'Office' Debut, 'ER' Help NBC to Top Slot Thursday
By Cynthia Littleton
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
March 25, 2005

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Despite atypical competition from a special airing of Fox's "American Idol" and CBS' live NCAA basketball coverage, NBC won the a busy night in primetime Thursday with help from the debut of comedy series "The Office" and "ER."

"The Office," a U.S. rendition of the quirky BBC hit that developed a cult following Stateside through airings on BBC America, passed muster in its 9:30 p.m. premiere behind a special 8:30-9:30 edition of "The Apprentice."

"Apprentice," however, was off its usual game thanks to the lure of Fox's "Idol," with an average of 11.6 million viewers and 4.9 rating/13 share in the adults 18-49 demographic, according to preliminary estimates from Nielsen Media Research. "The Office" held on to virtually all of its "Apprentice" lead-in to finish out with 11.3 million viewers and 5.0/13 in the key demo. "Office" moves into its regular Tuesday 9:30 p.m. berth next week.

Fox's 8:30 p.m. results edition of "Idol," which usually airs on Wednesdays, drew a solid 20 million viewers and 8.5/22 in adults 18-49. The Thursday airing was hastily scheduled this week after a snafu forced Fox to repeat Tuesday's sing-off competition episode on Wednesday because the wrong viewer call-in information was displayed on screen for some contestants. That also forced Fox to push to Thursday the debut of comedy "Life on a Stick" (9.2 million, 4.0/10), which had little traction in the 9:30 p.m. slot against "Office" despite the benefit of its "Idol" lead-in.

Fox had a good showing in the opening hour of primetime from "The O.C." (8.5 million, 3.7/11), which spiked in its second half-hour, probably as a result of tune-in anticipation for "Idol." NBC's "Joey" was unimpressive with 8.9 million n viewers and 3.8/11 in adults 18-49, while ABC's new comedy "Jake in Progress" had a rough outing with back-to-back episodes from 8-9 p.m. that yielded an average of 6.8 million viewers and 2.2/6 in the demo.

Preliminary estimates indicated a good, if not great, turnout in primetime for CBS' live basketball coverage.

At 10 p.m., "ER" (15 million, 6.5/18) easily won its time slot.

'The Office' relocation loses little in translation to America
First Night: The Office (US) NBC
By David Usborne - Independent News & Media
26 March 2005

It is NBC's bad luck that any television critic worth their salt will have watched the original BBC version of The Office before reviewing the network's own stab at the mockumentary sitcom for US viewers which made its debut on Thursday night.

It was never going to be better, or even half as good, as the British series created by Ricky Gervais. But the good news is that America's version of The Office seems to be off to a decent start.

So far, no one is rushing to pan it as they did NBC's ill-starred recreation last year of another Brit hit, Coupling (and, believe me, that was awful). On the contrary, the network is getting credit for placing what can only be described as a quirky, often painful, half-hour of deadpan humour in prime time. Gervais is not the star this time, but, with his co-creator of the show, Stephen Merchant, he does appear in the credits as one of the executive producers.

And, just to be safe, the first episode was almost a carbon copy of the first half-hour of Britain's The Office, sometimes word for word. The differences are the actors, and - of course - the name of the paper company that the office drudges work for and the town it is set in. Welcome to Dunder Mifflin, a paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The Dunder may be a sly reference to the dunderheaded sensibility of the Gervais lead, this time called Michael Scott (instead of David Brent) and played by Steve Carell, familiar to US audiences as a faux reporter on the late-night hit The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Episode one sees him displaying all the awfulness of Brent, at one point pretending to sack a wan receptionist because he thinks it's funny. There is nothing brave - or original - about purloining the best from Britain's comedy larder and reworking it for US viewers. Yet, NBC is being applauded precisely for bravery. And you can see why. There is no laugh track on The Office. And it will surely take a while before NBC's audiences get the hang of the meandering camera angles and long, long pauses.

