With all of our old favorite TV shows coming back to haunt us, it was only a matter of time before "The Office" got a remake, too. But could it ever live up to the original?
Nothing's for certain, but multiple media outlets are reporting that NBC is looking to reboot their Emmy Award-winning TV show, "The Office," which ended in 2013 after nine seasons. The potential new version of the comedy would aim to air sometime in 2018. If the show returned, reports say that the new series would still revolve around Dunder Mifflin, the struggling paper company with a branch in Scranton, Pennsylvania -- though it's unclear how many returning characters we'd see, given the successful careers of several stars since the show's end. However, cast member Angela Kinsey recently sent out a tweet implying that she and Creed Bratton were good to go.
"The Office" launched and furthered the careers of several actors in its run, most notably Mindy Kaling and John Krasinski. Steve Carell was already a star in his own right, but his role as the world's most awkward boss certainly didn't hurt his star power.
The show certainly redefined "sit-com," entering the scene at a time when TV was going off-script a bit. Laugh tracks and studio audiences were becoming a thing of the past in the wake of a writers strike, 9/11, and reality TV's newly realized popularity. So when "The Office" -- a remake of a six-episode British series of the same name -- adopted a unique mock-umentary, single-camera style, we fell in love with it for its gumption to try something different. It poked fun at reality TV, creating a fictional workplace where a camera crew recorded the day-to-day antics of employees and interviewed them one-on-one.
Plus, the assembled cast accurately represented each of our workplaces -- a variety of unique personalities thrown together randomly and expected to work toward a common goal. We could relate to Jim and Pam as they alternated between horror at Michael's stupidity and disbelief at Dwight's quirkiness. We sat through diversity seminars and uncomfortable reviews and awkward holiday parties -- and laughed along at the way "The Office" so perfectly captured our own daily office life. So much so that, in today's social media culture, the show has inspired countless memes and GIFs.
So could any other cast do the series justice? Could producers actually recapture the magic of the original American version? It's worth a shot, I suppose, but how much better could "The Office" -- which had so much heart -- really get?
What other reboots would you like to see? Do you think a new version of "The Office" could be as "on the nose" as the first one? Which characters would you like to see return? Tell us in the comments below!
