The Office found a new way to interest fans: drama.
The show isn’t the same without Michael Scott. Viewers feared the worst as Season 8 began, and their worries came true: it wasn’t as funny, it wasn’t as interesting and it wasn’t as good.
Many point to Season 4, or the beginning of Pam and Jim’s relationship, as the series’ decline. I disagree. The show’s quality rose and fell almost every season.
It certainly rose in Season 7, as it led up to Michael leaving Dunder Mifflin. The few episodes of the season after “Goodbye Michael” showed promise. Dwight’s never-ending drive, Jim’s quick wit land the possibility of a big name to play the role of new manager looked like it could partially save the series.
It should’ve ended with Michael’s departure.
But it didn’t, and we were left with a miserable Season 8: Andy fumbled his way into the manager position in an unfunny shell of Michael’s character. The series introduced Nellie Bertram, the least likeable character the writers could’ve come up with. Little story developed while the writers spent their time attempting and failing to make the Andy-Erin story like Pam and Jim’s.
That’s not to say the season had no good parts; it did. Jim pulled some excellent pranks on Dwight, Erin’s goofy, fun character received more camera time and Robert California’s dominating presence made for a few good laughs (but usually he just weirded everyone out). Unfortunately, the humor was few and far between the stagnant storyline. It reminded us just how much we missed Michael.
It was hard to watch.
And yet we did, and here we are, approaching the series finale. Eight episodes remain and Season 9, despite the show’s lowest ratings, is a major improvement over Season 8.
The writers found a different way to interest fans: adding a great deal more drama to the show, showing us some of the film crew and giving us a much more in-depth look at Dwight’s backstory and home life. “Junior Salesman,” when Dwight interviewed several strange friends and family members for a new job at Dunder Mifflin, was one of the funniest episodes in a long time.
The weakest link of this season, however, is Jim’s partial absence. When he’s not in the office, we have no one to make the appropriate half-smirk or wide-eyed expression when someone says or does something off-kilter.
The Office tried to stick to its usual ways in Season 8, and it was uncomfortable at best. It went a little off book for its ninth and final season, and it made it better.
The show wrapped up all shooting on Saturday. The May 16 finale will be the end of an era, the final milestone in a long run of one of the most influential comedies to run in the past decade.