But the network has worked hard at getting it right. The Office over here has a strong stable of writers who will diverge from the original British script in ensuing episodes. First among them is Greg Daniels, who was the co-creator of King of the Hill and a former writer from Saturday Night Live.

If it compromised at all it was in casting good looking actors - much better looking than their British counterparts. And NBC knows that the shadow of its Coupling debacle hangs over The Office and the reception it will get from American critics. But the suits at NBC, who secretly hope that The Office might turn into their next Seinfeld-like sleeper hit, will be breathing more easily now.

"This time," the Philadelphia Enquirer wrote last night, "the network comes much closer to getting it right."

Similarly welcoming was New York Times' Alessandra Stanley. "Though it grates to admit, the American version of The Office is very funny," she commented before adding: "for viewers who never saw the original series". As she points out, though, while Britain's The Office has been airing on the cable channel BBC America, there aren't many households who get it.

NBC's 'Office' shows potential
The show has a capable cast, but time will tell if it can escape the shadow of the British original
By Kristi Turnquist
March 24, 2005

Adapting the award-winning BBC series "The Office" for American TV seems like trying to fix a jammed copier with a paper clip -- nice try, but not likely to get very far. In its original 12-episode run on BBC America, "The Office" -- now available on DVD -- chronicled the tedious routine of a paper company, supposedly as captured by a reality-show-type film crew. Funny, cringe-inducingly accurate and subtly sympathetic to the characters' foibles, "The Office" became one of those cult favorites that fans can't stop blabbing about (and let me just say to my co-workers -- I apologize.)

For the night, NBC averaged 12 million viewers and 5.3/14 in the demo. Fox and CBS appeared to be neck-and-neck for No. 2 in viewers while Fox appeared to have the edge in adults 18-49 (5.0/13).

So the NBC redo, premiering tonight, has a lot to live up to. And to live down, what with memories of NBC's disastrous remake of "Coupling," another British comedy, still painfully fresh. Judging from the three episodes NBC provided for review, "The Office" earns a mixed evaluation. It doesn't quite do the job yet, but at least there's potential.

Developed for American TV by Greg Daniels ("The Simpsons," "King of the Hill"), "The Office" gets off to a nervous start with a pilot that too closely follows the British original. We're in the offices of Dunder-Mifflin, a dullsville paper-supply company in Scranton, Pa. A documentary crew's on hand, filming the staff and getting regular blasts of hot air from self-impressed manager Michael Scott (Steve Carell).

In his mind, Scott is the world's greatest boss (he has the coffee mug to prove it -- which he bought for himself at Spencer Gifts). In reality, Scott's a tactless, deluded boob, whose heroes are "Bob Hope, Abraham Lincoln, Bono, and probably God would be the fourth one."

Rounding out the staff are Jim (John Krasinski) a bored sales rep; Dwight (Rainn Wilson), Scott's ambitious assistant; and Pam (Jenna Fischer), the receptionist who's been putting off pursuing her dream career as an illustrator. They're all faced with the prospect of downsizing, not to mention tolerating Scott's supposedly wacky pranks (he "punks" Pam by telling her she's being fired for stealing.)

The American version keeps the original's distinctive tone: no laugh track, awkward pauses, pained expressions on everyone's faces as Scott tells yet another unfunny joke. The cast has possibilities -- Wilson (the creepy tenant in "Six Feet Under") is appropriately nerdy and hostile. Fischer has a likably depressed quality. But Krasinski lacks the underachieving charm Martin Freeman brought to the BBC version, which detracts from the flirty friendship between Jim and Pam.

And Carell is miscast in the pivotal role as the boss, played by "Office" co-creator Ricky Gervais as an overgrown child, too transparently inept to be devious. Carell is at his best when his beady-eyed aggression bubbles close to the surface (as in his "Produce Pete" bits on "The Daily Show.") He seems too smart to be so foolish -- instead of Scott being hilarious and pathetic, he just comes off as a jerk.

