Cinema The Office (2005) (Seasons 6-9) - Stupid, Brilliant, and Endearing

[Arnox]

Rating

4.00 star(s)

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Season 7 really threw a curveball with Michael Scott leaving. (Steve Carell was striking with the show writers at the time.) This is gonna sound bad, but while I thought this would not be a good decision, story wise, when I finished and I looked at the show as a whole, it actually weirdly seemed to work out nicely. Ironically, I also think that this unintentionally does reflect a standard work environment. Sometimes people leave. Sometimes important people. That's life, and it fits in with the fake documentary kind of show they were going for.

Not gonna lie though, seasons 6-8 aren't the best and season 9 has some boring ones for sure, but the ending to the show REALLY sealed everything damn near perfectly for me and more than made up for any shortcomings in the previous episodes. Ending a kind of show like this is tough. There's no epic battle with the villain for them to do. No real overarching plot. Just some girls and dudes in an office, and trying to form an incredibly satisfying conclusion around THAT takes a lot of effort from everyone to pull off. I do wish they gave a better send-off to Toby though. The poor man gets absolutely stomped on for so much of the runtime of this show. He deserved a big break at least towards the end, but it never really seemed to come.

A particular highlight for me throughout seasons 6-9 though was the addition of Erin. While technically added at the very end of Season 5, she brightens up damn near every episode she is in while looking hella cute. In fact, I liked most of the new character additions in seasons 6-9. I do have to say though, The episodes where Will Ferrell shows up were absolutely wasted. All they had to do was let Will Ferrell be Will Ferrell, but for most of the episodes he's in, he instead generally plays the stock standard boss with a few zany quirks. Absolutely stupid. But then... The writer's strike WAS happening so...

After season 7, I would say that you can probably safely skip season 8 if you really want to and just go right into season 9 which I think is definitely the best season of the four, but even with season 8, you'll still get some good episodes for sure, even if a lot of them are pretty standard The Office fare. But then... There's a lot of beauty in ordinary things. Isn't that kind of the point?