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Final season announced for The Office

US mockumentary The Office will have one more season, to allow "a creative ending."

US mockumentary The Office will have one more season.

Executive producer Greg Daniels, who ran the NBC comedy until season five will return for the upcoming ninth -and Steve Carell may also appear.

“It was a hard decision but this is going to be a real gangbuster season,” he said, noting the decision to exit is based on creative reasons and allows for ‘an artistic ending.’

With The Office still ranking as NBC’s highest-rated scripted series, Daniels said he feared the network might want to “cling to it” when he approached NBC executives with the idea of ending the show.

“It’s actually a big surprise to me that NBC was so supportive of this decision,” he said. “We all had a lot of passion for it and persuaded them.”

As for Carell and his character Michael Scott, “we certainly wish Michael Scott would return,” Daniels said. “But we’re not going to put pressure on Steve to write something only he could do.” Daniels wouldn’t be pinned down on any specifics on Carell or the end of The Office. “We’ll see, we haven’t written anything, we just have some ideas for the ending,” he said.

The Office airs in Australia on ELEVEN.

Source: Deadline

11 Responses

  1. I am different to most. I loathed the UK version of The Office, finding it unnecessarily cruel and I simply could not find a connection with the character of David Brent (although Martin Freeman was excellent).

    While I took to the US version straight away. It still had mean jibes, but there was a “heart” there that made it watchable. While Michael Scott was still self-absorbed, narcissistic and stupid, he had a vulnerability and he seemed to care for his team, which is something you never got from the Brent character. As such, imo, the US version is superior to the UK one.

    Oh, and I happen to like Catherine Tate as well. Sorry about that 🙂

  2. It’s more a failure of the writers and wanting to shake things up which is what’s killed this.

    Carrell leaving was a good thing for the show.The previous season was better than a few before it. They just need to take a further step down the path of moving away from the the michael scott years.

    I’ll be sad to see this go, it really did have some potential for many more years if the writers would learn to adapt the show.

    Shrute Farms, the Dwhite spin off sounds terrible.

  3. @steveany @justin – I was nearly more specific in my first comment but I didn’t want to clutter it with a digression. I don’t really like Catherine Tate either. I found her poor-woman’s “Little Britain” to be pretty unfunny, and I stopped watching Doctor Who completely because of her. Contrarily she’s usually a good guest on shows like Graham Norton.

    Yes! I had forgotten about that in Arrested Development. I was surprised that it took the writers so long to work the pun “loose seal” into the script. They were probably sitting on it for months.

  4. @Justin
    Spot on about Catherine Tate – annoyingly it looks like she’ll be back as they tried to make her a more sympathetic character in the last eps.
    I well remember Barry jumping the shark (that bit the seal that bit Buster) but embarrassingly I had to have the significance of it explained in a later viewing! Too subtle for me, I’m afraid.
    (In my defence I was busy laughing at the Burger King product placement in that scene – “it’s a wonderful restaurant!”.)

  5. Thank goodness, last season was absolutely awful, Cathernie Tate made me stop watching this season, wont’ be back for the 9th since she is a regular. It’s no coincidence the show dropped off in quality when Schur left to do Parks & Rec.

    @steveany 2.0
    Arrested Develoment had a wondefully subtle joke of having Barry Zuckerkorn (Winkler) hop over a dead shark in season 2.

  6. I came to love the US Office more than the original, but I have to agree with everyone here, last season was pretty disappointing. They’ve made the right decision to wrap it up.

    I do hope we get to see the planned spin off show featuring Dwight.here in Australia.

  7. @Secret Squirrel: yeah man, sadly I think we’re the only two ‘strayans who watched this offering. Most folk seem to disparage it’s (actually quite clever) writing and character development just to indulge in a little American-bashing.
    And full agreement re Robert California!
    I have Spader’s vintage, waistline and hair, but not his character’s cash or mojo, unfortunately.

    Re your last, what a clever idea! Maybe in future all long-running sitcoms should endeavour to work a shark into their last season as a nod to the Fonz! (But I suspect the joke would be lost on all but ‘TV Tonight’s’ astute readers.)

  8. Agree with Steveany 2.0, I also thought “Damn Americans wrecking a good British comedy again” (altho’ it was ok – they didn’t actually wreck it). But then, from S2, it grew into its own show and the writing and performances have been consistently good.

    It has wavered a little at times lately with the various guest bosses but I want to be Robert California.

    Actually, I think it would be a nice touch of irony (and homage) if, at some point in the last season, somebody did jump a shark.

  9. After initially disliking this version because it was a pale imitation of the original, I’ve grown to like it’s gentle humour, especially once it went it’s own way from Ricky Gervais’ vehicle.
    I’m not sorry it’s ending though, as I didn’t much care for the last season, and I’m sure we’d all like to avoid any shark-and-ramp scenarios!

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