NBC keeps 'THE OFFICE' lights burning as it announces new extended season finale of hit comedy to May 11
NBC.com

BURBANK -- February 14, 2006 -- NBC has extended its spring lease on "The Office" (Thursdays, 9:30-10 p.m. ET) through May 11 as the network will add an extra original episode plus other encore broadcasts that will now take the hit comedy past its previously announced season finale of March 30.

Since shifting to Thursday nights on January 5, "The Office" has averaged a 4.7 rating, 11 share in adults 18-49 and 9.1 million viewers overall. That represents a 27 percent increase over the show's 18-49 average for Tuesday telecasts earlier this season (3.7/9 in 18-49, 7.7 million viewers overall) and an 88 percent increase over "The Office's" average for the 2004-05 season (2.5/6 in 18-49, 5.4 million viewers overall), when it also aired on Tuesday nights.

In its six Thursday telecasts thus far, "The Office" has delivered its six best retentions to date of its adult 18-49 lead-in from "My Name Is Earl." "The Office" has averaged a 90 percent retention of "Earl" so far on Thursdays, up from its 71 percent average on Tuesdays earlier this season. In the valuable adult 18-34 category, "The Office" has improved on its lead-in from "Earl" with each of its three most recent telecasts and was NBC's #1 telecast of the week in 18-34 for two of those three weeks.

"The Office" takes a painfully funny look at the interactions of the desk jockeys at Dunder Mifflin paper-supply company in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Golden Globe winner Steve Carell ("The 40-Year-Old Virgin" -- whom E! Online said, "might be the funniest man alive,") stars as unctuous regional manager Michael Scott who hosts the documentary crew on a tour of the workplace. Jenna Fischer ("Miss Match"), John Krasinski ("Jarhead," "Kinsey"), Rainn Wilson ("Six Feet Under"), and B.J. Novak ("Punk'd") star as the employees who tolerate Michael's inappropriate behavior only because he signs their paychecks. Also starring are Melora Hardin as Jan Levinson, David Denman as Roy, Leslie David Baker as Stanley Hudson, Brian Baumgartner as Kevin Malone, Kate Flannery as Meredith Palmer, Angela Kinsey as Angela Martin, Oscar Nunez as Oscar Martinez and Phyllis Smith as Phyllis Lapin. "The Office" is executive-produced by Ben Silverman, Greg Daniels, who developed the series for American television, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Howard Klein.

Defending NBC's The Office - A British import the network didn't mangle
By Kera Bolonik
Slate.com
February 9, 2006

Americans love to fix what ain't broke so that they can avoid repairing that which is in desperate need, like the rickety old network sitcom. We have a history of tinkering with British shows—Queer As Folk, Coupling, Big Brother—only to suck the charm right out of them. So, when NBC announced plans to Americanize Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's The Office, a seminal mockumentary about office life at the Wernham-Hogg paper company in the English town of Slough, fans were bracing themselves for blasphemy. And yet the writers at the NBC's The Office have done something unprecedented: With the exception of the pilot, which was a predictable re-enactment of the British script, The Office (Thursdays, 9:30 p.m. ET) has artfully looted Gervais and Merchant's show for jokes and characters while at the same reinventing itself into something truly, well, American.

Until The Office came along, the American networks had yielded only dreary office comedies like The Drew Carey Show, Just Shoot Me, and Suddenly Susan—all of which bore little resemblance to a workplace outside a Hollywood studio. (The best comic treatment of office life may have been Mike Judge's 1999 movie Office Space.) The original Office resonated with both American and British viewers because of its sly evocation of the absurdity of the workplace. Producer Greg Daniels (Judge's co-creator on King of the Hill) borrows Gervais' and Merchant's battles over workspace boundaries, surreptitious and seemingly doomed flirtations between co-workers, office gags involving dildos and prank calls, and the ever-present threat of layoffs. But Daniels also factors in our cultural idiosyncrasies: Americans don't usually go out for pints every night—we'd be considered alcoholics if we did. Instead, the Sloughs of America—i.e., Scranton, Pa., which is home to the American Office's Dunder-Mifflin paper company—have been overrun by mournful chains like T.G.I. Friday's, Bennigan's, and Chili's, the place where Dunder-Mifflinites hold their unofficial office functions.

The man at the center is Michael Scott (Steve Carell), who wisely chose not to ape Gervais' inimitable oaf (and still managed to nab a Golden Globe just like his English doppelgänger). Michael shares his British mate's arrogance, self-absorption, and cluelessness, but he possesses his own brand of vanity, as well as a wonderful tendency to be sinister toward his colleagues. The latter is apparent as early as the second episode, "Diversity Day," in which Dunder-Mifflin employees are subjected to two excruciating cultural awareness seminars after Michael performs a Chris Rock routine on "the two different kinds of black people." The second of the two seminars is an impromptu forum run by the clueless perp himself.

Michael will push right in to your office, your party, your personal space. The sounding of a fire alarm brings out his survival instinct: He brazenly shoves his underlings out of the way so that he can be the first out of the building, safe and sound. Michael attempts to stick his bandaged, seared foot (which he burnt on a George Foreman grill) into the MRI machine scanning the concussed head of his assistant, Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) in "The Injury." And he sexually harasses every woman in his vicinity, be it the bemused receptionist Pam Beesley (Jenna Fischer); the plump, fun-loving Phyllis (Phyllis Smith); or Michael's boss, Jan Levinson-Gould (Melora Hardin), the subject of his wrath after the two make out following a drunken evening at, yes, Chili's.