On its own, however, "The Office" at least represents NBC's willingness to try something different. The second episode, about a "diversity day" training session that goes excruciatingly wrong, is sharp and a touch surreal, as when Scott declares, "Abraham Lincoln once said that if you're a racist, I will attack you with the North. And these are the principles that I carry with me in the workplace." If the writers and directors dial down their admiration for the original and keep reflecting what's weird about the American workplace, "The Office" could earn its own niche.

Or at least its own file drawer.

Steve Carell Braves His 'Office' Job
By Bridget Byrne
The Associated Press
March 21, 2005

LOS ANGELES -- "Nothing to me feels as good as laughing incredibly hard," says Steve Carell of NBC's new mockumentary series "The Office." "If a movie or a TV show or a book makes you laugh until you cry, you just feel better."

A lot of folks did just that with the original BBC version of "The Office," created by and starring Ricky Gervais as lacking-all-social-graces David Brent, manager of a paper supply company.

Now it's up to Carell to get audiences doubling-up with similar glee watching NBC's adaptation of the Golden Globe-winning import, which premieres 9:30 p.m. EST Thursday.

Best known as the news correspondent on "The Daily Show," the anchorman in "Bruce Almighty," and the weather guy in "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," Carell plays Michael Scott in "The Office," a cringe-inducing boss, adept at little except the inappropriate.

"Steve's brave. It really has a lot to do with courage," says co-executive producer Greg Daniels. "It's big shoes to fill."

Daniels says they picked Carell for the lead role because, "He's very likable. He's got a goofy side to him and so it doesn't come out that he (Scott) is trying to be hurtful. It comes out like he's unintentionally being hurtful, which is the joke."

Carell had not seen the original series and before auditioning, he watched only a bit of the pilot episode "to get a taste of the tone." From everything he'd heard, Gervais created "an iconic character," so "I thought the best way for me to approach it would be with a clean slate."

He briefly met Gervais and original co-creator Stephen Merchant, who have co-producer credit on the American version. They didn't set any guidelines; they merely provided encouragement. "It was kind of like they were just giving us a toy to play with, to do whatever we wanted with," Carell says.

He says Scott is "well meaning, but generally all those good intentions go awry. He has a social blind spot. He doesn't know when to stop himself from saying something. He doesn't understand when he is being offensive. He doesn't understand how people truly perceive him."

Both Carell and Daniels believe the concept of the half-hour show, which is shot single-camera without an audience, has universal appeal, so they haven't tried to reproduce the original series, just catch its essence.

"I think the spirit of the British show is that the reality of office life is that it can be like a prison. You don't get to choose who you are sitting next to, so you have to deal with characters that are irritating, and that's within everybody's experience," says Daniels.

"I think it's a little more real than people might be expecting," notes Carell. "NBC has allowed us to leave in those uncomfortable pauses that I think are so important ... it has to be awkward, kind of nails-on-a-chalkboard at times."

Carell, 41, grew up in Concord, Mass. His first comic forays were to try to make "my older brothers' girlfriends laugh by doing something odd ... like dressing up as an alien for no apparent reason and coming down to dinner."

His first paying job was at Chicago's Second City comedy troupe, where he honed his improv skills and met his wife, actress Nancy Walls.

In the upcoming movie "Bewitched," he's practical joker Uncle Arthur, a character etched in the original TV series by Paul Lynde. In the planned film version of another classic TV series, "Get Smart," he'll also step into the shoes of a well-known character -- inept spy Maxwell Smart, first played by Don Adams.

Carell never deliberately sought to play TV journalist roles or characters nailed by other actors.

"It's not a master plan to do every remake and every recreation of icons," he says. "It's just what I've been hired to do."

The Globe and Mail: Toiling away at The Office
By Andrew Ryan
March 15, 2005

Welcome to the jungle. The dreary deskbound habitat that inspired the original British TV hit The Office has been neatly replicated for American viewing consumption. There was more to the process than replacing tea with coffee.

