Entertainment

Should There Be An 'Office' Spin-off?

by Mallory Schlossberg

Hey, Anglophiles! You might be able to have all of your dreams fulfilled! Well, your half-hour comedy ones, at least. Apparently, both Netflix and BBC want to do a spin-off of The Office — the British one, not the American one (I know, I know, you all love waxing about how it was "so much better") — but will Ricky Gervais return to the desk as David Brent?

Well, Gervais actually has a point that makes the whole notion of a redux worth questioning:

I love David Brent, but I can't just do it as a vanity project, because the BBC and Netflix are up for it [...] I don't know whether to do an on-the-road special or make that the whole series.

So, point taken: if we can find a way to bring back David Brent either, as Gervais suggested, on the road or something, then sure, why not? So long as it has a point, but a spin-off for a spin-off's sake is never worth it.

Spin-offs, after all, are often super hit or miss. For every Frasier, there's a Joey — a misfire completely spawned on the sheer notion that fans are craving some semblance of their favorite retired shows. Further, with serial shows becoming more popular, viewers are less apt to stay with a series just because it's there — viewers now have the privilege of seeing damned good storytelling and despite the glories of Netflix and DVR, there is only so much time in a year to watch good television. You have to pick and choose.

If Netflix can bring us — and I'm sure they can, they're pros at giving us a bunch of episodes worth watching all at once — a mini series of our Office characters, 11 years later that tells a smart, on-point story, then sure. Let's do it and mark our calendars to not leave the house the day that it's aired.

If it is, as Gervais puts it, a vanity project, then yeah — let's pass. Besides, it's pretty easy to sniff out a vanity project from something that's actually a creative endeavor. It may not be a television series, but I saw Crossroads. Multiple. Times.

Image: BBC