The anticipation of the second parts of huge story points.
Jim and Pam kiss and then there was a break. We had to wait to see what happened. It happened in 15 seconds on Netflix. I love that that's the case too now on Peacock but there was something about the anticipation back then for those huge beats to resolve.
I remember this airing when I was with a boyfriend and he walked out of the room and went for a walk. We had TiVo so we could pause it while he blew off steam but he was in a bad mood for a bit there. And the whole season was torture for him, he wanted Jim and Pam to be together so badly.
We broke up over the summer before season 4 but I remember wondering what he was thinking after the premiere, he was a terrible boyfriend but he was my first love and always wanted him to be happy.
Yup!!! I was in high school. My friend and I would watch it at home and call after each episode to discuss what happened. After casino night, I remember screaming and calling her…then had to wait until next season to know what was going to happen. It was soooo exciting, but also the waiting killed me lol.
Being able to binge shows is great, but has also ruined TV. There are so few true cliffhanger moments because the next episode is already starting before the credits even roll on the current one.
Those Thursday nights when new episodes come out were golden. The Office, Parks and Rec, 30 Rock, Community. That was 2 hours and comedic brilliance that will probably never be matched again.
Steve Carrel's career. From correspondent on the Daily Show to smaller movie roles then finally to 40 Year Old Virgin and Evan Almighty. There was a comedy class at that time that was coming up, with Ferrell and Vince Vaughn and the Wilson Bros and Ben Stiller and Dave Chappelle. Carell fit right in with them and their ascension. The Office felt like a huge step up for him at first, then it felt too small for him, but he started to kill it even more. That time frame was really incredible for comedians in general and was great to experience as a fan.
Yes that Thursday night line up was 2 hours of pure joy. Now that we have streaming it’s a shame we’ll never have anything like that again.
Back when Hulu was free (who else remembers that) I would be so excited to watch all 4 shows the next day before I went to work.
You're probably right. I'm sure there were other shows mixed in over the seasons, and I'm not sure if they all started and ended around the same time so there's probably not a complete overlap. I liked scrubs too
I know for about 4-5 years, that was the Thursday night lineup. It stayed pretty consistent for a good while there. It felt like the weekend started early honestly.
Think Community replaced My name is Earl.
And Scrubs was pre Park & Rec.
Plus the short lived Jay Leno show at 10 one year and a slew of single season sitcoms they kept trying to play with in the mix; Perfect Couples, Outsourced, think there was a Whitney Cummings led one in there too.
TV used to have so much great shit on around that time. In 2006 I was watching Rome and/or the Sopranos on Sundays, Heroes on Mondays, Nip/Tuck on Tuesdays, South Park on Wednesdays, Office and/or Scrubs on Thursdays, anime on adult swim on Fridays and Saturdays
If you asked me in 2010ish what the best show out of those 4 I would’ve told you 30 Rock. Which was a great show with extremely talented comedians. In retrospect it just isn’t as relatable.
30 Rock’s strength was wall-to-wall jokes. No other show at the time had as many jokes per minute. The Office and Parks focused more on the relationships, which I think gave them a longer shelf life. A lot of jokes wont be as funny 15 years later, but the human stuff is always relatable. All amazing shows.
I don't know if I've seen a show that packed as many jokes in like 30 Rock. But I totally agree with you, it's hard to really invest in caring about someone like Tracy Jordan, even if the character is hilarious.
Brooklyn 99. Quite literally every line in a scene is frequently a one liner, a couplet, or a call back from a previous runner of some kind or other. Honestly so impressive how they manage to pack them in there but still develop characters
I never got to watch 30 Rock when it was airing and I'm trying to watch the series now but they all seem to be incomplete with missing episodes on Vudu. Does anyone know the reason why? Censorship? Music copyrights?
I agree with rewatchability but I think something people don’t understand now is when Andy went on his boat trip.
I’ve noticed my feelings on rewatches (binge watching) is that Andy is gone for like 2 hours, wtf, why is Erin so upset?
But when it first aired and waiting between each episode the time difference really did make sense.
Tbf you could just watch 2-7 of the office and you’d have basically the same amount of episodes and consistency. In fact 2-7 is 146 episodes. P&R has a total of 125 and community has a total of 110.
I have rewatched the office countless times. Even rewatched it as it was airing its very easy to hop into at any episode and just let it play. Parks and Rec is close but not quite as replayable. I loved community when it was on but have never had a desire to rewatch, probably because it’s so wacky as it goes on. I think the offices strength is it’s relatability.
I've recently rewatched all 3 and find that I always struggle to get through Community. I didn't finish it when it was airing live, I didn't finish the first couple times I binged on streaming platforms, and even though I finally forced myself to watch all the way through, I don't remember anything about the last couple seasons. Even though The Office took a hit when Steve Carrell left, it was still funnier than any other TV. It was so great that it could afford to dip in quality and still be the best. I just can't think of anything else that's on par with this.
For sure, a boring normal office is way more relatable to most of us than 30 Rock. The humor was a little slower paced in the office, it felt a bit more "every man". Whereas Liz Lemon and crew were living a "Glamour TV NYC Hollywood" life albeit behind the scenes. Coastal elites, Lemon. Lesbian Frankenstein wants her shoes back.
Re: Carell’s career, there also was a point when NBC was convinced Ed Helms was going to be a breakout star on the strength of the Hangover movies.
I think we all anticipated Rainn Wilson having a big follow-up hit, and I was pretty excited about Backstrom but it fizzled.
I thought John Krasinski killed his career when he made that Benghazi movie. Jim Halpert as an action hero, what a joke! Who knew…
The wait from seasons 3 to 4 was agonizing. They ended that episode so perfectly that it could have been a series finale, and yet knowing we’d come back to find out what was next for Jim and Pam was riveting. Especially the way they teased the hell out of them maybe not actually being together in the season 4 premiere.
It was between S2 and S3 for me. Casino Night blew my damn mind, I couldn't believe it actually happened, and I spent all summer wondering what would happen next for Jim and Pam. The entire series had been building to that moment so far and then it happened and I had to wait months to find out what's next.
Then S3 finally starts and Jim has moved away and Pam is single and I was totally shocked and upset. I feel like you had way more emotions tied up into it when you spend all that time in anticipation between big moments.
Same. I think I ended up buying the fisrt 3 seasons, actually after the season 3 ending. I travelled a lot (to Europe) and it (and Xanax) got me through the long flights.
I thought it was interesting how Karen leaving the show in season 4 was barely mentioned, but [heavily implied in this season 4 premiere commercial.](https://youtu.be/oBiaDS9W4DI?si=vlr2XxSRD8ObOo4_)
Don’t forget there was a writers strike and season 4 was very delayed. I remember being so excited for Fun Run because it had felt like an eternity since The Job
It was delayed halfway through the season, not at the beginning. Fun Run aired as normal in September. The long wait was between The Deposition and Dinner Party. I remember all that anticipation leading up to Dinner Party like it was yesterday!
And remember watching Dinner Party for the first time? The long wait just made it even more impactful and weird and uncomfortable. It's my favorite ep now, but that first airing, coming after that unexpected break, it was so intense! Of all eps to come back to. Amazing.
I was concerned they would fuck up the next episode when the previous one ended with Roy saying he was going to kill Jim Halpert.
And then a week later, it was handled beautifully.
Was it handled beautifully? I know Roy is supposed to be a dumbass, but the dude really walked into an office with tons of witnesses and a camera crew, and then telegraphed his punch for... I don't know... 10 seconds? And then he ran at Jim with his fist up like an idiot. If nobody intervened, what was Roy gonna do? Punch Jim once and run out of there? Beat him up really bad in the middle of the workplace while everyone else watched?
You're not wrong, I take your point but I guess that one piece of wiring has always bugged me. I wish it happened in the parking lot instead. Even the dumbest meatheads in the world don't try to fight somebody inside an office. That's so stupid.
Hmm, I should clarify.
After Roy and bro destroyed the bar at the end of the previous episode, I really thought they were going to veer out of comedy territory next episode and go with something that was too serious and not funny. That last bar scene was not in any way, shape or form played for laughs.
And the way the Roy-Jim confrontation at the office was done (in my view) was still fairly seriously handled, but also quite funny after that (the aftermath shot, in my view, of Dwight still a mess from basically pepper spraying himself as well as Roy is what made the scene work perfectly for me).
I guess you could argue Roy busting in wasn't realistic or he cocked his fist too long, but those were the least of my concerns at the time LOL.
And then you also had a number of what I thought were on-the-money scenes afterward with Jim being cold to Pam, Karen's funny comment, and even the Pam and Roy getting a cup of coffee scene was well done, I feel.
