Full disclosure: The writer of this article is currently up to the Finale episode of a re-watch of The Office on Stan, and he is not ready to deal with a world where potential new episodes of the incredibly good and nice US show are merely teased. So this could get nerdy.
It’s no secret that NBC is absolutely tonguing to dip into the well of their Halcyon Days of 2010-ish by reviving their previously successful properties; the runaway success of the Will & Grace revival is only adding more fuel to that fire.
If various scuttlebutt is to be believed, one series that’s set to get an all-new shot in the arm is the wildly successful and beloved American version of The Office. The quiet word on that front is that NBC is earmarking a return to Scranton, PA sometime around the 2018-19 TV season, meaning it could re-appear on screens before this year is out.
The only problem with that, is that the show’s original run wrapped up in a way that very few shows get to: on its own terms, and in a way that satisfied the vast majority of its fans.
So how do you approach any potential revival without damaging the neatly rounded-off story that Finale presented us some five years ago?
Turns out John Krasinski has a fairly good idea.
The incredibly good-looking rooster behind Jim Halpert is not only bang-up for a revival of the show, he has a pitch for how it could possibly ever work. What with Jim and Pam off in Austin now and half the mainstays of Dunder Mifflin moved on. In an interview with IndieWire, Krasinski identifies the problem with reviving the show after a send-off like the one they had.
It’s one of those things where I’m sure people don’t believe me when I say I would totally do it, because the truth is I would totally do it.
I don’t think anybody in our show sees that we didn’t end it the way we wanted to end it. We’re one of the very lucky shows that got to end when we wanted to, how we wanted to. So I don’t know how it exciting it would be to do a run of the show, ’cause you don’t want to retread old things and have people not be as excited about it as they are now.
And as for his plan to bring it back? It’s all about the original source material.
I think the UK thing that I always have pitched and wanted to do is that Christmas special thing, where we do a Christmas special this year and then two years from now, or three years from now, we do another one. I love that idea coming back finding out where everybody is. I would totally be down for that.
The UK Office, as a bunch of you will recall, ran for two seasons in 2001 and 2002, before returning for a pair of Christmas specials in 2003 that served as a de facto revival for the show. Replicating that for the US version feels like a smart way back into the world, as well as a more than knowing and loving nod to the show that allowed it to live in the first place.
Time will tell, of course. But who among you isn’t keen for another traditional Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas?
Judgment from Belsnickel is nigh.
Were ye impish, or were ye admirable?
