With The Office spiralling further and further into metapocalyspe, with the ramifications of the characters’ actions over the last ten years coming back to haunt them in ever more bizarre ways, it’s safe to say that the show has gone off the boil a little bit. As unbelievable as it seems that a TV company stumped up the funds for the amount of man hours it would require to record this much footage for ten years without airing the show, that is what the reality of the show is now.
TV historians, thousands of years hence, will point their fingers back at the episode that triggered the downfall of the TV show that at its creative peak easily matched the UK series, if not surpassed it. That episode is the seventh season finale “Goodbye Michael,”in which Michael Scott, played by Steve Carell, moves to Colorado with HR representative Holly Flax.
Fast forward a few years and the show is now in its death throes, with the final episode looming. We are deep into the ninth and final season, and the writers are just going for broke – Pam’s relationship with Jim is getting ever more strained while her feelings for Brian the boom operator seem to be blossoming, Oscar and Angela are in a tailspin over the potentially career-ending revelations they have revealed about the senator, and Dwight is still being Dwight. Producers have made no secret of the fact that while all this is well and good, they’d really like Michael Scott back, even just for one episode. The finale, preferably.
Of course they don’t want to ruin the surprise, but Steve Carell’s management did let slip that he was on set for the finale. They say that he didn’t film any scenes, but he was there. Sure, he might be there to give the show that launched his career a final farewell, or to meet up with old friends, but his being there and not performing his iconic role seems perverse in the extreme. And would the network really be so cruel as to leak this information if they knew for a fact that he wouldn’t be in the show? Time will tell. Check back after May 16th, when the finale for The Office airs, to tell me whether I’m right or wrong. I just love feedback.