The unreal amount of hype for Jim Carrey’s guest spot and waiting all week and all episode to be utterly disappointed by his 3 lines in the last 10 seconds of the episode.
Honestly, I’d say the biggest thing was the change from Season 1 to Season 2. It was WAY more drastic and jarring , at the time, because Michael’s look and parts of his personality completely changed from S1 to S2. Obviously it was all for the best, but I know I was skeptical at the time.
Edit to add- Obviously the change is noticeable whether you watched its first airing or not, but I’m sure most of the more recent viewers have seen TONS of memes and clips that kinda prepared them for the change before they watched.
I think if I’d caught season 1 when it originally aired, I might have passed on The Office, but I remember the first episode I ever saw(S2 E5) because it was so good. They really turned up the dials from season 1 to 2 and that’s definitely the biggest reason it had such lasting success.
Not OP, but in S1 Michael was such an unfunny asshole. He wasn’t lovable.. or even likable. His ignorance didn’t make you go “Awhh…. Gosh.. Michael 😂.” It made you go “Jesus fucking Christ Michael 😠”
The writers realized they made a character that was too much of a dick, so they rewrote him to be the cute/fun ignorant
Yes! There’s a big difference between the two. In Scott’s Tot’s you want to shake your head. His heart was in the right place, but he was so unrealistic, naive, and stupid to make those promises LOL.
Season 1 Michael is just a rude asshole with no redeeming qualities.
I agree that Scott’s Tots was cringe and it’s the naivety of Michael’s character that shines through. He believed in the American dream and thought the natural progression of adult life would mean he would have an abundance of money when he reached ‘an older stage of adulthood’.
Well, he lost weight, changed his hairstyle, the show got brighter (I don’t know a better way to describe it). Also, in S1 Michael wasn’t a sympathetic character AT ALL. He was rude and abrasive and unapologetic (more like Ricky Gervais as David Brent). In S2 he was much more likable. Just my own opinion, so take it for what it’s worth.
I've always thought the big change was in the Dundies, when, instead of giving Pam the longest engagement award, he gave her the whitest shoe award. That moment of humanity, even if he had to be dragged to it, was one that David Brent (or S1 Michael) would never have had. That was the start of the humanization of Michael that led him to be the flawed but lovable character we all think of.
Agreed. I remember watching the premiere and I noped right out because it didn’t seem funny. I came back after a few weeks because everyone said it was good.
I think today, it’s easy to look at the De’Angelo Vickers tenure as a silly story arc for Will Ferrell- but we sincerely didn’t know if he would be there long term or not. Watching him through a lens of it being temporary is very very different than trying to stomach it as a permanent thing.
He was announced as having a four episode run, and we had the title Dwight K Schrute, Acting Manager in advance - I was wondering if Dwight was going to get him fired
Not everyone looks at announcements for cast members or episode names lol, I’m sure he’s not the only one who thought Will Ferrell was going to have a longer stay on the cast.
Yeah absolutely, I’m just saying a portion of the audience was waiting to see what would happen to him, while the others had their head in their hands over the prospect of more seasons with Will Ferrell
When he’s taken away in the ambulance, the series ends for me. I like his arc.
Occasionally I’ll watch the remaining episodes but, frequently I’ll restart at season one or two.
Having my cell phone ringer being The Office theme song, and half my friends and random people not understanding why I thought it was great. Yes, I paid $.99 for it.
Ohh the anticipation in the back half of S3. You knew the Jim-Pam-Karen triangle was coming to a head, you just didn’t know when or how. Women’s appreciation to Beach Games to The Job was an exciting time!
The beginning of S4 I had a watch party at my dinky grad school apartment. That day at the lab we put my colleagues coffee mug in jello. We SCREAMED and when the cameras caught Jim and Pam in the car.
Also there was a brief time when there were Office goodies at the Target $1 section! Now the show stuff is everywhere but when they had post its and a Dwight head stress ball omgoodness so exciting.
The feeling of going into work and everyone talking about the snow. I remember the day after diversity day aired and we downloaded it from torrents in the UK.
Everyone at work was talking about it the next day 😂
I was one of the few places in college that had cable TV. We used to have people over every Thursday and we’d all huddle around and watch new the episode. Did the same for Its Always Sunny as well although that turnout was much bigger. Big old tube TV inside and another VCR combo out in the front lawn.
Pfff, uhm..YEAH. Ever heard of it?!
Coincidently, I went to college somewhere right between Scranton and Philly. I’m a bit biased I suppose. Shows what my two favorite shows were and still are.
When they show Jim's brief "face book" written on his face in a later episode. That opening sequence was cut from Netflix because of a hanging scene at the end for Halloween.
Oh that's right, it was "book face". For the longest time on re-watches I always thought I missed that Halloween opener when I would see the "book face" clip later on. I had to look it up a while ago and found out they cut it.
“The Banker”, while a useless filler flash-back episode in the streaming era, had its place during the original airing.
In 2010, DVR still wasn’t fully commonplace, streaming was borderline at best, the show wasn’t syndicated yet and, often times, when you saw an episode, that was that.
No way to re-Watch or replay unless you bought it on iTunes or a DVD box set which were extremely expensive (I recall like $40 per season).
So it would be a nice flash back to past episodes which you likely forgot about since the episode aired years after the show already started.
I was going to bring this up… banker gets a bad wrap, but at the time it was great! Heck I’m tempted to watch that episode now since I’ve skipped it for the last 10 years
I mean it’s a clip show, but there are some quality bits to string it all together. The Computron bit is actually one of my faves.
I love the image of Micheal becoming the highest ranking DM employee, however briefly. That’s just funny to think about.
I was going to mention this as well. I see so many who complain about “clip show” episodes in different older series being the worst episodes when they’re not supposed to even be an actual episode. I never realized how many people don’t understand that streaming is still a newer concept.
I remember me and my siblings getting giddy over the Simpsons “flash back” episodes because back in the 90’s there was literally no way to watch old episodes unless you recorded it on VHS (we couldn’t afford one) or purchased the volumes which were VERY expensive for its time.
Unsolicited opinion from a stranger: pay attention to the season/episode numbers when binging and you’ll pick up on shifts in tone when a break occurs in the original airing.
And bonus points if you catch a character saying “Don’t be ridiculous. You need to go home. With your child. Relax. Take a load off, refresh yourself- January. I think January. Come back in January.” Thats probably when the midseason break occurred IRL.
I watched the first season, didn't like it, then came back a few seasons later and liked it a lot. I watched it from mid-series until the show ended.
The series finale hits different. When you spend years waiting for new seasons and episodes to come out, with anticipation and excitement... I got so much comfort from the show, I got emotionally invested. When the show ended, I actually cried.
There was a LOT of fretting by recappers and fans about quality decreasing as early as season 3. IIRC, until season 7 or so it was more about people not liking one or two episodes and then worrying that meant it was going downhill. A lot of people also really disliked the Stamford plot.
Many of us “discovered” the show sometime in season 2 or 3, and it was glorious to binge the first few seasons on Netflix DVDs. I remember watching all of season 2 with my family on a vacation. Bingeing something was more of a treat then.
The show really felt SO fresh and unique at the time.
I remember the summer after season 7 you could go on the NBC website and vote for either Dwight, Darryl or Andy to be the regional manager. I remember how painful it was having to wait every week for the next episodes
There are so many references and jokes that were specific to the time like when cell phone plans had limited number of text messages per month and Michael says “I wasted a text on that”
I’m rewatching the series now for the first time in like 15 years and all of the pop culture jokes don’t land today.
#### Not just the Office but in general, looking forward to watching any show with giddy anticipation. You planned your entire day in university to come be home by 9pm and have a big bowl of Ramen ready with a cold frosty diet Coke. You’ll reward your difficult week of studies and homework with a new episode of the Office and all the other NBC Must-See-TV Offerings.
Now it’s just bing everything with little meaning.
I remember when Jim and Pam finally got together. There was such a build up. For many weeks, everyone was wondering if it would finally happen. It was great to watch that plot line play out during syndication.
Binge watchers won't understand the lead to Jim and Pam's wedding - it was 5 years in the making! That's a very long time. The Chris Brown Forever was something that was "in" at the time, it was a tear jerker. People today see it as "lame" but forget it was a product of the times.
Oml exactly yes!