Most notably, NBC's Office takes note of differences in work ethic. Not only do desk jobs dominate our lives on this side of the Atlantic, they define us. At Dunder-Mifflin more so than at Wernham-Hogg, we see the employees socializing almost exclusively with each other—these guys don't appear to have friends outside of the company, except for their spouses or lovers. The resident temp at Dunder-Mifflin, Ryan Howard (B.J. Novak) tries to assert his boundaries in the office when he says with a mixture of disgust and trepidation in "The Fire": "Stanley is the crossword puzzle guy and Angela has cats. I don't wanna have a thing here, you know? I don't wanna be the 'something' guy." But he falls prey to Dwight, who christens him "The Fire Guy" when Ryan accidentally starts a kitchen fire by sticking a piece of pita bread in the toaster.

The American Office requires a greater degree of claustrophobia to set the drama in motion. And, here, we're more intimately acquainted with the staff, if only to ease the edge off of Carell's scene-chewing performance, which could become unbearable without comic foils. As Dwight, his volunteer henchman, tells the cameraman in "Office Olympics": "We're like one of those classic famous teams. He's like Mozart, and I'm like Mozart's friend. No, I'm like Butch Cassidy and Michael is like Mozart. You try and hurt Mozart and you are going to get a bullet in your head courtesy of Butch Cassidy."

Given the general inanity of NBC's primetime schedule, it is something of a miracle that the network didn't manage to ruin The Office. Perhaps it learned a valuable lesson from past British remakes like Coupling (a show that dissolved as quickly as it premiered, in 2004), which, ironically, was a riff on the very American Friends. It wouldn't have been the first time Brits improved upon one of our own cultural inventions—they gave rock 'n' roll a makeover and now they've helped save the sitcom from itself.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Gervais writing US Office episode
February 7, 2006

Ricky Gervais is to swap Slough for Scranton, Pennsylvania, as he has agreed to write another episode of The Office - but only for the US series.

Gervais and co-writer Stephen Merchant will pen an episode for the US remake of their BBC show, his spokesman said.

The comedy, starring Steve Carell in Gervais' manager role, is to return for a third US series after attracting an average of 10 million viewers.

Gervais recently wrote and appeared in an episode of The Simpsons.

US network NBC has commissioned another 22 episodes of The Office.

The American version re-locates the action from a dreary office block in Slough to an equally uninspiring working environment in Pennsylvania.

Gervais and Merchant have acted as executive producers on the remake, but have not previously written an episode.

The US version has not used the same scripts and storylines as the original.

'Office' boss Steve Carell grabs big-screen lead in 'Virgin'
By David Germain
Associated Press
August 19, 2005

teve Carell has a virginal sense of awe over all that's happened to him in the last year - appropriate, considering his first big-screen lead is the title character of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."

Carell, who stars on television in the U.S. adaptation of the British workplace comedy "The Office," said he was perfectly happy - elated, even - to play third or fourth banana to Will Ferrell in "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" and "Bewitched" or Jim Carrey in "Bruce Almighty."

So catching promos for his TV show or seeing his mug on billboards has proven unsettling for the comedy veteran, who has been in the business nearly 20 years and was always content simply to have another job, any job, around the corner.

"Talking to my wife, we stare at each other, saying, 'How is this happening? Why is this happening? Why now?' It's nothing I ever aspired to," said Carell, who turned 42 on Tuesday. "I realize this could very well be my one and only lead acting assignment in a movie, but it was great.

"Honestly, every step along the way, I've been amazed that I've gotten to that point," Carell said. "To be in a Jim Carrey movie, I couldn't believe my luck to be opposite him even for a couple little scenes. Or to be one of the news team in Will Ferrell's movie. I thought, 'This is it. I've reached the pinnacle. Nothing could make me happier than this.'"

Playing the weather guy in "Anchorman," Carell got chummy with producer Judd Apatow, who felt the actor had comedic chops to carry a film of his own.

"It was obvious while shooting 'Anchorman' that Steve was stealing many a scene. So being a wily producer, I asked him if he had any ideas for movies that he could star in," Apatow said.

Carell had the seed of an idea about a middle-aged man who had missed the boat on sex and given up trying. The premise immediately clicked with Apatow, who made his directing debut with "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and co-wrote the script with Carell.

"The idea makes you laugh, and you're instantly sympathetic. We've all lived through that moment where we had sex for the first time," Apatow said. "You're terrified, so the idea of a guy so scared he let it get past him is relatable to us."

Carell plays Andy Stitzer, a clerk at an electronics store who harbors a shameful little secret - he's still a virgin at 40. When his co-workers discover it, they set out to find Andy an easy woman, only to see their schemes derailed when he begins dating a single mom (Catherine Keener) under a mutual no-sex policy.

The story's genesis was Carell's idea of a virgin being found out by disbelieving acquaintances, a nugget that became an early scene in the film when Andy blusters through fictitious bedroom tales at a poker game with his work pals, who are sharing outrageous stories of their sexual conquests.