The Office: An American Workplace (starting March 24 on NBC and Global, then switching to CH on March 29) is a bold network move, considering the source material. It's inevitable that fans of the original BBC version -- and they are legion -- will be put off by the NBC remake. How do you recreate a classic? And why?

The original Office was a gift from the TV gods: A smart mockumentary series, filmed single-camera-style in the drab setting of an office branch of a paper-products company. The faux reality-show concept came from British comedian Ricky Gervais, who also took on the plum role of David Brent, the insufferable office manager. Cheesy of grin and entirely self-possessed, dim David truly thought himself a great leader. To inspire his charges, he would bring in his guitar and perform original ballads. David was blissfully oblivious that his staff loathed him.

The Office first aired in Britain in 2001 and ran for two short seasons, totalling 12 episodes, and reprised for a two-part Christmas special in 2003. The DVD box set was the top-selling BBC show of all time. The Office likewise created water-cooler buzz, so to speak, upon its arrival to North American television, airing in the United States on BBC America and here on BBC Canada and Showcase. When the time came to remount the series for American television, those involved were rightfully skittish.

"It was kind of daunting at first, because the original is so original a show," says executive producer Greg Daniels, a veteran TV writer with credits on The Simpsons, Seinfeld and other programs. "But there's so much that is universal about it; office life has a particular culture, and its own rules. It's not necessarily a British thing."

To ensure the remount retained the reality flavour of the original, NBC paired Daniels with co-executive producer Ben Silverman, who produced the unscripted series The Biggest Loser and The Restaurant. Despite his résumé, "This is a comedy, not a reality show," Silverman insists. "It's part of the birth of a whole movement we're seeing: American television as a kind of docu-soap; this idea that anybody could be famous. People are actually watching these shows like Airline, and others, that follow people in the workplace . . . and usually in jobs that aren't very interesting."

Aside from some slight variations on the theme, the NBC version doesn't stray far in concept from the original series. The setting has moved from the British working-class suburb of Slough to the equally humdrum locale of Scranton, Pa. The pivotal David character has been renamed Mike Scott and is assumed by comedian Steve Carell, best known for his dry reportage on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Carell says only a fool would try to copy Gervais's original portrayal.

"His performance is definitive," Carell says. "It really goes down in history, with your Ted Baxters and Archie Bunkers. It's so unbelievable that I immediately shied away from studying him, because there wasn't any way I was going to recreate how good he was in that character. I thought more of a blank-slate approach would be best for me."

Instead, The Office: An American Workplace introduces a new brand of TV idiot. Carell plays Michael as an insensitive twerp, the sort of manager whose idea of a jolly office joke is to pretend to fire the receptionist. "I thought it would be a kind of morale-boosting thing," he says after the woman bursts into tears. Michael begins the staff's Diversity Day seminar with the intriguing opening line: "Name another race you're sexually attracted to." As with the original David, Carell's Michael is a nit, though needy.

"I don't perceive the character as being unlikable or mean," Carell says. "He's very well-intentioned. I think he's someone in need of a giant hug, underneath it all."

All the other elements have been transferred over, mostly intact, from the British version. Many scenes on the original show were stolen by David's officious assistant, Gareth; on the new show, those honours go to Rainn Wilson (Six Feet Under) as the nerdy Dwight. Dwight is the slavish employee who arrives early, stays late and snitches on co-workers at every given chance.

"Dwight's entire existence revolves around his position in this office," Wilson says. "There's something so true and so sad about these characters, who are just trying to make it every day in this office or to get ahead and move forward in some way."

Two other key players from the original Office are remoulded for the remake: star-crossed interoffice lovers Tim and Dawn have been morphed into Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer). As on the original show, the young and restless couple fight off their numbing workaday boredom through constant flirtation. Computer poker helps, too.

