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Overtime at "The Office" -- 100 episodes
Thu May 14, 2009 8:15pm EDT
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By Daniel Carlson
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - As with a growing number of people in Hollywood, "The Office" owes its success to Judd Apatow.
The show celebrates its 100th episode on Thursday. But NBC's remake of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's cult-favorite British series drew mixed reviews from critics when it kicked off in March 2005.
"All I could focus on was getting it past the hurdle of six episodes," says Angela Bromstad, president of primetime entertainment at NBC and Universal Media Studios. "Forget about seasons; we were just focused on getting the episodes."
The series was an Americanized version of Gervais and Merchant's mordant skewering of the modern workplace, but in the best sense of the word: It thrived on the idiotic buzzwords and corporate lingo that have infiltrated American lives and made it possible to make punch lines out of things like "action statements."
Gervais' British onscreen alter-ego David Brent became American lead Steve Carell's Michael Scott, a blustery and thick-headed manager at the Scranton, Penn., branch of Dunder Mifflin Paper Co.
The office was stocked with sharply drawn characters, most notably Jim (John Krasinski), an affable salesman driven to distraction by his crush on the receptionist, Pam (Jenna Fischer). Also stealing scenes was Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute, an egotistical but ultimately harmless employee who loves his job and his boss with equal abandon.
Just one small problem: Not enough people were watching.
But that summer, Apatow's feature directorial debut, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," hit screens and went on to gross $177 million worldwide. In the process, it made a star out of Carell, who had been active in film and television for several years but was now a household name.
Carell's burgeoning film career lent an "incredible acceleration" to "The Office," says Ben Silverman, co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and an executive producer on the series.
The series needed that acceleration. During its first season, it ranked a lowly 82nd among adults 18-49, a demographic coveted by advertisers. (So far this season, it's at No. 64.)
Greg Daniels, the series' creator who also executive produces, writes and directs, chalks the slow start up to the novelty of the show's documentary-style approach, which eschews music and glamorous sets for a narrower comedy based on very specific characters.
But because of Carell's luck at the box office, the series earned a pickup for a second season. That was the year the show also moved from Tuesdays to NBC's prime comedy real estate of Thursday nights.
However, the series' life expectancy was still a thing of doubt due to weak numbers. As Bromstad says, "You don't want to be cavalier and say, 'Hey, "Seinfeld" took forever.'"
What saved the show from being just another short-lived cult favorite was a demonstrable fan response that played out in two parts: First, after making what he calls an "offhand comment" to a newspaper about how he wished that the series' second-season finale could be supersized like others in the NBC lineup, Daniels says fans organized themselves and sent letters to NBC, which greenlit the extra-long finale.
The second half is that "The Office" was lucky enough to be on iTunes before it got crowded. Series downloads were more limited on the Apple service four years ago, and the younger audience that was embracing the show did their part in buying episodes online. Continued...
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