series related to The Office would instantly be a hit, even if it were bad. And if Greg Daniels is attached, it’s unlikely it would be anywhere near bad.
But should they do it? If you ask Steve Carell, it’s a resounding no. In 2018, he told TIME magazine, “I’ve never thought of it as a good idea… I think it existed in that time and with those people and it felt right. There was something so special about it, and I guess it’s an odd way to put it, but I love it too much to ever want to do it again. It’s too special to me in my heart in that period of time.”
There is something to be said about not messing with greatness, because if the reboot is mediocre in any way, it’s a huge failure—bigger than other reboots because the fanbase for The Office is so rabid.
A reboot would also open the show up to a conversation about some of the problematic elements in the original series, particularly the lack of diversity in its lead characters and how some of the storylines from its original run would not fly in today’s climate. For many of us, The Office is one of those comfort shows that we can revisit a hundred times and always find something new to appreciate, and viewing an old favorite through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia often makes us more forgiving. We’re able to rewatch, call out the problems, but not abandon the series, because we recognize that it was of its time. Any reboot would bring the series, both old and new, into our modern day, and open it up to scrutiny that it could largely avoid if NBC just left well enough alone.
Personally, even though my addiction to The Office means I could always use more Jim, Pam, Dwight, and Angela in my life, I really don’t want them to do this. It scares me too much, because the stakes are too high. While I fully feel like Daniels could make a perfectly fine series, I just don’t think there’s a chance anybody, even Daniels, could ever give us the feeling the original continues to give us.
That said, I will fully support a spinoff series of the daily adventures of Phyllis and Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration. Although, considering how frisky they were, it would probably need to air late at night on premium cable, if you know what I mean. *wink wink*
What do you think? Let me know. I’m HAlanScott on everything.
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H. Alan Scott is a writer/comedian based in Los Angeles. He’s appeared on The Jimmy Kimmel Show, Ellen, CNN, Fusion and MTV.
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