The necessary flat look of the remake was accomplished by turning a soundstage into a working office. "The set was exactly like the real thing," Fischer says. "Everyone arrived at the same time every day and we sat at our desks. The whole point of the show was not to perform for the cameras, but be documented by them. So we just had to sit there, like we were in a real office."

Still, there's no way to predict whether a mainstream viewership will take to The Office: An American Workplace. The stark, no-laugh-track style may confound some viewers accustomed to the standard sitcom format and, of course, there are some viewers who've already been spoiled by the original series. Those purists should be somewhat mollified by the fact that the remake is fully sanctioned by Gervais, who is listed as a "creative consultant" and even wrote several new scenes for the first episode.

"Ricky's been a great supporter and a great friend to the show and has been totally available to us," Silverman says. "But he's also encouraged us to find our own rhythm. Hopefully we'll find our audience, and that audience will grow, because we're really trying to do something different."

And if all else fails, Carell has a clever promotional plan: "I think NBC should send out water coolers with 'The Office' printed on them," he says, deadpan. ". . . and you fill the water coolers with Scotch."

TIME.com: The (Awkward) Pause That Refreshes
By James Poniewozik
Time.com
Monday, Mar. 21, 2005

Ever since NBC announced plans to remake The Office--the critically adored BBC sitcom about white collar dronesmanship--fans of the original prepared to be disappointed. Americans, they surmised, could not reproduce its discomfiting British humor.

They were right. And thank God. The Office (Tuesdays, 9:30 p.m. E.T.; preview March 24, 9:30 p.m. E.T.) keeps elements of the original, like the mockumentary format and the long, awkward pauses. But it finds a discomfiting American humor all its own.

The first dead-on choice was hiring executive producer Greg Daniels, whose animated King of the Hill is TV's most acute satire of suburban mores. The second was casting Steve Carell to reinterpret the nightmare boss originated by Ricky Gervais. Carell's Michael Scott, like Gervais' David Brent, is a paper-company middle manager who believes he's a sage, a comedian and his employees' best friend.

But like many an American reality-show subject, he's really a boor trying to impress the cameras. Introducing receptionist Pam (Jenna Fischer), Scott compliments her thusly: "Pam has been with us for--forever. Righty, Pam? You think she's cute now, you should have seen her a couple years ago! Rrawrr!" Her response--a fleeting "Wha?"--is one of many priceless moments in a comedy of subtle background reactions and self-delusions. In his office, Scott shows the off-camera interviewer his World's Best Boss coffee mug. "I think that pretty much sums it up. [Pause.] I found it at Spencer Gifts."

The pilot--largely a copy of the British one--is funny enough. But a better episode is an all-American one about diversity. After Scott offends the staff by doing Chris Rock's "black people and n" stand-up routine, corporate holds a mandatory racial-sensitivity meeting. Scott responds by hosting his own session, in which he asks a Mexican-American staff member, "Is there a term besides Mexican that you prefer? Something less offensive?"

It's ironic that NBC's most original sitcom in years is a remake, but who cares? The Office is a daring, unflinching take on very American workplace tensions. And network TV needed this jolt like a cubicle jockey needs the morning's first cup of coffee. --By James Poniewozik

The Office gains worst ever NBC rating
Copyright World Entertainment News Network 2004
June 2, 2004

The American version of hit British sitcom The Office is poised to bomb in the US after viewers gave the pilot episode the worst ever rating in TV network NBC's history, labelling it "too depressing."

Comedian Ricky Gervais' show about a fictional office in Slough, England, scooped two Golden Globes earlier this year, but NBC bosses are now convinced the American cast and crew's efforts to repeat its success stateside will fail - so they've limited the series to just six episodes.

And British TV critics are not surprised the show has left American audiences baffled - because they say the two nations have very different comedy tastes.

US Office bombs
By Beth Hardie, icReporter
June 1, 2004

Plans to make an American series of The Office have been scrapped after a test audience dubbed it "too depressing".