Andy hems and haws when his turn comes around, tossing out crude, macho sex cliches and finally tipping off the others about his virginal status when he describes a woman's breast as feeling like a "bag of sand."

"I just liked the notion of a guy trying desperately to tell a sex story but having no knowledge of sex or no handle on the vernacular of sex talk, and trying to invent it with very adept guys who have told the sex story many, many times," Carell said.

Growing up in Concord, Mass., Carell did plays and settled on an acting career, but he was not necessarily intent on playing the funnyman. He was open to dramatic roles, but his first professional gig came with Chicago's comedy troupe Second City, where he met his wife, comedic actress Nancy Walls, who has a small part in "40-Year-Old Virgin."

After that, the roles he was offered tended toward comedy. Carell had some small parts in movies, was a writer and regular performer on the short-lived "The Dana Carvey Show" and became best known as a news correspondent on "The Daily Show."

Earlier this year, Carell did a memorable impersonation of Paul Lynde as Uncle Arthur in Ferrell's big-screen "Bewitched" and also appeared with Ferrell in Woody Allen's "Melinda and Melinda."

Carell just finished shooting the ensemble road-trip comedy "Little Miss Sunshine," playing a gay, suicidal Proust scholar, co-starring with Toni Collette and Greg Kinnear. He also has been cast as agent Maxwell Smart in a big-screen version of the TV spy spoof "Get Smart," and joins Bruce Willis and Garry Shandling among the talking-animal voice cast in the upcoming animated tale "Over the Hedge."

The actor has been pondering the inevitable questions about when and how he lost his own virginity. Carell's wife advised him to say nothing.

Without naming names or revealing details, Carell ultimately admits to this: "It was probably like 95 percent of everyone's loss of virginity stories. It was fast, it was unromantic, it was uncomfortable and awkward and lacked passion and any sort of emotional connection. It was two people just kind of doing it in order to see what it was like and sort of get it out of the way."

The 40-Year-Old Virgin
By Roger Ebert
August 19, 2005

3 1/2 stars out of 4

Here's a movie that could have had the same title and been a crude sex comedy with contempt for its characters. Instead, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" is surprisingly insightful, as buddy comedies go, and it has a good heart and a lovable hero. It's not merely that Andy Stitzer rides his bike to work, it's that he signals his turns.

Andy (Steve Carell) is indeed 40 and a virgin, after early defeats in the gender wars turned him into a non-combatant. His strategy for dealing with life is to surround himself with obsessions, including action figures, video games, high-tech equipment, and "collectibles," a word which, like "drinkable," never sounds like a glowing endorsement.

Andy is one of those guys whose life is a workaround. What he doesn't understand, he avoids, finesses or fakes. On the job at the electronics superstore where he works, his fellow employees spend a lot of time talking about women, and he nods as if he speaks the language. Then they rope him into a poker game, the conversation turns to sex, and they look at him strangely when he observes enthusiastically how women's breasts feel like bags of sand.

The buddies are wonderfully cast. David (Paul Rudd) is still hopelessly in love with a woman who has long since outgrown any possible interest in him; Jay (Romany Malco) is a ladies' man who considers himself an irresistible seducer, and Cal (Seth Rogen) is the guy with practical guidance, such as "date drunks" and "never actually say anything to a woman; just ask questions." All these guys have problems of their own, and seem prepared to pass them on to Andy as advice; listen with particular care to the definition of "aftercourse." Also at work is Paula (Jane Lynch), Andy's boss, a tall, striking woman who is definitely not a 40-year-old virgin; after asking him if he's ever heard of just being sex buddies, she promises him, "I'm discreet, and I'll haunt your dreams."

Andy would just as soon stay home and play with his action figures. But his friends consider it a sacred mission to end his 40-year drought. In a singles bar, under their coaching, he separates a tipsy babe from the crowd; his alarm should have gone off when she asks him to blow into the breathalyzer so she can start her car. In a bookstore he asks a cute sales clerk one question after another, which works charmingly until she finds out he has no answers. He goes to one of those dating round-robins where a buzzer goes off and you switch tables, giving the movie an opportunity to assemble a little anthology of pickup cliches.

And then there's Trish (Catherine Keener). She runs a store across the mall, where you can take in your stuff and she'll sell it on eBay. Andy knows right away that he really likes her, but he's paralyzed by shyness and fear, and the way she coaxes him into asking her out is written so well it could be in a more serious movie. Or maybe it is; there's an insight and understanding under the surface of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" that is subtle, but sincere.

On the surface, the movie assembles a collection of ethnic types as varied as "Crash." It has fun with them, but it likes them, and it's gentle fun that looks for humanity, not cheap laughs. Consider the character who unexpectedly performs a Guatemalan love song, or Andy's Indian neighbors, who like to watch "Survivors" with him, although he has to bring the set. The movie approaches the subject of homosexuality without the usual gay-bashing, in a scene where the guys trade one-liners beginning "I know you're gay because" and their reasons show more insight than prejudice.

But the best reason the movie works is because Steve Carell and Catherine Keener have a rare kind of chemistry that is maybe better described as mutual sympathy. Keener is an actress at the top of her form, and to see her in "Lovely & Amazing" and "The Ballad of Jack and Rose" and then in "Virgin" is to watch an actress who starts every role with a complete understanding of the woman inside. Her task in the plot is to end Andy's virginity, but her challenge is to create a relationship we care about. We do. The character Trish is intuitively understanding, but more importantly, she actually likes this guy. Keener's inspiration is to have Trish see Andy not as a challenge, but as an opportunity.

