The Office (US)

Note: Not to be confused with the British and Indian versions of the same name.

The Office is an American mockumentary sitcom television series that depicts the everyday work lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. It aired on NBC from March 24, 2005, to May 16, 2013, lasting a total of nine seasons. It is based on a British show of the same name.

Plot
The everyday lives of workers at a paper company are caught on camera by a camera crew for a documentary. Some of these workers are Michael Scott, the boss, who isn't too bright or funny. Dwight Shrute, a salesman who takes his job very, very, seriously. Jim Halpert, a salesman who is the office cool guy and prankster. And Pam Beesly, the receptionist who is engaged but who is also the crush of someone else in the office. With these characters, the daily antics of this branch is anything but normal.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The concept of the everyday work lives of office employees is very creative.
 * 2) The acting is great for almost all the characters.
 * 3) The characters have good personalities:
 * 4) *While Michael Scott is ignorant and crude he is one of the most kind hearted characters to date and easily Steve Carell's most iconic and beloved character.
 * 5) *Dwight is also one of the best characters in the show due to his serious personality and Rainn Wilson's performance, in fact many people consider that he carried the show after Carell's departure.
 * 6) *Jim is very likeable and he provides most of the funny moments in the show, especially his pranks against Dwight.
 * 7) *Pam is shy, growing assertive but amiable, and artistically inclined.
 * 8) *While he became pretentious and weird as the show went by, Ryan has very hilarious moments and he can even be relatable for some people.
 * 9) *Kevin is a funny comic relief.
 * 10) *And even Creed, who we barely know about and has a very mysterious personality, steals every scene that he's in.
 * 11) Many actors that we recognize today got their start, or became popular after starring in the show.
 * 12) It's very well structured.
 * 13) Despite being an American remake of the British sitcom, the show manages to be unique in its own way.
 * 14) Proper character development for most of the cast.
 * 15) It's hilarious content is so amazing, that you could watch it over and over again, and still cry from laughter like Jim’s pranks on Dwight.
 * 16) The show is filmed with a single camera and has no laugh track making it more realistic. It also proved that sitcoms don't need a laugh track to work.
 * 17) Due to its nature as a mockumentary, the way the characters (especially Jim) break the fourth wall is quite funny.
 * 18) The iconic theme song and opening sequence.
 * 19) The documentary style is also quite useful and ingenious since the characters have interviews with the filming crew where they express themselves and it helps the viewer to understand how they feel and think.
 * 20) Many memorable quotes and memes, like:
 * 21) *"That's what she said!"
 * 22) *"Why are you the way that you are?"
 * 23) *“Sometimes I’ll start a sentence and I don’t even know where it’s going. I just hope I find it along the way”
 * 24) *“Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me”
 * 25) *“I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious”
 * 26) *“The worst thing about prison was the dementors!”
 * 27) *"Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica"
 * 28) *“Identity theft is not a joke, Jim! Millions of families suffer every year”
 * 29) *“And I knew exactly what to do. But in a much more real sense, I had no idea what to do”
 * 30) *“I am running away from my responsibilities. And it feels good”
 * 31) *"Today, smoking is gonna save lives"
 * 32) *"Earth. You don't have to be crazy to live here, but it helps"
 * 33) *"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days, before you actually left them"
 * 34) *“There’s a lot of beauty in ordinary things. Isn’t that kind of the point?”
 * 35) *"NO GOD PLEASE NO!"
 * 36) *"BUTTLICKER! OUR PRICES HAVE NEVER BEEN LOWER!"
 * 37) Plenty of hilarious and now iconic scenes like the Fire Drill cold open, the "Prison Mike" monologue and the lip dub opening.
 * 38) Jim and Pam’s relationship is very cute and one of the best parts of the series.
 * 39) The series finale is perfect and heartwarming to watch as it concluded many storylines for the characters.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) It massively declined in quality after Steve Carell left the series at the end of the season 7 with many people saying it should've ended after that.
 * 2) *Not only did the show lose it's main and most beloved character, but in the following episodes and seasons, the writers and characters acted as if he had literally never existed as there were little-to-no references or mentions of Michael, and when they actually mentioned him, they referred to him as "the last boss".
 * 3) As pointed in GQ#2, Michael Scott can be very obnoxious in a lot of episodes and he does a lot of bad stuff such as: constantly harassing Pam, making racist and sexist comments, his weird obsession with Ryan, and obviously: his treatment of Toby, etc. Luckily, his character started growing in his last episodes.
 * 4) It has some plot holes:
 * 5) *At the finale of season 3; why Ryan, out of everyone in the office, was picked for the vice president job at corporate despite having no experience and never making a sale?
 * 6) *In "The Deposition", Michael and Jan get into conflict because they have troubles explaining their relationship to corporate during Jan's deposition, as each of them is giving a different version; they could've easily used the footage from the documentary crew.
 * 7) *Fans believe that there was actually radon poisoning in the office and that's the reason the characters became wackier and wackier as the seasons progressed. Over the years the characters' quirks and antics became much more exaggerated, most notably in Ryan and Kevin.
 * 8) *How come Dwight be so familiar with pop culture if he grew up in a farm.
 * 9) *What did Jim's note to Pam said?
 * 10) *They never revealed who the Scranton Strangler was. Many theories suggest it was Toby.
 * 11) The series is also known for its plenty of cringeworthy episodes that can be hard to watch for some audiences such as Dinner Party, Gay Witch Hunt, Diversity Day and the infamous Scott's Tots episode.
 * 12) Even outside the cringe element, there were episodes that were simply bad such as Angry Andy, Casual Friday, Get the Girl, Welcome Party, The Carpet, The Inner Circle, Gettysburg, Prince Family Paper, and especially The Farm.
 * 13) Many characters, particularly Oscar, Erin and Ryan were very underused and wasted.
 * 14) Some of the characters can be very unlikable particularly Nellie Bertram, Roy Anderson, Charles Miner, and Jan Levinson.
 * 15) Kevin, Pam, and especially, Andy suffered from flanderization in the last 2 seasons, with the latter being the most infamous one.

Trivia

 * John Krasinski and B.J. Novak went to high school together. They went to Newton South High School in Newton, Massachusetts, and they both graduated in 1997. They were even on the same little league baseball team.
 * Not only did the show become one of NBC’s highest rated shows; but also one of the most streamed shows on Netflix as of late 2018 and gained a big fan following making it easy to binge watch before it moved to the Peacock streaming service in January 2021.
 * This show is based on the 2001-2003 British sitcom of the same name, which is just as great. The success of the British verison led to several international versions including an Indian remake of the same name, which aired in 2019. However, as compared to the American and British versions, the Indian version was not well received.