Many of you who know me already know that I am a big fan of the TV show The Office, which aired on NBC for nine seasons from 2005 to 2013.  In fact, two of my previous posts on this blog are about that very show, including my painstakingly detailed recaps of The Office Basketball Game from Season 1 and The Office Olympics from Season 2.  However, as much as I enjoyed the show, I completely stopped watching it altogether after Season 7.  Once Steve Carell, the lead actor who played regional manager Michael Scott, left in 2011 to focus on his film career, I said that they should wrap it up right then and there, and there was no way I could keep watching it without Michael.  The Office would continue for two more seasons without my viewership, finally ending in 2013 after Season 9.  Over the years, although I remained a fan of the show’s first seven seasons, I completely boycotted watching Seasons 8 and 9.  Other people who shared my fandom of The Office would make a reference to a particular quote or episode from the last two seasons, and I would look at them blankly and say, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.  Is that from the last two seasons?”  And they would say, “Oh that’s right, you’ve never watched the end of The Office!  You need to finish watching that show!”  But as I can be stubborn about certain things, I never did.  That is, until just recently.

For a few years now, I have had a weekly tradition of getting together with friends to eat pizza and watch two hours of DVD episodes from certain TV shows.  Most recently, our weekly two-hour DVD entertainment has included two half-hour episodes of The Office (along with an hour-long episode of House, featuring Hugh Laurie as Dr. House, an eccentric doctor who plays by his own rules).  Even though I had already seen the first seven seasons of The Office multiple times, I enjoyed watching them again.  Earlier this year, after making our way through Season 7, in the interest of our finishing the entire series, I decided that it was time to end my holdout.  So, during the past few months, for the first time ever, I finally saw Seasons 8 and 9.  This past week, we watched The Finale.  Now that I have finally seen the entire series, here is my review of the post-Michael Scott seasons of The Office.

Before continuing, I should mention that I recognize this post is geared mainly for those of you who have seen the show.  As such, this post contains massive spoilers.  So, if you have not watched The Office yourself, or any particular seasons thereof, feel free to read along, but only if you are comfortable finding out what happens on a TV series that ended eight years ago.

For a bit of additional context, we actually see Michael Scott leave the show during Season 7 of The Office.  Strangely enough, his final episode, Goodbye Michael, was not even the season finale.  There were three more episodes that aired during Season 7 after his departure.  I had actually watched those three episodes through the end of Season 7 before I originally stopped watching.  However, my dividing line here is this: Seasons 1-7, up through Michael’s last episode, are The Office.  However, in my book, the remainder of Season 7, plus Seasons 8-9, are a completely different show altogether.  Henceforth, I shall refer to these episodes as its own show, which I shall call The Sequel.   I will also mention that before starting The Sequel, I went into it with lowered expectations.  If I had expected it to be just as good as The Office (especially Seasons 2-3, which were the absolute height of the series), I knew I would be sorely disappointed.  Going into it with that mindset, I was not disappointed.  Although it was not as good as The Office, The Sequel was still worth watching.

To recap The Sequel as briefly as I can, Season 7 ends with a series of rotating managers, with a search for who will be the new permanent manager of the office.  Season 8 was the “Robert California” season, with Robert as the new CEO and Andy as the new manager.  The hilariously cringe-inducing comedy of the buffoonish yet likable Michael Scott had been replaced with the creepy intensity and mystery of Robert California.  It was different, but it still kept the show interesting.  Andy was simply a watered-down version of Michael in the manager’s chair, but at least served to be the good guy to protect the office from Robert’s unpredictability.  I thought this season actually had quite a few good episodes and actually compared pretty closely to the quality from Michael’s final season.

At the end of Season 8, Robert fires Andy, but then David Wallace comes back to buy the company, at which point he fires Robert and re-installs Andy as manager.  This paves the way for Season 9, when Andy leaves for three months and the office simply operates with no manager for a while.  Meanwhile, Jim takes a new job in Philadelphia, putting his marriage with Pam in danger.  The final season also breaks the “fourth wall” even further as, for the first time, there is actual interaction between the characters and the camera crew supposedly filming their documentary.  Although it was still worth watching, Season 9 was by far the worst one.  It did, however, have a great finale, and wrapped up the show quite nicely.  The series ends with happy conclusions to the storylines of the main characters, with Dwight promoted to manager, the airing of the documentary that somehow took 9 years to film, Dwight and Angela’s wedding, Michael’s cameo appearance, Jim and Pam resolving their differences and moving away to Texas for Jim’s dream job, while everyone reminisces about the good old days in the office.  Although Season 9 as a whole wasn’t great, the final episode was at least quite good, and a fitting way to wrap up the series.

With that said, much of what originally made The Office so great was:

• the will-they-won’t-they storyline of Jim and Pam,
• Michael Scott’s hilarious cringe-worthy attempts to curry the favor and attention of everyone while everyone else just rolls their eyes at how bad of a boss he is, and
• the constant battles and pranks between Jim and Dwight.

However, with Jim and Pam now together and married with two kids, with Michael gone, and with Jim no longer in the office for much of the final season, I think the series struggled to find a new identity.  Also, I was not a fan of how they handled the story arcs of certain characters in the final season.