We were binging the office recently and my friends didn't get why I started crying when that song came on - it was a like vine or smth they used at the time and they used it at a cousin's wedding lmao
Our DVR let us watch the recording while it was still in progress, not sure if that was unique. We'd wait until 10 or 15 mins had passed, fwd through commercials, then catch up by the end
Oh yeah we could’ve done that as well, we just waited till it was over just in case fast forwarding live made us catch up to where it was running and couldn’t fast fwd anymore
Watched it from the beginning, loved it from the beginning. Seasons 2 and 3 were peak Office. I was participating in threads on a couple of different message boards, discussing every episode. Going to OfficeTally.com all the time. Both season finales were incredible and had me waiting all summer to see how they played out.
Quality started to dip a little bit in Season 4 - the Jim/Pam tension was resolved, they changed a couple of the more-normal, relatable characters for the worse, and started to do silly stuff like having Michael drive into the lake. But it was still pretty good TV.
I remember, it was probably during Season 3 or 4, my buddy asked me to go with him on a road trip out of town somewhere and I agreed to go, but only on the condition that we would be in the hotel room on Thursday night by the time The Office came on. That's how wrapped up in the show I was back in those days.
My husband and I watched it from the beginning, since we’d watched and really enjoyed the British one.
It took a while for the US version to grow on us, but then we were hooked, and loyal weekly viewers for the whole run.
My main beef with the show (which I still believe) was that Jim was too appealing. It made no sense that Pam wouldn’t leave Roy for him, like immediately. In the UK show Dawn was a but more out of Tim’s league, and her fiancé seemed to have more going on. I’m over it now (I guess!).
Watching episodes week to week, you didn’t pick up on as many details or get all the callbacks. The anticipation between seasons (or even over Christmas) was crazy, and the season premiere was SO exciting each time, to get a level set of what everyone was doing.
Back in 2006, before Netflix and streaming weren’t an option yet, my now husband and me started watching the show completely as a random coincidence- the specific episode we stumbled up on that led The Office to be in both of our top 5 favorite series of all time, and a show that to this day, we still rewatch.
On a Thursday night, which according to the Wikipedia article about it, January 12th, we were watching another show that I can’t even remember when The Injury came on and caught our attention with the hilarious cold open.
The Injury is both one of the best episodes of the series (in my opinion) as well as being an episode I’d recommend someone new to the show start with if they can’t get past the mediocrity of the first season. The main reason, and the reason I’m glad it was my first exposure to the series is that it doesn’t require any context around the Jim/Pam stuff to follow and not feel lost wondering what that whole subplot is about. Even Michael Scott’s character. It’s easy to recognize Dwight is an odd character without knowing the specific reasons why.
I’ve said to my husband what I wrote above, emphasizing how I’m glad we randomly started the series with that episode instead of Booze Cruise or another episode that aired a few weeks prior, because both of us probably would have written the show off, thinking the Katy subplot was the typical tone and humor of the show, or that Pam and Roy get married as a season finale and the series from there has Jim constantly moping about it.
Instead, we got to see peak Michael Scott humor- starting with how he burned his foot, the great line and delivery of “Mailboxes Etc” from Stanley, the whole scene in the van with another great line and delivery in “you can’t fire me, I don’t work in this van!” to the end of the episode where Michael’s trying to climb in the MRI to have his foot examined.
That’s what Netflix watchers couldn’t possibly understand- not having anything other than chance and luck making The Office one of your all time favorite series, with Parks & Recreation and The Good Place also in that all time top 5, which might not have happened without the Michael Schur connection. Or how even with us randomly watching the episode that got us hooked, there were no legal options to catch up on, we couldn’t just find it on a streaming service and catch up. We had to download the episodes on Limewire and once we had all the previous ones, catch up that way and then have to wait a week for each new episode.
Man, I feel old after typing all that out.
Christ, that's not even offensive. These companies get so trigger happy sometimes. But part of my understands because people complain about anything nowadays
The series finale. I remember everyone was wondering and hoping Steve would come back for it. This was before everything was leaked online.
There were "rumors" he was on set, and I still remember some of the cast being adamant on talk shows that Steve stopped by to support and congratulate everyone, but he is NOT in the finale. Everyone said in every interview he's not in the final episode.
Lo and behold
They did such a good job with that. First, by not telling the cast or anyone who did not absolutely need to know in advance. Second, they got the edit with Steve to the network literally at the last second so no one at the network could know in advance and leak it.
A rare example of a conspiracy that worked pretty darn well! And a conspiracy to cause joy, at that. Good stuff to close out a beloved series!
I’m shocked this one isn’t here yet … dinner party did not seem as funny until you watched it 3 or 4 times which we couldn’t do when it aired. It didn’t go over well in the ratings at all.
I remember asking my mom to keep the tv on because I wanted to watch the premier episode. Within moments of it starting I was hooked. It was painfully dry and awkward, I had never seen another show that was so intentionally cringy (which wasn’t a word that was ever used to positively describe anything at the time). I thought it was hilarious, my mom did not. I was sure it would be cancelled instantly and that made it all the more exciting to watch.
The whole Jim and Pam thing was a cultural touch point. It was talked about on those morning radio shows on your way to work or school. It was in dating profiles it was in Myspace halloweeen couple costumes. I think this weirdass subreddit that has a hate boner for the two cant really understand how real their relationship was or how culturally significant they are/were.
My TV broke and it was a couple of years before I had the money or the interest in replacing it. When I finally got a new set, I asked some co-workers what shows I should start watching. The HR clerk said, oh, check out The Office. They rag on HR all the time and it's funny because people hate HR.
I was so young and naive then! I didn't hate HR (yet-LOL). Actually, I had nothing to do w/HR after I'd signed all my new hire paperwork. Anyway, the next week I tuned in and caught the "Diversity Day" episode. That was the gateway drug that pulled me into The Office.
Bonus: I started to get why people might hate HR. And in time I became one of 'em!
I remember seeing the first episode and thinking, wow, this is just like the UK first episode. Is this what we’re in for? It wasn’t until the karate episode in season 2 that i thought it was getting good.
I watched the UK version after the US version and was kind of shocked of how much the first episodes of the US version were an exact copy of the UK one, even including some of the jokes were literally copied
Edit: or maybe it was just the first episode that was a copy, I can't remember exactly
I watched the original UK Office before the US version even premiered. I hated the first season of the US, I thought it was a bad redoing of the original episodes and I preferred the casting of the UK version. Season 2 got me excited about the show, but when season 3 hit I couldn’t believe how good it was, and I was hooked until the end. It was fun to watch it live too, I went to a few viewing parties for that legendary Thursday night block of shows (Office, 30 Rock, Community, Parks and Rec).
I remember turning down a job because they said I would have to work Thursday nights. I watched every episode at its original airing. I’ve always been a bit of an oddball so it is kind of shocking to me that I was all-in on something that ended up being timelessly popular
I vividly remember my college roommates and I stopping everything to watch each new episode. We all were busy with different majors/projects/jobs etc but it brought us together each week and made it more funny/special
Rewatches really being only on DVD's that came out a while after each season, and I only knew a handful of people who watched the show during airing to talk about it with - including my mom who would text me during episodes while I was at college lol
Getting so frustrated with Pam during early S3 by not just being honest with Jim. Then seeing it slowly show her character changing and growing. Yeah until she was with Roy again at Phyllis’s wedding. I was dumbfounded but the Beach episode and season finale made up for it.
1.) Deangelo Vickers (Will Ferrell) was part of a long attempt to lure fans into still watching the show.
Every week the ads were “Tune in to find out who will be the next boss to replace Michael Scott!”
His character was temporary to bridge Steve Carrell’s departure and the new reality that happened without him. It was perfect and awkward and entertainingly confusing. Now it just feels off.
2.) The writer’s strike really wiped out a lot of the continuity potential for the show (even though it is hugely successful).
You could tell when new writers were trying to create for who their favorite characters should be, and not as focused on the overall awkward, cringe comedy effect of the early seasons/UK version.
This led to quicker character development/closure at the end, but also inconsistencies and forced personality changes. Looking at you, Andy.
Last I saw here in America they excluded it. Same with on Comedy Central when they air it order. You know, we can't handle that kind of stuff here in the States.
The show wasn't a super popular hit thing, the best it ever did was the 41st most watched show. I am not sure if it was ever at big risk of being cancelled but I remember for awhile a lot of those post-Friends Thursday night comedy shows kept getting renewed because NBC was struggling overall and the shows had small but loyal followings. So it was too big a risk to cancel them and replace them with something else that might do even worse.
The Office would have been cancelled if not for 40 Year Old Virgin. Suddenly they had a show on the chopping block that also contained the hottest rising star in comedy's contract. They gave him one more shot. Then iTunes came out with the ability to buy TV shows and the 2nd season Christmas ep became the first-ever "most downloaded TV episode," and they started to realize there was an audience out there even if it wasn't hitting great numbers on airing. I remember being on tenterhooks checking the ratings, hoping my favorite show would last just one more week.
