The summer is typically the time in which people go out to see the big blockbusters at the movie theaters. Of course I went to see a couple of films but now that school is starting back up, I’m not really able to see as many as I want to. Like anybody else though, I watch television in the movie low tide. Fall seems to be the time when new seasons of my favorite shows seem to come out like “Doctor Who” or “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”. One of my fall television staples is the NBC sitcom “The Office”.
For the few people who have never heard of this show, the show follows a documentary crew filming the day to day antics of an office in Scranton, Pennsylvania. This show is actually an adaptation of a short British series of the same name and shares some of the same humor which made that show popular. However, this isn’t a review of the show, this is about how the show is coming to a close and how this might be for the better. One of the staples of the show was the naïve, ridiculous, but effective boss Michael Scott (played by Steve Carrell) and his relationship with his more competent workers.
In the season seven finale, Michael Scott left the show. By a career stand point this made sense, since Steve Carrell wanted to leave the show since the show was being praised and he wanted to leave the show on a high note. I had no idea what to expect with the season after, but I figured that the writing team would be able to pick up the slack and make something new. However, each episode in the season would leave me with mixed feelings after each viewing.
It seems like the writing team had a bunch of ideas but forgot how to pace themselves, especially near the end where it seemed they wanted to rehash an arc from season five but only did it in two episodes. One of the strengths of the show is while there was a big season long arc going on in the background with noticeable effects, antics would continue normally during the show. However, with season eight there seemed to be a noticeable divide when the show was doing the arc and when it was doing antics, which made the show seem like it was yanking the viewer away from what they were looking at.
Seeing as season six and seven brought massive changes to the show, it seemed like season eight was trying to get rid of them to make the show go back to normal. One of these is who the characters of the show used to work for, Dunder Mifflin, a paper company which was bought out due to scandals and the economy, to a printer company called Sabre. While it may seem fast reading it here, it actually took the show about two seasons to get used to these changes. However, season eight makes a very rapid change to get the office working for Dunder Mifflin again in the last two episodes of the season.
One of the biggest strengths of the show is with its characters that noticeably grew up from the first season into their full personalities seen in later seasons. Sure you had the very likable main cast, but there was an as likable secondary cast who had their own fully fledged back stories and personalities that made the show funnier and more alive. Season Eight, however, seemed like it didn’t know what to do with these characters and made them somewhat one note and bland.
Now the show is going to be starting its last season. Considering that this is a massively popular show on NBC which makes a lot of money, is it the right thing to cancel the series? I think it’s a hard pill to swallow but it’s the right choice in the end. The people who put together this show care enough about it to make sure it doesn’t end on a long bitter note. It’s actually quite rare to see a show to be given an actually ending instead of just continuing on, as with “The Greatest American Hero”, or cut short, as with “Firefly”. I don’t know how season nine is going to turn out yet but I’ll be there September 20th, when the new season comes out, to see the end of a great show.