The movie was directed by Judd Apatow, who produced "Anchorman," and written by Apatow and Carell, the "Daily Show" veteran who first developed the idea of a closeted virgin in a Second City skit. The screenplay is filled with small but perfect one-liners (as when Andy is advised to emulate David Caruso in "Jade"). At the end, for no good reason except that it strikes exactly the perfect (if completely unexpected) note, the cast performs a Bollywood version of "Age of Aquarius." By then, they could have done almost anything and I would have been smiling.

Giving at 'The Office': glamour-free humor
By Karla Peterson
SignOnSanDiego.com
January 26, 2006

From the network towers, you can hear the plaintive cries of programmers in distress.

"Young viewers, young viewers, where art thou, young viewers? And why aren't thou watching the young, hipster shows we hath made especially for you?

They're fretting, and who can blame them? Every new TV season, the networks roll out snappy comedies about swingin' young adults in various cities, and for the most part, the swingin' young adults at home don't watch them.

The latest cute casualties are "Emily Reasons Why Not" and "Jake in Progress," two single-centric sitcoms whose lukewarm ratings led ABC to put them on hiatus just one episode into their midseason runs. At least they'll have their cute friends from "Joey" to keep them company.

So why aren't hot viewers panting to watch the hot Jake and Emily doing the dating limbo? Maybe because they are getting all the laughs they need watching not-hot people sweating in white-collar hell.

Set in the numbing "Dilbert"-esque confines of the Dunder Mifflin paper supply company in Scranton, Pa., "The Office" is a painfully funny look at life in the clammy bosom of your dysfunctional workplace family. Unlike the glossy "Jake" and "Emily," this deadpan NBC sitcom about 9-to-5 drones couldn't be less glamorous if the cast members were all wearing hairnets.

But judging by its success on Apple's iTunes, where it joins "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" on the list of top TV-show downloads, "The Office" is managing to woo demographically desirable viewers in ways that the "Friends" clones and "Sex and the City" surrogates can't.

At Dunder Mifflin, the work is boring, and there isn't nearly enough of it. The workers are bored and always on the verge of some sort of revolt. (Don't get them started on the health plan.) And the boss? The boss is a menace.

As played by recent Golden Globe winner and priceless "40-Year-Old Virgin" star Steve Carell, Dunder Mifflin regional manager Michael Scott has all of the bad qualities of every bad boss everywhere, along with a few only the sociopathic sitcom writer's mind could dream up.

Michael Scott is insecure, immature, and not very bright. He thinks his sexist comments are flattering. He is convinced that his Chris Rock imitation is hysterical. And if you doubt for a minute that he is the World's Greatest Boss, he's got the coffee mug to prove it. Who cares that he bought it himself?

Typical Michael Scott Quote: "Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me."

With his terrible jokes and spasms of childish cruelty, Michael could really make his employees' lives hell, if they paid any attention to him. Fortunately, they are too busy playing computer solitaire, planning elaborate practical jokes, and pursuing doomed office romances to worry about the fact that their professional lives are in the hands of a boob.

If you have ever done any cubicle time, you will recognize the people microwaving their Cup-O-Noodles in the Dunder Mifflin break room. There is Ryan (B.J. Novak), the mute, miserable temp. There is Angela (Angela Kinsey), the bean-counting Ice Queen. There is Jim (John Krasinski), the ironic, underemployed nice guy with the crush on Pam (Jenna Fischer), the frazzled receptionist with the lunkheaded fiancé.

Last but never, ever least is Dwight (Rainn Wilson), the resident tattletale and kiss-up who keeps trying to elevate himself from assistant to the regional manager to assistant regional manager. Dwight lives for Dunder Mifflin, and Jim lives to torture Dwight. In a recent episode, Dwight arrived at work to discover that Jim had put all of his belongings in the vending machine. Not to be confused with the time Jim encased Dwight's stapler in Jell-O.

Typical Dwight Quote: "Through concentration, I can raise and lower my cholesterol at will."

When "The Office" debuted on NBC last March, its future seemed as doomed as Dwight's management career. Based on the corrosive and culty BBC series of the same name, "The Office" was deemed unworthy long before anyone saw a single scene. It was American. It did not star the fabulous Ricky Gervais. How good could it be?

The reviews were surprisingly encouraging; the ratings were not. Things didn't improve in the fall, when it began airing after "My Name Is Earl" and losing big chunks of the "Earl" audience. But like Jim's crush on Pam, the relationship between "The Office" and the viewers has begun to blossom.

Last October, "The Office" was retaining just 69 percent of "Earl" 's 18-to-49-year-old audience. But when "Earl" and "The Office" moved to NBC's new Thursday-night comedy block in January, the show's retention rate was at 86 percent for the 18-to-49 age block, and 94 percent for viewers 18 to 34. And on iTunes, five of the top 20 TV downloads are episodes of "The Office."

Earlier this week, NBC announced it was renewing "The Office" for the 2006-07 season. Meanwhile, the heavily promoted "Emily's Reasons Why Not" (starring the lovely Heather Graham) and the second season of "Jake in Progress" (with the hunky John Stamos) were yanked from the ABC schedule after one unimpressive night.

