Thoughts on the Office Finale

Last week NBC’s long standing hit comedy The Office aired it’s final episode.

I was a huge Office fan. I got into it late, around the 2nd or 3rd season, but as soon as I started I was hooked. The Office was a strong show for NBC for many years until the last two seasons where the show hobbled on to its end, but more on that later.
The Office was great because it was real. You knew these characters. If you worked in an office you probably worked with a Dwight, Stanley, Phyllis, Creed, and if you were really lucky, a Michael.

Early episodes like Diversity Day really showed how awkward these people were, and showed how funny the show was.

Of course like any sitcom there was the will they/won’t they romance, and The Office had it in spades with Jim and Pam.
The season 2 finale “Casino Night” was so awesome. At the time, Pam was engaged to Roy, who worked in the warehouse.

(Sorry for the poor video quality, this is all I could find).

It was heartbreaking, raw, and so real. You could feel the every emotion in that scene.

When the show’s quality started to fall in the last two seasons, and when the writers were going with the bizarre Pam and Jim having marriage issues story line I would think back on this scene and get angry with how things were turning out. A show that was so great, so on top of their game fell so hard.

The show was so good through 5 seasons. Seasons 6 and 7 were good, but not nearly as good as the first 5. Then at the end of season 7 Michael Scott left Dunder Mifflin.

Jim and Michael’s goodbye was so well written and acted.

This was the beginning of the downward spiral. I don’t know what went on in the writer’s room except that they forgot what made the show so good. They put Andy in charge as Regional Manager of Dunder Mifflin to replace Michael which was an odd choice. It should have been Dwight. The brief glimpses we saw of Dwight as Regional Manager in the final few episodes proves this. This would give new dynamic to Dwight and Jim’s relationship. Their past was full of pranks that Jim would pull on Dwight.

There are so many more, but YouTube doesn’t have a lot of them available.

They could have had two seasons of this back and forth.

So much lost potential. The back and forth of Jim and Dwight was so great in the earlier episodes. Dwight being in charge would have definitely given this relationship some fresh blood, and we saw glimpses of that in the final episodes.

I’ve been very vocal about how bad the last two seasons were. Season 8 was a train wreck. From figuring out who was manager, bringing on James Spader and Kathy Bates as a manger and owner of the company was really weird and out of place. Andy was annoying as Regional Manager, in a bad way. Just a mess.

Season 9 wasn’t much better, but it had its moments. I stuck with the show because I loved it so much, and I wanted to see it to the end. I wanted to see how these characters ended up.

The finale did not disappoint. It took place a few months after Dwight was named Regional Manager and caught everyone up on where the cast had been since the documentary aired. The finale also brought back Michael Scott.

I was really happy to see Michael come back. I really wanted to see more of him, but I think he was used correctly. Seeing him on screen for the 8 minutes or so that he was there reminded me of how much he carried the show. He wasn’t the only reason The Office was great, but he was a huge contributing factor.

All in all, I was very happy with the finale. It’s probably one of the best finales that I have ever watched. Nothing will ever beat the Scrubs finale for me, though.

Dwight made some big changes at Dunder Mifflin. Of course he would. He’s Dwight. He fired Kevin, because Kevin really did suck at his job. He fired Toby, because he was Toby. Nobody liked Toby.

Angela and Dwight getting married made perfect sense. Kevin running a bar looked good on him. I’m glad Pam woke up and realized that Jim needed to leave Dunder Mifflin. I liked that Stanley retired and that Phyllis was trying to fatten up his replacement so she could have another Stanley. I loved that Michael has a family, something he wanted for so long.

Like I said, I really liked the finale.

I’m glad The Office was over. I haven’t watched the DVDs in a long time, but I think I will again soon. I may skip over the bad seasons, so I can enjoy the show that I remember it being.

Finding the videos for this post was a great trip down memory lane. Watching past clips, laughing and getting lost in video after video. Like hanging out with an old friend.

Andy sums it up perfectly:

Good bye, The Office. It will be hard without you.
(That’s what she said.)