Tag Archives: The Office

For the Love of Beets: Are You Ready for an Office Spinoff About Dwight?

It is way too early—if this project even ever comes to pass—to say that this is a terrible idea. But this is a terrible idea.

+Television | 95 days ago

The Office After Michael: Who’s In Charge Here?

By James Poniewozik

After Michael, The Office would have been better off embracing the darkness and making Jim the boss—or embracing its ensemble and having no central character at all.

+Tuned In | 143 days ago

Office Watch: California Role

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s The Office below: That was encouraging. I am not nearly ready, after one episode, to declare that the retooled, post–Steve Carell The Office has solved its problems. Without Michael Scott as its focus, no matter who Dunder-Mifflin/Sabre hired for this or that position, it was going to need to become a [...]

+Uncategorized | 222 days ago

The Office to James Spader: You're Hired!

By James Poniewozik

The previous season of The Office ended with a cliffhanger, as Dunder-Mifflin interviewed a series of candidates to replace Michael Scott, played by a squad of guest stars. Now comes word that the show has made a hire—sort of—by signing up James Spader as a series regular. (Consider yourself spoiler-alerted if you don’t want to [...]

+Uncategorized | 269 days ago

Office Watch: You're Not the Boss of Me

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s season finale of The Office below: There are three ways to look at “Search Committee”: (1) as an episode in itself, (2) as a way of judging the overall success of season seven of The Office and (3) as a table-setter for the extended life of Dunder-Mifflin without Michael Scott. I [...]

+Uncategorized | 290 days ago

The Office Watch: Leaving On a Jet Plane

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for Steve Carell’s last episode of The Office: “The people you work with are people you were just thrown together with. I mean, you don’t know them, it wasn’t your choice. And yet you spend more time with them than you do your friends or your family. But probably all you have in common [...]

+332 days ago

NBC Renewals: Community (Yay!), Parks and Rec (Yay!), The Office (Duh!)

By James Poniewozik

NBC spared a lot of fans a lot of nailbiting this afternoon and announced that it is bringing back Community, Parks and Recreation and The Office for another season. 30 Rock was already renewed as of last fall. As for the other Thursday comedies: there is a very, very low ratings bar at NBC right [...]

+Uncategorized | 354 days ago

Vacation Robo-Post: The Office—NBC's Problem, And Yours

By James Poniewozik

I’ve said before that I think it would probably be best if this season of The Office were its last; the show may not be called The Boss, but it is Michael Scott’s story above all, and I’d hope that the show might get a liberating creative burst from not just sending off Steve Carell [...]

+Uncategorized | 360 days ago

The Morning After: Scarn Tootin'

By James Poniewozik

Objectively, as a critic, I probably wasn’t supposed to like “Threat Level: Midnight,” in which Michael Scott’s long-gestating movie finally came to fruition. It probably wasn’t plausible that the entire office would participate, and the episode was essentially like a giant, well-produced webisode bonus. But objectively or not, I loved it. It may just be [...]

+Uncategorized | 395 days ago

TCA Roundup: Headless Peacock in Hotel Bar

By James Poniewozik

Another round of headlines from the Television Critics’ Association winter press tour, which is winding down at the lovely Langham Hotel in Pasadena, and it was NBC’s turn to face the critics and reporters… * …except no executives were on hand to do so. NBC has a new team coming in to run the network [...]

+Uncategorized | 430 days ago

Office Watch: A Holly, If Not Jolly, Christmas

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s The Office coming up: When Holly (Amy Ryan) broke up with Michael Scott, she really broke up with all of us, didn’t she? Ryan’s casting in the show was so right, and her character’s oddball fit with Michael so perfect, that when their relationship failed to survive her move to Nashua, [...]

+Uncategorized | 437 days ago

Office Watch: Get Back

By James Poniewozik

This is a little bit of a tortured analogy, but bear with me. The Office so far this season has reminded me a little of a band that late in its career, after becoming known for a string of ambitious, baroque albums, decides to take a step backward stylistically, get back to basics and release [...]

+Uncategorized | 472 days ago

Community / Office Watch: Fright Night

By James Poniewozik

Proving that there are still a vast amount of costume gags yet to be mined in the sitcom genre, both Community and The Office (and Outsourced, but I’m going to pretend it didn’t happen) delivered Halloween episodes last night. Proving that the supply of said costume gags is not unlimited, both episodes featured essentially the [...]

+Uncategorized | 479 days ago

Office Watch: Paper Tiger

By James Poniewozik

Quick spoilers for last night’s Office coming up: The thing about a serialized sitcom like The Office is that you watch it at the same time for how well the episode is doing and how well the series is doing. “The Sting” gave me very little to complain about on the first count; it was [...]

+Uncategorized | 493 days ago

The Office Watch: Razor Sharp

By James Poniewozik

Spoilers for last night’s The Office coming up: So last night, my laptop seized up and died on me as I was watching, appropriately enough, the death-themed Community on DVR. (I am having the machine vaporized and sealed in a lava lamp.) It was a fairly strong episode—see especially the Abed subplot playing out entirely [...]

+Uncategorized | 500 days ago

NBC Sitcoms Watch: Animated Comedy

By James Poniewozik

I don’t usually do group reviews of the Thursday comedies,* but today there’s a point to it. There’s been a lot of discussion this week on this blog and elsewhere about what the broadcast networks can and can’t do that cable can. But while most of what’s interesting in drama is getting done on cable, [...]

+Uncategorized | 560 days ago

TCA Roundup: Event Programming

By James Poniewozik

While you carried on blissfully unaware with your life this weekend, the Television Critics’ press tour continued making the world safe for new TV shows. Or is that from them? In any event, a roundup of the news from NBC and ABC’s presentations: * The producers of NBC’s sci-fi/thriller/mystery serial The Event would like your [...]

+Uncategorized | 572 days ago

Post-Carell Life for The Office; Also, Emerson As the New Boss?

By James Poniewozik

Variety is reporting that The Office has signed B.J. Novak, who writes for and plays Ryan on the series, to a new two-year deal, which will elevate him to executive producer. For those of you who have wondered if NBC will perpetuate the series after the departure of Steve Carell, who leaves after this season—well, [...]

+Uncategorized | 587 days ago

Party Down's Last Bash, and Other Things That Happened While I Was Out

By James Poniewozik

So yeah, I’m back. Though fair warning: over my vacation, my niece in Michigan taught me how to make marshmallows from scratch, so it’s pretty much a matter of time until I bag the whole TV-criticism day-job thing and make my fortune in the lucrative and trendy small-batch-marshmallow business. But until then, a quick rehash [...]

+594 days ago

Michael Scott Resigns From Dunder Mifflin, Gives 'The Office' A Future

By Steven James Snyder

For anyone who has stuck by the American version of The Office since the very beginning – or maybe I should specify the beginning of the far superior second season – the anticlimactic news that broke Monday about Steve Carell leaving the show was a bittersweet development. He’s been talking for months about stepping away [...]