So how did the dowdy folks from "The Office" succeed when the gorgeous Jake and Emily could not? For one thing, anyone who has grown up with a TV diet of "Friends" and "Sex and the City" reruns knows a knockoff when he sees one. "The Office" doesn't look like an art-directed fantasy. Its faux-documentary style makes it looks like somebody's secret Webcast, and listening to the perfectly imperfect cast dig into its deeply sarcastic dialogue feels like eavesdropping.

"The Office" hooks jaded viewers with a recognizable slice of life that isn't shrink-wrapped in its own fabulousness. It hooks them by remembering that deep inside the heart of every bar-hopping hipster is a former Kinko's assistant manager with a former boss who made the dim but endearing Michael Scott look like Elmo, and psycho co-workers who Dwight would hide in the men's room to avoid.

They couldn't laugh at them then, but thanks to "The Office," they can laugh at them now. So can everyone else. If it hooks younger audiences with comic nightmares from the worker-bee front, "The Office" keeps them by being the answer to every TV-lover's prayers. Funny on its own weird terms and universal in the way that all great, human stories are, "The Office" is the kind of show you want to affix to your heart forever.

If only you could find your stapler.

Steve Carell poses backstage with his award for "The Office" during 63rd Annual Golden Globe Awards.
Kevin Winter / Getty Images

Steve Carell enjoys his Golden moment - Golden Globes - MSNBC.com
January 17, 2006

With his dark suit and regular-Joe looks, Steve Carell was feeling a bit out of place at Sunday’s Golden Globes.

Sure, he was nominated for musical or comedy actor in TV’s “The Office,” and yeah, he gained greater fame for having his chest waxed in last summer’s hit movie “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.”

But Carell, who wound up winning the Golden Globe for “The Office,” still had his doubts when he arrived on the red carpet.

“Looking around at all these very important people, you think, ‘Why are we here? What is this about?’” Carell said as he arrived on the red carpet. “I’m just a guy who got a part in a show.”

Later, when he collected his award, he said he hadn’t bothered to write an acceptance speech. Instead, he read one he claimed was written by his wife, Nancy. It ignored his career and instead praised his wife, noting that she had put aside her career for his.

NBC EXPANDS 'THE OFFICE' SPACE WITH FULL-SEASON PICKUP FOR 2005-06
Released by NBC

NBC EXPANDS 'THE OFFICE' SPACE WITH FULL-SEASON PICKUP FOR 2005-06

BURBANK, Calif. -- November 7, 2005 -- NBC has given "The Office" (Tuesdays, 9:30-10 p.m. ET) -- the critically acclaimed comedy starring Steve Carell (The 40-Year-Old Virgin") -- a new lease for a full-season order of episodes for 2005-06, it was announced today by Kevin Reilly, President, NBC Entertainment.

"We're thrilled to extend such a viewer and critical favorite as 'The Office,' which is a breath of creative fresh air," said Reilly. "We think the combination of 'Earl' and 'The Office' on Tuesday nights is one of the funniest hours in network television each week. It's immensely gratifying to see our faith in the show validated as viewers start to gravitate towards its quirky characters and offbeat humor."

"We used to be a cult hit," said executive producer Greg Daniels, "and now we're becoming an actual cult. Here's some literature we'd like you to read."

"The Office" is averaging a 3.9 rating and a 9 share among adults 18-49 with 8.0 million viewers overall this season, and is leading its time period among adults 18-34. The acclaimed comedy's adult 18-49 audience includes the second-highest concentration of households with incomes of $100,000 and more for any comedy on network television behind only "Will & Grace."

In the last two weeks, "The Office" has also delivered its two highest retentions yet of its adult 18-49 lead-in from "My Name Is Earl," a 73 percent retention on October 18 and a 71 percent retention on November 1. "The Office" is up significantly from its averages for last season, including a 56 percent increase over its 2.5 average rating in 18-49 for 2004-05.

From Reveille and NBC Universal Television Studio, "The Office" offers a documentary-style look into the humorous and sometimes poignant foolishness that plagues the world of 9-to-5 in the half-hour comedy, based on the award-winning BBC hit.

A fly-on-the-wall "docu-reality" parody about modern American office life, "The Office" delves into the lives of the workers at Dunder Mifflin paper-supply company in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Regional manager Michael Scott (Carell, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," "The Daily Show," "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," "Bruce Almighty") is a clueless, middle-aged man who is the boastful tour guide for the documentary.

Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer, "Miss Match") is the reasonable and friendly office receptionist who bears the brunt of Michael's routines. The bright spots in Pam's day are her conversations with Jim Halpert (John Krasinski, "Kinsey"), a likable sales rep with a good sense of humor who should have found a better job years ago. Jim shares his working space with Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson, "Six Feet Under"), the arrogant assistant to the regional manager. Ryan Howard (B.J. Novak, "Punk'd") is a young, smart, self-possessed temp, who quickly figures out the real office politics despite Michael's interference.

"The Office" is executive-produced by Ben Silverman, Greg Daniels, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Howard Klein.

Crude, rude and clueless: Steve Carell lovin' every minute of it
By Josh Mcauliffe
The Times-Tribune
September 20, 2005

For Steve Carell, there’s nothing more fun than playing “an ass.”