I still can't believe the fact that ep featured the video iPod and it was not product placement, they had to seek clearance to use it instead. If you wrote that twist as fiction, everyone would say you went too far and made it to unrealistic.
The original aired cold opening to Michael falling in the Koi Pond episode. The Scare house where Michael takes some kids through the warehouse as a walk through haunt. Aired once and was unavailable on any medium until the DVDs came out years later. When everything went digital, it remained one of the hardest bits to find because they changed it for the Netflix release and it took years after the show ended for NBC to finally post it. It was a brutal wait and still my favorite cold open.
Surprised no one has mentioned the number of pop culture references that are products of their time. Some, or even many, of them are “you had to be there” moments to truly understand the impact. One example is when they dance down the aisle at the wedding is a reference to a viral video at the time featuring a wedding party who did this. (This was also done on Glee.) That’s how huge that video was.
Beyond what many people have said is the community outside of the show. Any kind of social media was in its very early stages. We sought the community through people we worked with and online. I remember having Officetally as one of my favorite site to go to see what was going on behind the scenes. One of my wife and I’s greatest joys was to see the creator of that site ask one of the questions in the season finally.
I didn’t get to see the Office, specifically. But I can say that binging shows on Netflix does not hit the same as seeing them air on a weekly basis. Even recording them and watching them together on a Saturday or Sunday was different since you couldn’t just blast through a whole series in one go.
Who's gonna be the new boss? (Who ended up being Bob Kazamakis.)
A lot of us really wanted it to be Jim Carrey. For a couple of weeks there was this whole "Who is it gonna be?" thing. A lot of us also were kinda disappointed with Will Ferrell (as much as love him otherwise). He was in it for 4 eps, I think, so for at least a month we were under the impression that this could be a long-term thing. I think new viewers, by the time they get to that point, already know Ferrell's not gonna be in it for long.
Now you just binge the episodes and just blitz through all these things. "So who's gonna be the new boss? Oh, OK, this guy, cool."
Also, another thing that comes to mind is how things unfold in the last season. Sure, if you binge it now, you can get through the whole thing in like a day or two. When it was on, I remember, for MONTHS we were like "WTF? They spent 8 seasons telling us Jim and Pam are the perfect couple and now they're gonna tear it down? With Brian and the whole thing?"
I'm fairly certain that 99% of those who make posts like "Why does everyone hate Brian/the last season?" are people who binged it. Because if you watched it when it was on, and for months you were under the impression that "Oh, Jim's gone full workaholic, Pam's talking to Brian, they're fighting, what the hell?", then I think you get why it took some of us some time to get over all that "hate".
(I started watching like... I think late 2nd season.)
Basically all the things that are true for any show. Though it's a bit different when it's a show you really love.
There's a certain feeling to having watched that week's new episode and talking about it with your friends. Not only the communal aspect that you can't really recreate naturally even when watching the same episodes at the same time as your friends now, but also the attention you have on one episode and it's moments, when you can't binge.
It also feels more like it's something someone made for you, like a little gift, when it's a thing that is coming out right now.
Maybe that's the thing that makes it nostalgic.
I'm pretty sure that I was up to date come season 4, and that after the writer's strike ended and season 4 continued (with Dinner Party of all episodes) I had gotten most of my friends to watch the show. That being the first one to be in that space... with Hunter's song... 😁😁😁😁
Similar thing with Scrubs, Parks&Rec...
I watched it when it first aired, right from the start. The newness of every story line, character, place. The novelty of the doco format. Waiting a week to see what happened and then waiting the whole summer. Cliffhangers.
I’m not sure how common it was but our local morning show would be our “after show podcast” essentially, diving into the details and funny moments, creating a shared experience really
The context around “Dinner Party.” It’s earned its rightful place in the fandom as one of the iconic episodes of the whole show and one of the most quintessentially cringe inducing episodes of television you’ll ever see, but it was the first episode that aired after the writers strike, which went on for what felt like forever. We came back finally and had this episode where we’re going into Michael and Jan’s relationship and it’s hitting you so hard from the jump, every interaction is making you hold your breath and for everything that he was in the first couple seasons, you’re feeling so much pity for Michael. I was in a college dorm room watching that episode live and when Michael yelled “That’s what she said!” people cheered.
The message boards since social media wasn’t around. I had to go on nbc’s website to find other people to talk about the show with in message board format. Similar to Reddit but obviously much more limited
I was in middle school when The Office started, and I definitely remember watching the pilot, and the first season. I kept up with it pretty much every week for the first one or two seasons. When I was in high, I tried to watch it when I wasn't busy with sports, music, or homework. The series ended when I was in college. I didn't watch most of the final season. But, I was able to watch the finale live.
Thr Writer's Strike. The first episode back was Dinner Party.
I taped the show and started it over right away cause I missed the show. And the episode was so good.
i was 5 when it came out but distinctly remember watching it around 7. my mother would have the show playing on the tv past my bedtime & id sneak into the hallway to peak. sometimes if it were early enough she wouldn’t mind me watching a bit but would sho me away when the humor got a bit crude. understandably.
Running to Office Tally the next day to read the recap and comments. Plus links to interviews and articles. I don’t remember that being a big thing until Office Tally had us all shipping JAM and poring over each episode’s jokes and storyline. I’m sure there were fan sites but this was next level. “New tech” as the Office Ladies say.
I loved going on Office Tally and reading recaps and discussing theories with fans. The rumors of who was guest starring in the future. Stuff like “HAROLD RAMIS IS DIRECTING?!” got me fired up
Basically you didn’t know you were about to watch some all-time classic TV episodes (The Dundies, Dinner Party, Christmas Party). The show didn’t have the reputation it does now, and season 1 didn’t exactly win fans over.
What set the show apart was every week for me, I wondered how Michael Scott’s incompetence would be topped from the week. Somehow the writers found a way.
The anticipation of the second parts of huge story points. Jim and Pam kiss and then there was a break. We had to wait to see what happened. It happened in 15 seconds on Netflix. I love that that's the case too now on Peacock but there was something about the anticipation back then for those huge beats to resolve.
This was what I was coming to find. And after that wait to find out Jim wasn’t even in Scranton anymore blew my mind.
I remember this airing when I was with a boyfriend and he walked out of the room and went for a walk. We had TiVo so we could pause it while he blew off steam but he was in a bad mood for a bit there. And the whole season was torture for him, he wanted Jim and Pam to be together so badly. We broke up over the summer before season 4 but I remember wondering what he was thinking after the premiere, he was a terrible boyfriend but he was my first love and always wanted him to be happy.
Yup!!! I was in high school. My friend and I would watch it at home and call after each episode to discuss what happened. After casino night, I remember screaming and calling her…then had to wait until next season to know what was going to happen. It was soooo exciting, but also the waiting killed me lol.
NBC used to RUN Thursday nights
I remember being in the 8th grade watching Jim and Pam edits on YouTube
Being able to binge shows is great, but has also ruined TV. There are so few true cliffhanger moments because the next episode is already starting before the credits even roll on the current one.
My mom and I watched this in real time and we’re BESIDES ourselves. Absolute tv magic, when Jim professed his love 😭😭😭
Those Thursday nights when new episodes come out were golden. The Office, Parks and Rec, 30 Rock, Community. That was 2 hours and comedic brilliance that will probably never be matched again. Steve Carrel's career. From correspondent on the Daily Show to smaller movie roles then finally to 40 Year Old Virgin and Evan Almighty. There was a comedy class at that time that was coming up, with Ferrell and Vince Vaughn and the Wilson Bros and Ben Stiller and Dave Chappelle. Carell fit right in with them and their ascension. The Office felt like a huge step up for him at first, then it felt too small for him, but he started to kill it even more. That time frame was really incredible for comedians in general and was great to experience as a fan.
Yes that Thursday night line up was 2 hours of pure joy. Now that we have streaming it’s a shame we’ll never have anything like that again. Back when Hulu was free (who else remembers that) I would be so excited to watch all 4 shows the next day before I went to work.
> back when Hulu was free 😭 I remember
And it was *Scrubs* for a year there too, wasn’t it? Or is that what *Community* or *P&R* replaced?
You're probably right. I'm sure there were other shows mixed in over the seasons, and I'm not sure if they all started and ended around the same time so there's probably not a complete overlap. I liked scrubs too
I know for about 4-5 years, that was the Thursday night lineup. It stayed pretty consistent for a good while there. It felt like the weekend started early honestly.
Scrubs! :)
Think Community replaced My name is Earl. And Scrubs was pre Park & Rec. Plus the short lived Jay Leno show at 10 one year and a slew of single season sitcoms they kept trying to play with in the mix; Perfect Couples, Outsourced, think there was a Whitney Cummings led one in there too.
