When a Good Show Goes Bad: The Office (US)

After a first season which imitated the British classic line for line, sans mature language and content, The Office (US) stepped outside the shadow of the original to become of the funniest and most heartfelt shows on network, hell, all of television.

The recipe was simple enough. Give Steve Carell and Rainn Wilson decent material and you'll have yourself a damn funny show. Add a 'will they-won't they' romance featuring boy and girl next door Pam and Jim and you get a compelling romantic story. Put them together and you have a great show, which for seasons made us laugh and cry.

The supporting cast was and is unspectacular but solid enough. There’s fatty, grumpy, bitchy, stupid and slutty.

So what went so wrong in the past two or three seasons? Well, as is inevitably the case as much as the writers would have liked to artificially extend the intrigue surrounding Pam and Jim, there reached a point where they had to be unified. In doing so, the show lost momentum and a distinct overarching storyline. Oh and it turns out that Pam and Jim aren’t very funny or engaging in their new found marital bliss.

The writers have tried to create other points of romantic interest yet they do not measure up. Moreover, the humour has dissipated. We know the routine all too well after 7 seasons. Michael is going to do something inappropriate (we cringe). Dwight will say something slightly quirky (we smile). Pam and Jim love each other (we fall asleep). The supporting cast will give their well rehearsed and well-worn responses (we lip-sync).

So perhaps, the show hasn’t ‘gone bad’ in so much as it has gone stale. Steve Carell is leaving at the end of this season, leaving a space for a new boss to enter the picture. Or should they just call the whole thing off?

This Ficus thinks so.

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