Last night, the season finale of The Office trotted out a celebrity lineup worthy of The Marriage Ref, with Will Arnett, Ray Romano, Jim Carrey, Read the full post.
May 20
2011
01:40 PM ET
Ricky Gervais disses 'The Office' finale: 'If you're going to jump a shark, jump a big one'
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The slimmer he gets the less funny and more annoying he gets.
I have always been a fan of the American Office. It’s had its ups and downs, but overall I have enjoyed it more than not. That said, without Steve Carrell, I’m not sure the show needs to go on. I would have liked to see some Michael-leaving series finale, and I worry for the show now that he’s gone. I genuinely like the rest of the cast and want them to go on to find their next steps.
James Spader! Please pick him.
I saw the UK version first, and relented last year and saw the US version. I love them both but I kind of gotta agree with Gervais because everything is kind of solved with the US vers. Jim and Pam got together, they have a kid, and now that Scott is gone, what’s kind of the point? I love the erin/andy storyline (one of few) and I would just like them to hook up and that be the end of the series because what more can you do? They’ve done eveything.
The addition of Erin was the best creative choice made in a while—and most comically rewarding.
Could not agree with Ricky more… Last nights episode was terrible should have just ended it when Steve left…
Isn’t this British ass the EP of The Office. Why the heck would you want to trash your creation in such a public medium. Like he said on the golden globes, this show is a cash cow…..
Cannot disagree with Ricky. American television shows tend to overstay their welcome and just plain burn out. That being said, being a huge fan of The Office UK, I’ve never found the US version to be remotely funny. Painfully unfunny actually. As much as I love Catherine Tate, I’m just afraid the US producers won’t know what to do with her. She was wasted last night. Only Spader showed a glimmer of hope for this show.
Ehhh, he’s got a point, but it still seems like poor form to diss it.
I think he’s right but the “Office” is his show, he created it, he can see what he wants. Without him, there would be no show. I don’t find his comment rude, he earns money without apearing on the US “Office”, it doesn’t make sense if he becomes an actor on it.
Sorry, typo I meant he can say what he wants.
Sarcasm is hard to read online.
As others have undoubtedly pointed out already, this starkly illustrates a difference between British culture and American culture. But I don’t see the American version as tired and overdrawn, at least not in a “bad” way, despite appreciating more than anything else in art an artist’s brevity. The American version is, in fact, an American version, and Americans hate to let things go. It’s a hubris, but it’s a quality that has so pervaded American culture that for any parody of American everyday life (The Office) to picture it so well and last so long inevitably causes it to parody itself. What would hopefully happen is that if The Office continues to endure, it would begin to guide its audience to evolve out of that blandness. To make use of something probably no one ever said at any point in time, “If you watch television long enough, it begins to watch you.”
Although the US version is funny at times — NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING can compare with the brilliance and embarrassing humor of the UK Office. It was the Fellini of comedies and deserves a place in the annals of comedy history. (Please don’t make a joke about that last sentence, Ricky.) I would be remiss if I didn’t also gives props to Red Dwarf, another BBC gem. Kudo’s Britain. Nobody does it better.