Can you believe it’s been almost a decade since we last stepped inside the less-than-lavish offices of Dunder Mifflin?
The aptly titled finale episode (yep: “Finale”) of mockumentary seriesThe Officeran way-back-when in May 2013, viewed by over five-and-a-half million people on NBC, and picking up a slew of Emmy nominations. Bolstered by its watchability and the advent of streaming, the show has exploded in popularity since it went off-air. So when Collider had the opportunity to speak to producerGreg Danielsabout his latest televisual collaboration withSteve Carell,Space Force(with Season 2 having just come to Netflix), we had to ask him for his thoughts on a return to the hit series.
“Well, they certainly would be very excited to do it.” he said of NBC. Daniels continued by saying, “Obviously certain parts are just personal, like I’ve got all these other projects that I’ve been working on,” referring to the likes ofSpace Forceand the Amazon sci-fi seriesUpload. “And [The Office] was such a wonderful and rare experience that obviously you don’t want to just go back to it and kind of possibly disappoint people when right now, they couldn’t be happier about it.”
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As to how a potential sequel or spin-off toThe Officemight look, Daniels expanded with a few thoughts:
“I can’t tell whether fans would want more of it, and when I say more of it, I don’t think it would be the same characters. I think it would just be sort of like an extension of the universe, you know what I mean, like the way [The] Mandalorian is like an extension of Star Wars. But I don’t know if that would be something people would want or not, it’s hard to tell.”
The question of how fans might react to an expandedOffice"universe" is a reasonable one: after all, as Daniels notes, fans took a while to get used to the U.S. adaptation of the original British series. “A lot of people were very down on it because they were like, ‘It’ll never be as good as the English show.’ And then it took a while, but we sort of turned that boat around.” It was the same forParks and Recreation, another series he produced, Daniels says:
“Everybody was like, ‘Eh, it’s not as good asThe Officeseason 1.’ And then, you eventually keep plugging away and eventually people are like, “Oh, I love this.” It’s its own thing. And so I kind of feel like that would happen with a new show, but it would take a long time to do that. And it’s like, do you want to wade through all the negativity in the beginning to get to the good part at the end? I don’t know.”
The Officeended on an atypically high note, with the finale garnering a strong response from fans and critics alike, so Daniels' concerns feel reasonable. To inadvertently sully the legacy of such a beloved show, when the existing conclusion was so popular, is a big risk. But as they say: sometimes those big risks boast the biggest payoffs.
Space ForceSeason 2 is now streaming on Netflix. All nine seasons ofThe Office, on the other hand, are available on Peacock.