And so it was with tremendous good fortune that the 42-year-old actor landed the role of Michael Scott, the fantastically insensitive, preposterously clueless boss on NBC’s “The Office,” the faux-documentary comedy set at a fictional Scranton paper distribution company that begins its second season tonight at 9:30 on WBRE-TV, Channel 28.

The show, based on the British cult phenomenon of the same name, earned critical raves but less-than-dazzling ratings during its initial six-episode run last spring. The fact that “The Office” has been given the green light for a second season speaks highly of the network’s opinion of the show, Mr. Carell said during a phone interview last week from his “luxurious trailer” on the NBC lot.

“We’re following in the ‘Seinfeld’ model,” said Mr. Carell, in reference to the classic NBC sitcom that was on the air a good three seasons before finally taking off. “I have to give NBC credit because it’s not your average show.”

As far as audiences go, Mr. Carell said the trick might be to stick with the show for a few episodes and get used to its off-kilter pacing and reliance on painfully realistic embarrassing situations and awkward silences.

“For some, it might be an acquired taste. Because it is different,” Mr. Carell said. “Once you understand it, and get the rhythm of it, you enjoy it.

“We have a very strong core and the trick is to expand on that.”

Love to hate him:

There’s also the issue of Mr. Carell’s character, an obnoxious buffoon who last season pretended to fire receptionist Pam (played by Jenna Fischer) as a joke, laid waste to a diversity training seminar with a flurry of racially insensitive behavior, and passed off the responsibility of coming up with a new company health care plan to lackey Dwight (Rainn Wilson) in hopes of maintaining goodwill with his subordinates.

“People are so used to likable characters on TV that they immediately identify with. We’re not constructing someone immediately likable,” said Mr. Carell, who as a college student used to pass through the Scranton area along Interstate 84 while traveling from his home outside Boston to Denison University in Ohio. (“There was some fast food dining, but I think that was it. That was the extent of my Scranton patronage,” he said.)

This year, Mr. Carell said, there will be an added emphasis on bringing a layer of humanity to Michael, in hopes of showing that he, like Archie Bunker and other famously disagreeable sitcom characters of the past, has a few redeeming qualities.

“Once you get to understand where he’s coming from, he’s not a complete monster,” Mr. Carell said. “He just has an emotional blind spot.”

“At first, the character seems unlikable, but then you kind of enjoy watching him get into different predicaments,” said “Office” executive producer Greg Daniels, noting that viewers will be treated to Michael fretting over his moribund love life, taking out a 30-year mortgage and having to fire an employee. “Even if you don’t like the characters, you have to at least love watching them.”

There are other potential factors that could help “The Office,” like Mr. Carell’s boosted stature in the wake of his starring role in the surprise hit film, “The 40 Year Old Virgin.” NBC realized this, having cross-promoted the show with the film (distributed by Universal Films, which, along with NBC, is owned by Vivendi).

Complete opposite:

In “Virgin,” Mr. Carell shows off his significant comedic range through the title character, Andy Stitzer, who’s about 180 degrees removed from Michael Scott. The film, which Mr. Carell co-wrote, has been praised for its deft combination of raunchy farce, witty intelligence and romantic heart.

“We didn’t want to take the easy way out and just mock someone for not having sex,” Mr. Carell said. “Really, he’s just a normal guy who’s missed out on some opportunities. In any other way, he would have been fine had he not missed out.”

“It’s a really funny movie. And he’s really likable,” Mr. Daniels said.

Nobody was more surprised with the movie’s success than Mr. Carell, who had spent the bulk of his career playing supporting roles on TV shows like “The Daily Show” and in movies such as “Anchorman” and “Bruce Almighty.” He’s currently in talks to star in the latter film’s sequel, and will be playing Maxwell Smart in the movie remake of the 1960s TV spy spoof, “Get Smart.”

“It is absolutely surreal. I didn’t expect to be in a movie, let alone be the main character in one,” he said. “When we were shooting it, I thought it was funny. But, I had no idea of knowing it was going to do as well as it did.”

So what happens should both “The Office” and Mr. Carell’s film career take off? Would Mr. Carell pull a David Caruso and decide he’s too big for television?

Not likely, said Mr. Carell, whose wife has already prohibited him from buying a Porsche in the wake of his heightened fame.

“I’m not too big for anything. I’m so lucky to be employed, it’s ridiculous,” he said. “Also, I’ve been at it long enough to know a lot of it is B-S. I know this can all be over with next week.”

Besides, why would he want to leave a good thing?

“(‘The Office’) is a riot. It’s great,” Mr. Carell said. “These episodes are great this year. I think we’re hitting our stride.”

The Office - Starts 9/20, 9:30 p.m. ET - NBC
TV Guide

Where we left off:

There was a hint of jealousy in the air when Pam the receptionist (Jenna Fischer) saw Jim (John Krasinski) leaving work with Katy, the visiting handbag merchant known as the "Purse Girl."

What's next:

Mostly make-you-squirm moments with obnoxious paper company boss Michael Scott (Steve Carell). "My dad can't watch it," Carell says. "It makes him so uncomfortable to see his son walking into these situations, digging himself deeper and deeper." Despite his best efforts to avoid it, Michael will actually have to do some work. "He's going to end up firing somebody, and it's going to be very hard for him," says executive producer Greg Daniels.