For example, the original main storylines were replaced, in part, with the relationship between Andy and Erin.  But then, once Andy got Erin, he abandoned her and his job for a three-month boat trip, then returned as a bit of a jerk, causing her to break up with him.  This made me wonder, what was the whole point in making us like Andy and root for him to get together with Erin ever since Season 6, and see him risk everything to go down to Florida to win her back, if he’s just going to throw that away within two minutes?  I really don’t like that they did this.

But what was even more aggravating was watching the series almost break up the marriage of the best TV couple ever, Jim and Pam.  Once Jim and Pam got together at the end of Season 3, their relationship was then built up to the point where they were portrayed as a solid couple who could be counted on to always stay together (at least as much as you can count on TV relationships).  Jim was the “normal” guy you could always root for, who would always put Pam first and never make her cry.  However, after taking a job in Philadelphia, we saw a side of Jim that was not consistent with the previous eight seasons.  While conflict between characters is necessary for entertaining TV, as a viewer, I want the conflict to be lighthearted and funny without stressing out millions of viewers and threatening to throw away years of what the show had established.  Fortunately, they worked things out at the end, and the series ended on a happy note.  But I wish they hadn’t even threatened to break the two of them up.

In addition, I’m a bit of a stickler when it comes to believability.  As such, I have a few grievances to air about the believability of some of the events that occurred in The Sequel.  While I accept that we’re not supposed to believe that the events from a TV series actually happened in real life, there’s a certain threshold of realism that I sort of demand as a viewer.  (I’m willing to suspend some disbelief for cartoons or for an established fictional premise, such as time travelers or characters with supernatural abilities, none of which apply here.)  While characters and events may be outrageous because it’s entertaining TV, here is a recap of events from The Sequel that I find just a bit too far-fetched:

• A) Once Michael leaves, the new manager is DeAngelo Vickers…for one episode.  In his brief stint as manager, he dunks on the basketball hoop in the warehouse.  When the hoop falls over on him, he has to be rushed to the hospital and is somehow never mentioned again.

• B) Dwight takes over as interim manager for one episode, shoots a gun in the office, and while he is demoted back to his old job, he is somehow not fired.

• C) Robert California is hired as the new manager of the office.  But instead of taking the manager job, he apparently talks CEO Jo Bennett into giving him her own job so that he can be the new CEO.  This, of course, would never happen anywhere…ever.

• D) Andy, who is manager at the time, travels to Florida to win Erin back.  Meanwhile, Nellie shows up for her first day of work, notices the manager’s seat is empty, sits in it, and declares herself to be the new manager.  Robert allows this to play out, and when Andy returns, Robert replaces him with Nellie as the new manager.

• E) Through a series of events which started with a chance encounter between David Wallace and Andy at a fundraiser dinner for the State Senator, Wallace buys the company at the end of Season 8.  But Wallace lives in New York City, and had not had any connections to Scranton in over two years.  Why would David Wallace have been at a local Scranton fundraiser in the first place?

• F) The reason David Wallace had millions of dollars with which to buy the company was because he made so much money off his Shop-Vac invention, “Suck It”.  There is no way “Suck It” would have made him a multi-millionaire.

• G) In Season 9, Andy, having gone to great lengths to get both his manager’s job and his girlfriend back, throws it all away, abruptly abandons everything, and takes off for three months without telling Wallace.  The office simply operates with no manager for three months without Wallace’s knowledge.

• H) Dwight shoots Stanley with three bull tranquilizer darts and is not fired.  It’s pretty amazing how much he gets away with during the entire series.

• I) Dwight suspects that he is the father of Angela’s son, Philip.  He has a paternity test done, which comes back negative.  The topic is re-visited in the penultimate episode of the series, and after Dwight proposes to Angela, she confesses that Philip actually is his son after all.  Wait, so are we supposed to ignore the fact that they already did a paternity test earlier which came back negative?  This is conveniently ignored.  Are we supposed to accept that Angela is telling the truth, or did Dwight grab the wrong poopy diaper for the paternity test?  Either way, I want the show to explain this apparent inconsistency.

• J) The documentary took 9 years to film?  Really?

Here’s a fun exercise for you if you are so inclined – rank the ten events above in order from 1-10, with 1 being the most unbelievable and 10 being the most believable.  Then leave a comment to let me know how you rank them.

Even with all the criticisms stated above, again, The Sequel is still worth watching.  There are still some good episodes which continue to provide some entertaining moments humorous commentary of life in an office setting.  While many of the characters on the series are too exaggerated for us to truly relate, there’s still an element of office life that those of us who work in an office environment can relate to on some level.

Finally, the end of the series reflects on the camaraderie that co-workers can have together, turning the average, supposedly mundane job into meaningful memories and close relationships with those you work with.  Although it deviates from the typical outrageous behavior often portrayed and ends on a more emotional note, I thought it was wrapped up quite nicely, with the message that we can reflect on the “ordinary” nature of our life and appreciate everything that comes with it.  As Pam says in the show’s final line, “There’s a lot of beauty in ordinary things.  Isn’t that kind of the point?”

So, for anyone who has told me over the years, “You’ve never finished The Office?  You need to finish watching it!”  Well…after years of holding out, I’ve finally finished watching.  You can now finally reference a line or a scene from the last two seasons, and I will be more likely to recognize it.  You’re welcome.