We all knew it was going to get canceled.Īs Schur explains, even the vibe on set for the final episode of that first season was one of resignation to a presumed failure to find an audience: It’s a six-episode experiment, and this is back, by the way, when sitcoms - when anything - could get big ratings on network TV. Ordinarily, 99 times out of 100, or maybe even 999 times out of 1,000, that show is canceled. We made six episodes that first season, and no one liked it.

So he gave Greg the chance to basically do it the way he wanted and basically cast it the way he wanted. He had come from FX, and he loved the British show, and he was very passionate about The Office. 1: That show was developed by Kevin Reilly, who was running NBC at the time. There are so many, but I’ll give you three examples of things that went right for that show. Thing No. And I remember tracking, internally, all of the things that went right with that show. The path took was fascinating, and even though I was working on that show, I became a sort of student of the path of that show. Speaking with Vox’s Todd VanDerWerff as part of a fantastic longer interview, Schur offered a lengthy explanation for why The Office succeeded, and how those lessons learned have informed his approach to TV in the ensuing years: So how did The Office make it through that rough patch-which included so-so reviews-in an era where TV ratings still mattered a great deal? Luckily, former The Office writer and creator/showrunner of Parks and Recreation and The Good Place Michael Schur has shed some light on this piece of TV history, with a hefty amount of insight.

If you go back and watch the show from the beginning, Season 1 is very rough around the edges, and the series doesn’t really hit its stride until Season 2-which, not coincidentally, is one of the best seasons of comedy TV ever made. More than that, the show’s first season was something of a test balloon, with only six episodes ordered to see if a U.S. Moreover, The Office's availability on Netflix has made it a consistently rewatchable sitcom years after it ended.īut as many fans know, The Office almost didn’t make it past one season. Sure there were ups and downs throughout the show’s nine seasons-it’s not as pristine a run as, say, something like 30 Rock-but the good far outweighs the bad, and when the show was in its prime, it was great. version of The Office has solidified its place in history as one of the most beloved comedies ever to grace the television screen.

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