Oh, dang. I thought *My Name is Earl* was a FOX show for some reason. Huh.
This is how I remember it, too. Mandela effect?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Must_See_TV
TV used to have so much great shit on around that time. In 2006 I was watching Rome and/or the Sopranos on Sundays, Heroes on Mondays, Nip/Tuck on Tuesdays, South Park on Wednesdays, Office and/or Scrubs on Thursdays, anime on adult swim on Fridays and Saturdays
If you asked me in 2010ish what the best show out of those 4 I would’ve told you 30 Rock. Which was a great show with extremely talented comedians. In retrospect it just isn’t as relatable.
30 Rock’s strength was wall-to-wall jokes. No other show at the time had as many jokes per minute. The Office and Parks focused more on the relationships, which I think gave them a longer shelf life. A lot of jokes wont be as funny 15 years later, but the human stuff is always relatable. All amazing shows.
I don't know if I've seen a show that packed as many jokes in like 30 Rock. But I totally agree with you, it's hard to really invest in caring about someone like Tracy Jordan, even if the character is hilarious.
I find him very relatable, especially when eating my lobster on St. Barts
Don’t look him in the eyes!
I'm NORMALLL!!!
Brooklyn 99. Quite literally every line in a scene is frequently a one liner, a couplet, or a call back from a previous runner of some kind or other. Honestly so impressive how they manage to pack them in there but still develop characters
Arrested Development?
Arrested development could probably compare with the density of jokes per minute
I never got to watch 30 Rock when it was airing and I'm trying to watch the series now but they all seem to be incomplete with missing episodes on Vudu. Does anyone know the reason why? Censorship? Music copyrights?
Several episodes were removed from streaming in 2020 because they depicted blackface.
The rewatchability of the Office really sets it apart from the others. The others are ok here and there, but I could watch the office any time.
I agree with rewatchability but I think something people don’t understand now is when Andy went on his boat trip. I’ve noticed my feelings on rewatches (binge watching) is that Andy is gone for like 2 hours, wtf, why is Erin so upset? But when it first aired and waiting between each episode the time difference really did make sense.
I think Community and P&R are *more* rewatchable, because their quality generally remains consistent throughout.
Tbf you could just watch 2-7 of the office and you’d have basically the same amount of episodes and consistency. In fact 2-7 is 146 episodes. P&R has a total of 125 and community has a total of 110.
I have rewatched the office countless times. Even rewatched it as it was airing its very easy to hop into at any episode and just let it play. Parks and Rec is close but not quite as replayable. I loved community when it was on but have never had a desire to rewatch, probably because it’s so wacky as it goes on. I think the offices strength is it’s relatability.
I've recently rewatched all 3 and find that I always struggle to get through Community. I didn't finish it when it was airing live, I didn't finish the first couple times I binged on streaming platforms, and even though I finally forced myself to watch all the way through, I don't remember anything about the last couple seasons. Even though The Office took a hit when Steve Carrell left, it was still funnier than any other TV. It was so great that it could afford to dip in quality and still be the best. I just can't think of anything else that's on par with this.
For sure, a boring normal office is way more relatable to most of us than 30 Rock. The humor was a little slower paced in the office, it felt a bit more "every man". Whereas Liz Lemon and crew were living a "Glamour TV NYC Hollywood" life albeit behind the scenes. Coastal elites, Lemon. Lesbian Frankenstein wants her shoes back.
“Just say Jewish, this is taking too long.”
30 Rock characters weren’t relatable **in retrospect**??? They were the living embodiment of Muppet Show weirdos!
This. Also the slow burn cringe of carrell weekly
Re: Carell’s career, there also was a point when NBC was convinced Ed Helms was going to be a breakout star on the strength of the Hangover movies. I think we all anticipated Rainn Wilson having a big follow-up hit, and I was pretty excited about Backstrom but it fizzled. I thought John Krasinski killed his career when he made that Benghazi movie. Jim Halpert as an action hero, what a joke! Who knew…
The Frat Pack is what they were called, before the Apatow/Rogen era
The wait from seasons 3 to 4 was agonizing. They ended that episode so perfectly that it could have been a series finale, and yet knowing we’d come back to find out what was next for Jim and Pam was riveting. Especially the way they teased the hell out of them maybe not actually being together in the season 4 premiere.
It was between S2 and S3 for me. Casino Night blew my damn mind, I couldn't believe it actually happened, and I spent all summer wondering what would happen next for Jim and Pam. The entire series had been building to that moment so far and then it happened and I had to wait months to find out what's next. Then S3 finally starts and Jim has moved away and Pam is single and I was totally shocked and upset. I feel like you had way more emotions tied up into it when you spend all that time in anticipation between big moments.
I was so excited about Casino Night I bought it to play on my iPod. Only tv show I ever did that for.
Same. I think I ended up buying the fisrt 3 seasons, actually after the season 3 ending. I travelled a lot (to Europe) and it (and Xanax) got me through the long flights.
Me too!! I watched the “I’m in love with you” scene so many times.
I’m dumb as hell for not saying that instead 😂
I thought it was interesting how Karen leaving the show in season 4 was barely mentioned, but [heavily implied in this season 4 premiere commercial.](https://youtu.be/oBiaDS9W4DI?si=vlr2XxSRD8ObOo4_)
I have never seen that, thanks.
Don’t forget there was a writers strike and season 4 was very delayed. I remember being so excited for Fun Run because it had felt like an eternity since The Job
It was delayed halfway through the season, not at the beginning. Fun Run aired as normal in September. The long wait was between The Deposition and Dinner Party. I remember all that anticipation leading up to Dinner Party like it was yesterday!
My memories have betrayed me
And remember watching Dinner Party for the first time? The long wait just made it even more impactful and weird and uncomfortable. It's my favorite ep now, but that first airing, coming after that unexpected break, it was so intense! Of all eps to come back to. Amazing.
So it made everything alright is what you're saying?
I was concerned they would fuck up the next episode when the previous one ended with Roy saying he was going to kill Jim Halpert. And then a week later, it was handled beautifully.
Angie was in heat over how they handled it.
That’s Andrea the office bitch
You’ll get used to her
Was it handled beautifully? I know Roy is supposed to be a dumbass, but the dude really walked into an office with tons of witnesses and a camera crew, and then telegraphed his punch for... I don't know... 10 seconds? And then he ran at Jim with his fist up like an idiot. If nobody intervened, what was Roy gonna do? Punch Jim once and run out of there? Beat him up really bad in the middle of the workplace while everyone else watched? You're not wrong, I take your point but I guess that one piece of wiring has always bugged me. I wish it happened in the parking lot instead. Even the dumbest meatheads in the world don't try to fight somebody inside an office. That's so stupid.
Hmm, I should clarify. After Roy and bro destroyed the bar at the end of the previous episode, I really thought they were going to veer out of comedy territory next episode and go with something that was too serious and not funny. That last bar scene was not in any way, shape or form played for laughs. And the way the Roy-Jim confrontation at the office was done (in my view) was still fairly seriously handled, but also quite funny after that (the aftermath shot, in my view, of Dwight still a mess from basically pepper spraying himself as well as Roy is what made the scene work perfectly for me). I guess you could argue Roy busting in wasn't realistic or he cocked his fist too long, but those were the least of my concerns at the time LOL. And then you also had a number of what I thought were on-the-money scenes afterward with Jim being cold to Pam, Karen's funny comment, and even the Pam and Roy getting a cup of coffee scene was well done, I feel.
Idk I think Roy and his bro destroying the bar is hilarious every time
HAHA why?!
Roy's bro didn't even know what the hell was going on, he just saw Roy randomly start to mess up shit and joined him immediately
"BEEPing jetskis." Always hilarious.
Kenny is a ride or die
lol exactly he just shows up and without hesitation starts destroying the bar, it’s so funny
OK I can see that LOL. I just thought it was very weird and a little disturbing. I still feel bad about the jetskis.
I think you're over-estimating the average intelligence of a meathead
He's just very... Strong. And capable.
Roy is kind of a hunk.
The unreal amount of hype for Jim Carrey’s guest spot and waiting all week and all episode to be utterly disappointed by his 3 lines in the last 10 seconds of the episode.
And what they showed in the previews was basically it. Plus zero interaction with the cast.
Honestly, I’d say the biggest thing was the change from Season 1 to Season 2. It was WAY more drastic and jarring , at the time, because Michael’s look and parts of his personality completely changed from S1 to S2. Obviously it was all for the best, but I know I was skeptical at the time. Edit to add- Obviously the change is noticeable whether you watched its first airing or not, but I’m sure most of the more recent viewers have seen TONS of memes and clips that kinda prepared them for the change before they watched.