According to the Daily Mirror, even though the British version won two Golden Globes, our friends across the water didn't find the dark fly-on-the-wall style remotely funny.

The pilot viewers gave it the worst rating for a sitcom in NBC TV's history.

Ricky Gervais - who played boss from hell David Brent in the Slough-based BBC comedy - was supposed to be executive producer on the US series.

However bosses have now ordered just six shows to be made.

An insider said: "Americans are used to sitcoms where good-looking people sit on a sofa and crack a joke every 15 seconds.

"The Office isn't like that."

Never a truer word spoken!

American TV network to remake 'The Office' despite failure of pilot
By Ciar Byrne, Media Correspondent
© 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
19 May 2004

The cult sitcom The Office is to be remade for an American audience by the US television network behind Friends - despite the lukewarm reaction of a pilot audience.

NBC has commissioned six episodes of the BBC comedy, after buying the rights from co-creators Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant and the BBC.

The show, which will go on air in the autumn, has been adapted for a US audience by screenwriter Greg Daniels, who has worked on The Simpsons and Seinfeld. It has been renamed The Office: An American Workplace.

Gervais, who played the cringe-making central character David Brent in the original, will be a script adviser and general consultant on the US adaptation, together with Merchant.

However, he has already indicated that he will not become too closely involved, telling the Los Angeles Times: "We sold the rights. It's like selling a house and then you keep turning up saying 'Why are you changing the fireplace?' I've done my bit."

Steve Carell, an American comedian from The Daily Show, a satire show on the US network Comedy Central, who starred alongside Jim Carrey in the film Bruce Almighty, will take the part of Brent's character, who has been renamed Michael Scott.

There are doubts about how well the dry as a bone humour of The Office, set in the fictional Slough-based paper merchants Wernham Hogg, will translate to a US audience. A screening of a pilot of the show received a lukewarm reception from American viewers.

Gervais has joked that "better teeth" would be the main difference between the US version and the British original.

Coupling, another BBC2 sitcom remade for the US by NBC, proved a flop last year and was pulled from the schedules after just one month.

The Office has already enjoyed some success in America, winning two Golden Globes in Los Angeles in January for best television comedy, and best comedy actor for Gervais.

NBC has unveiled its new line-up for 2004 and 2005, following the end of its hugely successful sitcoms Friends and Frasier.

The network's new shows include Joey, a spin-off starring Friends actor Matt LeBlanc, whose character moves to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career.

American 'The Office' gets icy reception!
New York, May 3(ANI):

The American version of the Golden Globe-winning British comedy hit 'The Office' has hit a major snag.

According to IMDb, an early screening of the show proved a painful experience for TV chiefs. Preview audiences greeted the American show with an icy silence after the pilot episode was screened at a 'testing facility' in Hollywood.

"I don't think many of the test group I sat with was as familiar with the original British series as I was. Still, it was painfully clear that nobody liked it. The lady next to me said she found it depressing," a reviewer was quoted as saying.

In the American version, funnyman Steve Carrell steps into Ricky Gervais' shoes as the boss of the office. But the reviewer believes Carrell's take on the role doesn't compare to the original character.

"The acting lacks masterful underplaying of Gervais and company. A guy tries to fill Ricky's shoes and can't," the reviewer added.

Office Renovation
Will the BBC hit show survive its American makeover?
By David Hochman
TV Guide - March 6, 2004

The most hilarious thing about the BBC America series The Office is that it celebrates everything television helps us to forget: boring staff meetings, annoying coworkers and bosses who make us want to book the next flight to Bora Bora. And yet this fake reality series is widely considered the funniest show on TV. What makes The Office so compelling is its sharp eye for the subtle and mundane miseries of the 9-to-5 grind, embodied most hysterically by David Brent (played by the paunchy British actor and the series' creator, Ricky Gervais), a boss who tries so hard to be cool he makes Post-Its look hip.