Office romance:

How long can Jim and Pam continue their flirtation? "The (Sam and Diane) relationship went on for years," Krasinski says. "They did a really good job. Hopefully we can draw it out without frustrating people."

The Office: Season One
Universal DVD **** (out of five)
Rick McGinnis/Metro Toronto
August 16, 2005

The whole idea of a U.S. remake of The Office, the hit British comedy miniseries that made a star out of Ricky Gervais, was greeted with contempt by fans of the show.

Anyone who's seen the show knows it's as close to perfect as TV comedy will allow — relentless, excruciating and beautifully cast, from Gervais' David Brent, the oblivious jerk almost everyone's suffered as a boss, down through the supporting cast to small but perfect characters such as Big Keith, the accountant who's as arrogant as he's free of charisma.

Reworking the show into a U.S. context is a farcically provincial move, as pointless as dubbing American voices onto the Teletubbies, revealed in all its absurdity when the original BBC show won a Golden Globe for best TV comedy last year, just when NBC was working on their remake.

In a white-collar world where one office floor full of metal desks, motivational posters and leased computers is the same as another from Bangalore to Berlin, what, in particular, is so different about a U.S. paper products branch office as compared to its U.K. counterpart?

There's no reason to take NBC's version of The Office seriously except for one thing — it was one of the best sitcoms on TV last year, period.

It might just be the simple brilliance of Gervais' idea: who hasn't come to regard their time in white-collar hell as morbidly funny, when it isn't tedious, humiliating or hateful?

Every other corner office is occupied by a shade of David Brent, happy to use the platitudinous, emotionally invasive mode of modern corporate culture to turn work into a personal psychodrama.

And it's not that casting Daily Show veteran Steve Carell as Michael Scott, Brent's U.S. counterpart, was such a genius move. Carell was probably the only American actor capable of playing Brent/Scott's shameless, overreaching ignorance with a straight face.

No, there's nothing good you can say about NBC's remake of The Office, except that it's probably the best thing the network produced all year.

And really, can you call a mere six episodes a complete first season? A short, brilliant burst of competence — that would be just about the best way to dignify the thing.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV and Radio | US Office suffers ratings slide

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"I Think I'm an Idiot"
By Stephen Battaglio
TV Guide - April 3 - 9, 2005

Steve Carell has made a career out of acting silly. Who better to play the clueless boss in NBC's outrageous new mockumentary-style comedy?

When you look into the eyes of Steve Carell, the words "anybody home?" come to mind.

His best-known characters-the demented weatherman in "Anchorman," the unctuous TV newsman in "Bruce Almighty," the clueless correspondent on the Daily Show-display not one scintilla of self-knowledge.

When Carell, 41, was cast as Michael Scott, the absurdly egotistical boss in their remake of the popular British comedy The Office, NBC had no doubt he was the man for the job.

"Steve is brilliant at playing that stupid person who doesn't know he's stupid," says executive producer Greg Daniels. "He has that Peter Sellers quality. You're scrutinizing him and trying to see if there is any hint that he knows what he's doing."

David Brent, the character played in the original version by series cocreator Ricky Gervais, was a quietly desperate man given to occasional-and horrifyingly embarrassing-outbursts of overzealousness. Gervais won a Golden Globe for his performance. Carell, who hadn't seen The Office before he auditioned, watched one episode and decided to stop right there. "Ricky's portrayal is so definitive that I don't think it can be matched or improved upon in any way," he says. "His rhythms and speech patterns are so specific that I didn't want to copy any of those things."

Carell plays this obliviously annoying boss with his own brand of goofy, maniac energy. It's a zone he's totally comfortable in. "There is that fine adage that you have to be incredibly intelligent to play an idiot, but I don't think that holds true," he says. "I think I'm an idiot myself."

He discovered his inner idiot at the age of 7, when he showed up at the dinner table at his home in Acton, Massachusetts, wearing a motorcycle helmet wrapped in aluminum foil with a flashlight attached on top. After majoring in history and dabbling in theater at Denison University in Ohio, he headed to Chicago and joined the legendary Second City improv troupe, where he met his wife, Nancy Walls. The couple has two young children.

Carell is currently filming "The 40 Year Old Virgin," which he wrote with Freaks and Geeks executive producer Judd Apatow and in the upcoming movie versions of two beloved TV shows, playing Uncle Arthur in "Bewitched" and Maxwell Smart in "Get Smart"-another classic American Idiot.

NBC didn't factor Carell's budding movie career into it's original plan. The network's entertainment president, Kevin Reilly, says he avoided casting a big star as The Office's lead because it might have compromised the show's mockumentary style. "Right now he's, 'Oh, that guy," Reilly says. "But he's one big part away."

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Laughs often lost over ocean
British comedies don’t always survive networks’ attempts at Americanization.
By Steve Murray - Cox News Service
March 30, 2005

ATLANTA — Sometimes things get lost in translation — even when the language is the same.

Take TV comedies. Just because a show’s a hit in the U.K. doesn’t mean it’s gonna fly in the U.S. There’s often a big gap between the tone of the two cultures’ shows and their sources of humor. They’re created and written in different ways, and some of the naughty bits the Brits get away with would never pass FCC scrutiny.