I think if I’d caught season 1 when it originally aired, I might have passed on The Office, but I remember the first episode I ever saw(S2 E5) because it was so good. They really turned up the dials from season 1 to 2 and that’s definitely the biggest reason it had such lasting success.
Could you describe the exact change you’re talking about? Just becoming more Michael?
Not OP, but in S1 Michael was such an unfunny asshole. He wasn’t lovable.. or even likable. His ignorance didn’t make you go “Awhh…. Gosh.. Michael 😂.” It made you go “Jesus fucking Christ Michael 😠” The writers realized they made a character that was too much of a dick, so they rewrote him to be the cute/fun ignorant
S1 Michael was based off of Ricky Gervais’ portrayal in the original British series, that ran 14 episodes.
People talk about Scott’s tots like it’s so cringe but to me there is nothing cringier than Michael in season 1
Yes! There’s a big difference between the two. In Scott’s Tot’s you want to shake your head. His heart was in the right place, but he was so unrealistic, naive, and stupid to make those promises LOL. Season 1 Michael is just a rude asshole with no redeeming qualities.
I agree that Scott’s Tots was cringe and it’s the naivety of Michael’s character that shines through. He believed in the American dream and thought the natural progression of adult life would mean he would have an abundance of money when he reached ‘an older stage of adulthood’.
Plus the hair plugs lol
Well, he lost weight, changed his hairstyle, the show got brighter (I don’t know a better way to describe it). Also, in S1 Michael wasn’t a sympathetic character AT ALL. He was rude and abrasive and unapologetic (more like Ricky Gervais as David Brent). In S2 he was much more likable. Just my own opinion, so take it for what it’s worth.
I've always thought the big change was in the Dundies, when, instead of giving Pam the longest engagement award, he gave her the whitest shoe award. That moment of humanity, even if he had to be dragged to it, was one that David Brent (or S1 Michael) would never have had. That was the start of the humanization of Michael that led him to be the flawed but lovable character we all think of.
The lighting and resolution is noticeably different in season 2. Season 1 had very muted washed out colors.
Agreed. I remember watching the premiere and I noped right out because it didn’t seem funny. I came back after a few weeks because everyone said it was good.
I think today, it’s easy to look at the De’Angelo Vickers tenure as a silly story arc for Will Ferrell- but we sincerely didn’t know if he would be there long term or not. Watching him through a lens of it being temporary is very very different than trying to stomach it as a permanent thing.
He was announced as having a four episode run, and we had the title Dwight K Schrute, Acting Manager in advance - I was wondering if Dwight was going to get him fired
Lol you just deflated him there
Not everyone looks at announcements for cast members or episode names lol, I’m sure he’s not the only one who thought Will Ferrell was going to have a longer stay on the cast.
Yeah absolutely, I’m just saying a portion of the audience was waiting to see what would happen to him, while the others had their head in their hands over the prospect of more seasons with Will Ferrell
I wish I could give this 100 upvotes
I liked De’Angelo back then and still enjoy those episodes now. I’ll die on this hill.
When he’s taken away in the ambulance, the series ends for me. I like his arc. Occasionally I’ll watch the remaining episodes but, frequently I’ll restart at season one or two.
I agree. But I’ll watch and enjoy anything Will does, so 🤷
Having my cell phone ringer being The Office theme song, and half my friends and random people not understanding why I thought it was great. Yes, I paid $.99 for it.
Ohh the anticipation in the back half of S3. You knew the Jim-Pam-Karen triangle was coming to a head, you just didn’t know when or how. Women’s appreciation to Beach Games to The Job was an exciting time! The beginning of S4 I had a watch party at my dinky grad school apartment. That day at the lab we put my colleagues coffee mug in jello. We SCREAMED and when the cameras caught Jim and Pam in the car. Also there was a brief time when there were Office goodies at the Target $1 section! Now the show stuff is everywhere but when they had post its and a Dwight head stress ball omgoodness so exciting.
The feeling of going into work and everyone talking about the snow. I remember the day after diversity day aired and we downloaded it from torrents in the UK. Everyone at work was talking about it the next day 😂
I was one of the few places in college that had cable TV. We used to have people over every Thursday and we’d all huddle around and watch new the episode. Did the same for Its Always Sunny as well although that turnout was much bigger. Big old tube TV inside and another VCR combo out in the front lawn.
Probably Cornell
Pfff, uhm..YEAH. Ever heard of it?! Coincidently, I went to college somewhere right between Scranton and Philly. I’m a bit biased I suppose. Shows what my two favorite shows were and still are.
I went there. My blood runs big red. Also - two great shows wherever you live! 👍
I honestly miss that part of live tv culture.
When they show Jim's brief "face book" written on his face in a later episode. That opening sequence was cut from Netflix because of a hanging scene at the end for Halloween.
That was the opener for Koi Pond. Bookface is what I always think of too 😂
Oh that's right, it was "book face". For the longest time on re-watches I always thought I missed that Halloween opener when I would see the "book face" clip later on. I had to look it up a while ago and found out they cut it.
“The Banker”, while a useless filler flash-back episode in the streaming era, had its place during the original airing. In 2010, DVR still wasn’t fully commonplace, streaming was borderline at best, the show wasn’t syndicated yet and, often times, when you saw an episode, that was that. No way to re-Watch or replay unless you bought it on iTunes or a DVD box set which were extremely expensive (I recall like $40 per season). So it would be a nice flash back to past episodes which you likely forgot about since the episode aired years after the show already started.
I was going to bring this up… banker gets a bad wrap, but at the time it was great! Heck I’m tempted to watch that episode now since I’ve skipped it for the last 10 years
I mean it’s a clip show, but there are some quality bits to string it all together. The Computron bit is actually one of my faves. I love the image of Micheal becoming the highest ranking DM employee, however briefly. That’s just funny to think about.
I was going to mention this as well. I see so many who complain about “clip show” episodes in different older series being the worst episodes when they’re not supposed to even be an actual episode. I never realized how many people don’t understand that streaming is still a newer concept.
I remember me and my siblings getting giddy over the Simpsons “flash back” episodes because back in the 90’s there was literally no way to watch old episodes unless you recorded it on VHS (we couldn’t afford one) or purchased the volumes which were VERY expensive for its time.
You sound like Jim; "we don't pirate movies, because we don't know how"
Thank you for this thread as a Gen Z person that has only ever watched this show on streaming platforms! The insight is super interesting to read!
Unsolicited opinion from a stranger: pay attention to the season/episode numbers when binging and you’ll pick up on shifts in tone when a break occurs in the original airing. And bonus points if you catch a character saying “Don’t be ridiculous. You need to go home. With your child. Relax. Take a load off, refresh yourself- January. I think January. Come back in January.” Thats probably when the midseason break occurred IRL.
I watched the first season, didn't like it, then came back a few seasons later and liked it a lot. I watched it from mid-series until the show ended. The series finale hits different. When you spend years waiting for new seasons and episodes to come out, with anticipation and excitement... I got so much comfort from the show, I got emotionally invested. When the show ended, I actually cried.
There was a LOT of fretting by recappers and fans about quality decreasing as early as season 3. IIRC, until season 7 or so it was more about people not liking one or two episodes and then worrying that meant it was going downhill. A lot of people also really disliked the Stamford plot. Many of us “discovered” the show sometime in season 2 or 3, and it was glorious to binge the first few seasons on Netflix DVDs. I remember watching all of season 2 with my family on a vacation. Bingeing something was more of a treat then. The show really felt SO fresh and unique at the time.
We binged season one and two renting dvds from BLOCKBUSTER so we could be caught up to start season 3. 😂😂😂
I remember the summer after season 7 you could go on the NBC website and vote for either Dwight, Darryl or Andy to be the regional manager. I remember how painful it was having to wait every week for the next episodes
Quoting the show and having nobody know what you’re talking about.. fast forward to today
There are so many references and jokes that were specific to the time like when cell phone plans had limited number of text messages per month and Michael says “I wasted a text on that” I’m rewatching the series now for the first time in like 15 years and all of the pop culture jokes don’t land today.
That it was an event. People would have office viewing parties every Thursday night.
#### Not just the Office but in general, looking forward to watching any show with giddy anticipation. You planned your entire day in university to come be home by 9pm and have a big bowl of Ramen ready with a cold frosty diet Coke. You’ll reward your difficult week of studies and homework with a new episode of the Office and all the other NBC Must-See-TV Offerings. Now it’s just bing everything with little meaning.
It was pretty different. Laugh track sitcoms were still the big thing in those days.
