A Behind the Scenes Look at the Hit Series The Office
The Office is an American mockumentary sitcom television series that depicts the everyday work lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. It aired on NBC from March 24, 2005 to May 16, 2013, spanning a total of 9 seasons.
The Office was a runaway No. 1 for the most watched streaming title of 2020. However, the road to its long-lived success was not without its trials and tribulations. When the show first aired in 2005, its pilot season was not very successful. Viewers slowly lost interest in the show overtime. The bar graph to the right shows this gradual decrease in interest, from the first ever "Pilot" episode to the last season 1 episode "Hot Girl". The number of viewers steadily declined across the six episodes of the first season. Many critics thought that the show would be another failed remake of a British comedy. Others predicted that "Hot Girl", the finale of season one, would also serve as the series finale.
Despite receiving mixed reviews and a declining audience after the short first season, The Office was renewed.
Based on the success of Steve Carell's movie 40 Year Old Virgin, and an increase in online sales of the first season on iTunes, executives decided to give the show a second shot. This proved to be a smart decision. There was a significant increase in the average number of viewers for a season's episode from season 1 to season 2, as shown in the bar graph. This large increase in viewership then led NBC to move the show to the primetime spot of Thursday night. Following this strategic move, the average number of viewers for a season's episode continued to rise until it peaked in season 5.
Producers of the show likely took note of the decline in viewers from season 5 to 6. It was an indicator that maybe it was time for a drastic change in the series.
According to the book The Office: The Untold Story of The Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s: An Oral History , Author Andy Greene revealed that NBC execs never communicated with Steve Carell about definitively renewing his contract. He was supposedly willing to stay on, but the deadline passed, and the producers never made him an offer.
Season 7 Episode 22 titled "Goodybe Michael" was fittingly the last episode that Steve Carell appeared in. This episode and the overall series finale were the highest rated episodes of the entire series, with an imdb rating of 9.8/10.
Fans of The Office were certainly sad to see Steve Carell go. His character, "Michael Scott", was one of the most beloved individuals on the series. Following his exit in season 7, ratings plummeted. In the bar graph on the right, you can see that in season 8, the ratings returned to even lower than they were when the show first aired, when the fate of the show was unknown.
The show only lasted two more seasons without Steve Carell. The last episode aired on May 16, 2013.
Despite being the highest streamed show of 2020, not even The Office could avoid the challenges that come with the production of a television series.