Now NBC is remaking the show and reinventing its cast, right down to Gervais, who walked away with two surprise Golden Globes for The Office in January. NBC's plan is to maintain the pared-down faux-documentary look and go with a cast of relative unknowns led by Steve Carell, the playfully earnest newsman from The Daily Show, in Gervais' role. The question is whether an American version can compete in a prime-time comedy environment more accustomed to halogen smiles than fluorescent-lit conference rooms.

Expectations are through the roof. The Office was BBC America's biggest hit last season. But the chances of NBC actually matching wits with the original are about as good as finding a designated driver at a Wembley football match. More often than not, Hollywood botches funny British imports. Aside from a few vintage standouts-Til Death Us Do Part became All In The Family, Steptoe & Son begat Sanford and Son-crossing the pond has proved disastrous for comedy. The BBC classic Fawlty Towers, for example, has been re-made in Hollywood and rejected by networks at least three times.

"The British have a very rare and weird sense of humor that doesn't travel well," says Fenton Bailey, a native Brit who runs the transatlantic TV/film production company World of Wonder, based in Hollywood. "Damp and cold create a prevailing pessimism. Here, comedy has a prevailing optimism. There, it's all about grimness, dysfunction and despair."

Things were certainly grim last fall at NBC after Coupling premiered. The sitcom was re-created script-for-script from the BBC version and heralded as a sexy replacement for Friends. But the U.S. version, which sexed up the cast while killing some of the saucier jokes, listed and sank as soon as it hit the water. Many members of the same creative team, including executive producer Ben Silverman, are now working on The Office.

"This is a different scenario," insists Silverman. "The Office is so relatable on so many levels. We've all had that makeshift office family. What difference does it make if the show's set here or in England?"

That remains to been seen. What we know is the series will retain certain elements of the original, such as a single-camera format and no laugh track-a risky move for network comedy. But it won't be a literal remake. For one thing, the characters will be renamed: David Brent, for instance, will become Michael Scott. "The names were changed because the show is inspired by The Office," Silverman says, 'but the characters are slightly different."

While Silverman insists that NBC's version won't be prettified, a glance at the cast suggests otherwise. True, Carell isn't exactly Brad Pitt, but he's a matinee idol compared to Ricky Gervais. The other cast members aren't bad, either. Movie actress Jenna Fischer, who's playing the long-suffering receptionist, Pam, is sexy and sylphlike compared to her chipper and chubby BBC counterpart. She's joined by Six Feet Under's Rainn Wilson, who plays the office toady, Dwight, and bit-part actor John Krasinski plays the cynical sales rep, Jim.

The biggest difference of course, is that The Office won't have Gervais behind the scenes, either. Although he and his writing partner Stephen Merchant, weighed in on casting, the team is already back in London writing another workplace comedy. However, Merchant isn't shy about telling NBC what not to do. "The lead actor can't do an impression of Ricky," he says. And "The Office shouldn't be a sitcom. This isn't Will & Grace; it's more subtle than that. It's about the weird observations real people make about where they work."

That sounds promising, in theory. "NBC being NBC," Bailey says, "the temptation will be to upgrade The Office to a penthouse suite with marble and brass; to make the characters executives instead of middle managers, and to populate the screen with happy, shiny, people. Any movement in that direction would be a dreadful mistake."

Gervais agrees. "My advice to NBC was not to make the show too perfect," he says. "David Brent should come across as a real character-normal, put-upon and more than a tiny bit flawed. The last thing you want to do is play this character for laughs."

It's hard to imagine the suits at NBC doing anything but that. So what happens if The Office winds up being as palatable to American tastes as a plate of mushy peas?

"It doesn't matter to me," Gervais says. I've done my bit. It's like somebody doing a cover of your song. You don't hang about the studio going, "No, wait, don't sing it like that. Softer. Softer!"

But you can still hope that they hit the right notes.