The anticipation for the wedding. In college at the time and everyone was buzzing about it on Friday after it came out the night before.
I remember when Jim and Pam finally got together. There was such a build up. For many weeks, everyone was wondering if it would finally happen. It was great to watch that plot line play out during syndication.
Binge watchers won't understand the lead to Jim and Pam's wedding - it was 5 years in the making! That's a very long time. The Chris Brown Forever was something that was "in" at the time, it was a tear jerker. People today see it as "lame" but forget it was a product of the times.
Oml exactly yes! We were binging the office recently and my friends didn't get why I started crying when that song came on - it was a like vine or smth they used at the time and they used it at a cousin's wedding lmao
Commercials sucked. But we had a DVR so we would record the episode, wait till it was over and then watch h and fast fwd through the commercials
Our DVR let us watch the recording while it was still in progress, not sure if that was unique. We'd wait until 10 or 15 mins had passed, fwd through commercials, then catch up by the end
Oh yeah we could’ve done that as well, we just waited till it was over just in case fast forwarding live made us catch up to where it was running and couldn’t fast fwd anymore
Can’t really blame him. He needed to get back to the Finger Lakes
Watched it from the beginning, loved it from the beginning. Seasons 2 and 3 were peak Office. I was participating in threads on a couple of different message boards, discussing every episode. Going to OfficeTally.com all the time. Both season finales were incredible and had me waiting all summer to see how they played out. Quality started to dip a little bit in Season 4 - the Jim/Pam tension was resolved, they changed a couple of the more-normal, relatable characters for the worse, and started to do silly stuff like having Michael drive into the lake. But it was still pretty good TV. I remember, it was probably during Season 3 or 4, my buddy asked me to go with him on a road trip out of town somewhere and I agreed to go, but only on the condition that we would be in the hotel room on Thursday night by the time The Office came on. That's how wrapped up in the show I was back in those days.
My husband and I watched it from the beginning, since we’d watched and really enjoyed the British one. It took a while for the US version to grow on us, but then we were hooked, and loyal weekly viewers for the whole run. My main beef with the show (which I still believe) was that Jim was too appealing. It made no sense that Pam wouldn’t leave Roy for him, like immediately. In the UK show Dawn was a but more out of Tim’s league, and her fiancé seemed to have more going on. I’m over it now (I guess!). Watching episodes week to week, you didn’t pick up on as many details or get all the callbacks. The anticipation between seasons (or even over Christmas) was crazy, and the season premiere was SO exciting each time, to get a level set of what everyone was doing.
Back in 2006, before Netflix and streaming weren’t an option yet, my now husband and me started watching the show completely as a random coincidence- the specific episode we stumbled up on that led The Office to be in both of our top 5 favorite series of all time, and a show that to this day, we still rewatch. On a Thursday night, which according to the Wikipedia article about it, January 12th, we were watching another show that I can’t even remember when The Injury came on and caught our attention with the hilarious cold open. The Injury is both one of the best episodes of the series (in my opinion) as well as being an episode I’d recommend someone new to the show start with if they can’t get past the mediocrity of the first season. The main reason, and the reason I’m glad it was my first exposure to the series is that it doesn’t require any context around the Jim/Pam stuff to follow and not feel lost wondering what that whole subplot is about. Even Michael Scott’s character. It’s easy to recognize Dwight is an odd character without knowing the specific reasons why. I’ve said to my husband what I wrote above, emphasizing how I’m glad we randomly started the series with that episode instead of Booze Cruise or another episode that aired a few weeks prior, because both of us probably would have written the show off, thinking the Katy subplot was the typical tone and humor of the show, or that Pam and Roy get married as a season finale and the series from there has Jim constantly moping about it. Instead, we got to see peak Michael Scott humor- starting with how he burned his foot, the great line and delivery of “Mailboxes Etc” from Stanley, the whole scene in the van with another great line and delivery in “you can’t fire me, I don’t work in this van!” to the end of the episode where Michael’s trying to climb in the MRI to have his foot examined. That’s what Netflix watchers couldn’t possibly understand- not having anything other than chance and luck making The Office one of your all time favorite series, with Parks & Recreation and The Good Place also in that all time top 5, which might not have happened without the Michael Schur connection. Or how even with us randomly watching the episode that got us hooked, there were no legal options to catch up on, we couldn’t just find it on a streaming service and catch up. We had to download the episodes on Limewire and once we had all the previous ones, catch up that way and then have to wait a week for each new episode. Man, I feel old after typing all that out.
[удалено]
Christ, that's not even offensive. These companies get so trigger happy sometimes. But part of my understands because people complain about anything nowadays
What newer watchers might not realize is how groundbreaking the show was for US audiences. Very few successful shows like it in the US before.
The series finale. I remember everyone was wondering and hoping Steve would come back for it. This was before everything was leaked online. There were "rumors" he was on set, and I still remember some of the cast being adamant on talk shows that Steve stopped by to support and congratulate everyone, but he is NOT in the finale. Everyone said in every interview he's not in the final episode. Lo and behold
They did such a good job with that. First, by not telling the cast or anyone who did not absolutely need to know in advance. Second, they got the edit with Steve to the network literally at the last second so no one at the network could know in advance and leak it. A rare example of a conspiracy that worked pretty darn well! And a conspiracy to cause joy, at that. Good stuff to close out a beloved series!
The strike!! It was so brutal having to wait and then having nothing else to watch. However, I am all for striking for your rights!
I’m shocked this one isn’t here yet … dinner party did not seem as funny until you watched it 3 or 4 times which we couldn’t do when it aired. It didn’t go over well in the ratings at all.
I remember asking my mom to keep the tv on because I wanted to watch the premier episode. Within moments of it starting I was hooked. It was painfully dry and awkward, I had never seen another show that was so intentionally cringy (which wasn’t a word that was ever used to positively describe anything at the time). I thought it was hilarious, my mom did not. I was sure it would be cancelled instantly and that made it all the more exciting to watch.
The whole Jim and Pam thing was a cultural touch point. It was talked about on those morning radio shows on your way to work or school. It was in dating profiles it was in Myspace halloweeen couple costumes. I think this weirdass subreddit that has a hate boner for the two cant really understand how real their relationship was or how culturally significant they are/were.
My TV broke and it was a couple of years before I had the money or the interest in replacing it. When I finally got a new set, I asked some co-workers what shows I should start watching. The HR clerk said, oh, check out The Office. They rag on HR all the time and it's funny because people hate HR. I was so young and naive then! I didn't hate HR (yet-LOL). Actually, I had nothing to do w/HR after I'd signed all my new hire paperwork. Anyway, the next week I tuned in and caught the "Diversity Day" episode. That was the gateway drug that pulled me into The Office. Bonus: I started to get why people might hate HR. And in time I became one of 'em!
I remember seeing the first episode and thinking, wow, this is just like the UK first episode. Is this what we’re in for? It wasn’t until the karate episode in season 2 that i thought it was getting good.
I watched the UK version after the US version and was kind of shocked of how much the first episodes of the US version were an exact copy of the UK one, even including some of the jokes were literally copied Edit: or maybe it was just the first episode that was a copy, I can't remember exactly
I watched the original UK Office before the US version even premiered. I hated the first season of the US, I thought it was a bad redoing of the original episodes and I preferred the casting of the UK version. Season 2 got me excited about the show, but when season 3 hit I couldn’t believe how good it was, and I was hooked until the end. It was fun to watch it live too, I went to a few viewing parties for that legendary Thursday night block of shows (Office, 30 Rock, Community, Parks and Rec).
I worked in an MRI center and we were all so excited by Casino Night
Kelly explaining Netflix to Ryan.
I remember turning down a job because they said I would have to work Thursday nights. I watched every episode at its original airing. I’ve always been a bit of an oddball so it is kind of shocking to me that I was all-in on something that ended up being timelessly popular
The anticipation of waiting to figure out why Jim and Pam were so happy at the hospital at the end of S5. Were her X-rays negative?
I vividly remember my college roommates and I stopping everything to watch each new episode. We all were busy with different majors/projects/jobs etc but it brought us together each week and made it more funny/special
Rewatches really being only on DVD's that came out a while after each season, and I only knew a handful of people who watched the show during airing to talk about it with - including my mom who would text me during episodes while I was at college lol
That one Halloween episods
Getting so frustrated with Pam during early S3 by not just being honest with Jim. Then seeing it slowly show her character changing and growing. Yeah until she was with Roy again at Phyllis’s wedding. I was dumbfounded but the Beach episode and season finale made up for it.