In other words, giving a Limey show a Yankee face-lift requires more than changing “pub” to “bar” or “chips” to “fries.”

But American networks keep trying to turn overseas hits into ratings winners here, hoping to score success without having to go to the trouble of actually creating something new. The latest is NBC, whose version of the cult British hit “The Office” debuted Thursday.

Transplanted from the English town of Slough to Scranton, the remake stars Steve Carell as the manager of a paper-product company whose lousy people skills and lame jokes are captured by a documentary camera crew.

Greg Daniels, executive producer of the new version, says that the original’s co-creators, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, felt the series could cross the Atlantic without much damage. After all, it already had some American roots.

“They love ‘The Simpsons,’ and they love ‘The Apartment’ by Billy Wilder,” Daniels says of the original writers. “They don’t look at their own show as being a really British show.”

It probably helped that, as a former writer for “The Simpsons,” Daniels penned one of Gervais’ and Merchant’s favorite episodes, in which Homer gets charged with sexual harassment.

Like many British comedies, “The Office” isn’t a sitcom in the American sense, but an envelope-pushing hybrid.

“Sitcoms in the U.K. are few and far between,” says Bill Hilary, president of BBC America. “British comedy tends to be different. It’s edgier and in some ways smarter.”

Every time Garry Berman hears that a British comedy is being remade for American television, he feels a twinge of despair.

“The first question that pops into my head is, ‘Why?’ ” says Berman, the author of “Best of the Britcoms: From Fawlty Towers to Absolutely Fabulous.” “If they admire the British programs that much, then why not just appreciate them as they are? The American versions inevitably become watered down and have whatever teeth the British version had taken out of them.”

He singles out the 1996 series “Cosby,” based on “One Foot in the Grave” about a retired man with bad luck and a worse attitude. The first couple of episodes were true to the original, he says, “but then it became a conventional sitcom with Bill Cosby playing a grumpy guy.”

One of the reasons American versions seem watered down is that the British are more bold in visiting very dark places in search of laughs.

“The British have genteel, quiet, innocuous sitcoms,” Berman says. “But they also have this whole swath of different genres and styles, and some really surreal, bizarre shows.”

Take a recent example, last year’s BBC comedy “Nighty Night,” which basic-cable Oxygen aired in the States. When her husband goes to the hospital for cancer treatment, the show’s “heroine” Jill (creator Julia Davis) tells friends he’s already dead, joins a dating service, starts hitting on a married neighbor and ends the series as a murderess. And she gets away with it.

You won’t see something like that wedged between “Joey” and “Will & Grace.”

Then there’s the case of “Absolutely Fabulous.” Roseanne Barr bought the remake rights to the comedy, featuring heavy-drinking, chain-smoking, drug-using antiheroines Eddy and Patsy — walking nightmares for a standards-and-practices department.

“They couldn’t get it on the networks because to tone it down would have been to destroy it, really,” Hilary says.

Friday, Oxygen airs the new “AbFab” special “White Box,” which offers another example of why the show can’t translate. In a moment of anger, Eddy (creator Jennifer Saunders) gives her toddler granddaughter a smack. It’s like watching Bob Saget backhand an Olsen twin on “Full House.”

Starting Saturday on BBC America, we’ll finally get a chance to see a British icon most of us don’t know.

In 1994, comedian Steve Coogan created Alan Partridge, the self-regarding, deeply untalented host of a talk show. The six-episode series ends with a disaster that finishes off Partridge’s TV career.

You won't see something like that wedged between "Joey" and "Will & Grace."

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TV Review: Free of its UK-based pilot, NBC's new series has chance to shine
FilmForce: The Office
mailto:kjb@ign.com

March 28, 2005 - Fans of the BBC comedy The Office have been sounding off on their general displeasure about the US counterpart, which premiered last Thursday. That series, starring Daily Show alum Steve Carell on the part that helped with the series and its creator, Ricky Gervais, two Golden Globes, premiered on NBC last Thursday and starts its Tuesday run this week. And if you're not someone strongly invested in the original series, it's surprisingly funny.

For those that aren't into the comedies that run on BBC America, The Office is a faux-documentary series set in your standard office setting, hence the name. The people that make up the office staff are archetypes for everyone you've ever seen or, even more likely, worked with. There's the manager who is far less beloved than he thinks he is, the paranoid office guy and the cute-but-not-gorgeous girl at the desk that every male in the building, especially the aforementioned manager, fantasizes about because they see her every day.

The pilot episode for the US series was deservedly panned by fans of the show and many critics for using too many gags from the original, some of which really didn't transfer as well as hoped. Fortunately for the producers and the audience, the series veers away from its source material this week, focusing more on situations faced by the American work force. This results in a show that should connect with more of its intended audience and, if played correctly, could become a solid performer for a network that desperately could use a hit.

The series is never intended to be a gut buster; the style of humor is like a half hour of observational comedy – amusing but never intended to be a solid hour of laugh out loud vaudeville comedy. It's the kind of humor that will stick with you after it's over and make you take a different look at the people you work with. In that respect, it's possibly one of the most unique comedies on US television and for that reason alone, deserves a shot at survival. It runs the risk of being "too hip for the room" but for those that are willing to change what they expect from a network comedy, it may be one of best surprises of the season. - KJB