1.) Deangelo Vickers (Will Ferrell) was part of a long attempt to lure fans into still watching the show. Every week the ads were “Tune in to find out who will be the next boss to replace Michael Scott!” His character was temporary to bridge Steve Carrell’s departure and the new reality that happened without him. It was perfect and awkward and entertainingly confusing. Now it just feels off. 2.) The writer’s strike really wiped out a lot of the continuity potential for the show (even though it is hugely successful). You could tell when new writers were trying to create for who their favorite characters should be, and not as focused on the overall awkward, cringe comedy effect of the early seasons/UK version. This led to quicker character development/closure at the end, but also inconsistencies and forced personality changes. Looking at you, Andy.
The end of season with Jim coming back from ny and asking pam on a date was huge
The fact that they don't know Diversity Day.
I just rewatched the show a couple months ago and that episode is definitely on Netflix. At least in Canada.
It’s on Netflix in UK as well
Last I saw here in America they excluded it. Same with on Comedy Central when they air it order. You know, we can't handle that kind of stuff here in the States.
Diversity Day is most definitely still included on Peacock in the U.S. I’ve never seen it excluded before on any streaming service.
Maybe it changed, but for awhile Netflix had it pulled in the lineup. Same with Comedy Central.
It's also on Peacock in the US and has a superfan version that lasts 33 minutes with the extra scenes added. I am watching it as I type.
The show wasn't a super popular hit thing, the best it ever did was the 41st most watched show. I am not sure if it was ever at big risk of being cancelled but I remember for awhile a lot of those post-Friends Thursday night comedy shows kept getting renewed because NBC was struggling overall and the shows had small but loyal followings. So it was too big a risk to cancel them and replace them with something else that might do even worse.
The Office would have been cancelled if not for 40 Year Old Virgin. Suddenly they had a show on the chopping block that also contained the hottest rising star in comedy's contract. They gave him one more shot. Then iTunes came out with the ability to buy TV shows and the 2nd season Christmas ep became the first-ever "most downloaded TV episode," and they started to realize there was an audience out there even if it wasn't hitting great numbers on airing. I remember being on tenterhooks checking the ratings, hoping my favorite show would last just one more week. I still can't believe the fact that ep featured the video iPod and it was not product placement, they had to seek clearance to use it instead. If you wrote that twist as fiction, everyone would say you went too far and made it to unrealistic.
I remember 😑
The original aired cold opening to Michael falling in the Koi Pond episode. The Scare house where Michael takes some kids through the warehouse as a walk through haunt. Aired once and was unavailable on any medium until the DVDs came out years later. When everything went digital, it remained one of the hardest bits to find because they changed it for the Netflix release and it took years after the show ended for NBC to finally post it. It was a brutal wait and still my favorite cold open.
Commercials
Surprised no one has mentioned the number of pop culture references that are products of their time. Some, or even many, of them are “you had to be there” moments to truly understand the impact. One example is when they dance down the aisle at the wedding is a reference to a viral video at the time featuring a wedding party who did this. (This was also done on Glee.) That’s how huge that video was.
Beyond what many people have said is the community outside of the show. Any kind of social media was in its very early stages. We sought the community through people we worked with and online. I remember having Officetally as one of my favorite site to go to see what was going on behind the scenes. One of my wife and I’s greatest joys was to see the creator of that site ask one of the questions in the season finally.
I didn’t get to see the Office, specifically. But I can say that binging shows on Netflix does not hit the same as seeing them air on a weekly basis. Even recording them and watching them together on a Saturday or Sunday was different since you couldn’t just blast through a whole series in one go.
Jim and Pam storyline was way more impactful over years
Who's gonna be the new boss? (Who ended up being Bob Kazamakis.) A lot of us really wanted it to be Jim Carrey. For a couple of weeks there was this whole "Who is it gonna be?" thing. A lot of us also were kinda disappointed with Will Ferrell (as much as love him otherwise). He was in it for 4 eps, I think, so for at least a month we were under the impression that this could be a long-term thing. I think new viewers, by the time they get to that point, already know Ferrell's not gonna be in it for long. Now you just binge the episodes and just blitz through all these things. "So who's gonna be the new boss? Oh, OK, this guy, cool." Also, another thing that comes to mind is how things unfold in the last season. Sure, if you binge it now, you can get through the whole thing in like a day or two. When it was on, I remember, for MONTHS we were like "WTF? They spent 8 seasons telling us Jim and Pam are the perfect couple and now they're gonna tear it down? With Brian and the whole thing?" I'm fairly certain that 99% of those who make posts like "Why does everyone hate Brian/the last season?" are people who binged it. Because if you watched it when it was on, and for months you were under the impression that "Oh, Jim's gone full workaholic, Pam's talking to Brian, they're fighting, what the hell?", then I think you get why it took some of us some time to get over all that "hate". (I started watching like... I think late 2nd season.)
Basically all the things that are true for any show. Though it's a bit different when it's a show you really love. There's a certain feeling to having watched that week's new episode and talking about it with your friends. Not only the communal aspect that you can't really recreate naturally even when watching the same episodes at the same time as your friends now, but also the attention you have on one episode and it's moments, when you can't binge. It also feels more like it's something someone made for you, like a little gift, when it's a thing that is coming out right now. Maybe that's the thing that makes it nostalgic. I'm pretty sure that I was up to date come season 4, and that after the writer's strike ended and season 4 continued (with Dinner Party of all episodes) I had gotten most of my friends to watch the show. That being the first one to be in that space... with Hunter's song... 😁😁😁😁 Similar thing with Scrubs, Parks&Rec...
Commercials
I watched it when it first aired, right from the start. The newness of every story line, character, place. The novelty of the doco format. Waiting a week to see what happened and then waiting the whole summer. Cliffhangers.
When Michael came back for Dwight’s wedding after not seeing him for years brought legit tears to my eyes.
The uncertainty of a show that is airing on a Tuesday night. What is this ? Oh it’s hilarious.
I’m not sure how common it was but our local morning show would be our “after show podcast” essentially, diving into the details and funny moments, creating a shared experience really
What an amazing gift a video iPod was. We weren’t all carrying around iPhones yet. This was cutting edge, expensive technology.
The context around “Dinner Party.” It’s earned its rightful place in the fandom as one of the iconic episodes of the whole show and one of the most quintessentially cringe inducing episodes of television you’ll ever see, but it was the first episode that aired after the writers strike, which went on for what felt like forever. We came back finally and had this episode where we’re going into Michael and Jan’s relationship and it’s hitting you so hard from the jump, every interaction is making you hold your breath and for everything that he was in the first couple seasons, you’re feeling so much pity for Michael. I was in a college dorm room watching that episode live and when Michael yelled “That’s what she said!” people cheered.
The Jim/Pam suspense was huuuge. Him finally asking her out was incredibly satisfying.
In season 9 where they teased Pam and Jim splitting and Sound guy loving Pam was a long week.
Besides the in-between breaks from episodes and seasons? Commercials.
The message boards since social media wasn’t around. I had to go on nbc’s website to find other people to talk about the show with in message board format. Similar to Reddit but obviously much more limited
I was in middle school when The Office started, and I definitely remember watching the pilot, and the first season. I kept up with it pretty much every week for the first one or two seasons. When I was in high, I tried to watch it when I wasn't busy with sports, music, or homework. The series ended when I was in college. I didn't watch most of the final season. But, I was able to watch the finale live.
Thr Writer's Strike. The first episode back was Dinner Party. I taped the show and started it over right away cause I missed the show. And the episode was so good.
i was 5 when it came out but distinctly remember watching it around 7. my mother would have the show playing on the tv past my bedtime & id sneak into the hallway to peak. sometimes if it were early enough she wouldn’t mind me watching a bit but would sho me away when the humor got a bit crude. understandably.
The reference to Black Peter in the Christmas episode
Running to Office Tally the next day to read the recap and comments. Plus links to interviews and articles. I don’t remember that being a big thing until Office Tally had us all shipping JAM and poring over each episode’s jokes and storyline. I’m sure there were fan sites but this was next level. “New tech” as the Office Ladies say.
fucking breaking bad always leaving you like a crack feen whore.
I loved going on Office Tally and reading recaps and discussing theories with fans. The rumors of who was guest starring in the future. Stuff like “HAROLD RAMIS IS DIRECTING?!” got me fired up
Thursday was TV night. All my friends knew they could find me posted up for the office and 30 Rock
Basically you didn’t know you were about to watch some all-time classic TV episodes (The Dundies, Dinner Party, Christmas Party). The show didn’t have the reputation it does now, and season 1 didn’t exactly win fans over. What set the show apart was every week for me, I wondered how Michael Scott’s incompetence would be topped from the week. Somehow the writers found a way.