Office politics
Can the US version of The Office better the original? Michelle Byrne discovers there really is no competition…
Americans, it seems, are rarely satisfied to sit back and watch foreign muck on their TV sets. But from the poorly received US versions of Men Behaving Badlyand Coupling to the downright atrocious attempts at giving Porridge and Fawlty Towers (twice) an all-American flavour, the open-minded viewer has by now been taught that ‘new’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘improved’. So, when it was announced in 2004 that the latest British hit to go under the knife Stateside was The Office, fans worldwide (including the show’s small cult following in the US) feared for the worst.
By 2004 The Office was already a huge hit in its native Britain, but Jennifer Aniston still struggled pronouncing the name ‘Ricky Gervais’ when she awarded him with the first of his two Golden Globes. Less than a year later and the premiere of the US version of The Office was aired on home turf and (as Dubai viewers will by now have discovered) Slough has become Scranton, Pennslyvania; the Wernham Hogg paper company has become Dunder-Mifflin; and popping down the local pub for a pint has been equated with going for a greasy burger in a nearby branch of Chili’s. The biggest change to the show, apart from the accents, is that the star of the show, Ricky Gervais’s David Brent, has become Michael Scott – a leaner, but equally obnoxious version of the 9-to-5 boss played by Steve Carell.
Although Carell is no stranger to the lime light – having appeared on The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live as well as in Bruce Almighty, Bewitched and most notably The 40 Year-Old Virgin – the 43-year-old actor was more than nervous about stepping into Gervais’s shoes. ‘David Brent is definitely an icon,’ he says. ‘I hadn’t seen the BBC show, so I looked at the pilot before I auditioned.I got a little bit hesitant and nervous because Ricky Gervais is so wonderful and definitive in his portrayal,’ he admits. ‘So I figured, the best thing for me to do was to not watch much more of him because there was no way I was going to equal what he did, and I certainly didn’t want to try to recreate what he did. I figured a blank slate was the best opportunity for me to create any sort of character that might have a life of its own.’ As the abrasive, sexist and selfdeluded Michael Scott, we discover the middle manager has a penchant for Filet- O-Fish and wants to be everyone’s ‘friend first, boss second and entertainer third’, and we also come to realise that Carell, thankfully, doesn’t pull off a good Gervais impression, but shines in a role created especially for him.
Executive producer Greg Daniels also says starting from scratch has helped reduce the obvious comparisons to the British show, as he explains: ‘The pilot was a difficult situation because we were remaking the British script and we didn’t know who the star was going to be, but all of the episodes after that are original scripts and we all knew that it was Steve that we were writing for.’ He reiterates: ‘It was no one’s intention to be better than or to equal the BBC version. It was just to make a very funny, rich show based on that template.’ Already in its second season in the States, the US Office has proved popular with the same audiences who watched Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm religiously – the majority of which hadn’t seen the original series. As if more proof of its popularity were needed Carell received his very own Golden Globe for his role in the comedy this year.
Without giving any of the storylines away: the US Office has proven to excel in its use of the excruciatingly painful brand of humour the original brandishes on viewers so well. Early episodes show Michael Scott running cultural awareness seminars where he performs Chris Rock routines and describes ‘the two different kinds of black people.’ We also see a fire drill where he tries to milk sympathy for burning his foot on a George Foreman grill, as well as an overzealous game of basketball with co workers. ‘I don’t think he is a meanspirited meanspirited person, but he has an enormous blind-spot as to how other people perceive him. I just think he is incredibly short sighted and he’s narcissistic to the point that he doesn’t understand how little other people think of him,’ Carell says sympathetically of the character he has been playing for two years. ‘The best advice, really the only advice, Ricky gave me was to try to make the other actors laugh,’ he adds. ‘If nothing else, it keeps the set and the whole atmosphere buoyant and fun and playful.’
Alongside the boss, fans of the original series will recognise some familiar members of staff: bored but amiable salesman Jim (John Krasinski), who harbours an agonising crush on shy and engaged receptionist Pam (Jenna Fischer), while playing practical jokes on the mildly sociopathic Dwight (Six Feet Under’s Rainn Wilson) – a volunteer at the Sheriff’s office rather than a member of the Territorial Army. Just as the Slough office workers sit munching Scotch eggs and prepare for their quiz night, this adaptation is littered with American cultural references and in jokes that can only be truly appreciated by those living in one of the 50 states. Daniels says: ‘The real spirit of the show is to tailor it more precisely to people’s real life experiences and so, in America, to have them watch it and go, “Oh my God, it’s exactly how it is in my office.” To make that better we have to write it from an American standpoint.’
Despite the shockingly bad pilot episode, which was a predictable aping of the original show only intended to introduce the characters, there is no transatlantic competition between The Offices because the American cast and crew have made such attempts to differentiate themselves from their Slough-set counterparts. Whether or not you have seen Gervais’s brilliant original, the US Office goes beyond being one of the few American remake success stories, it is worth watching in its own right.
The Office, Wednesdays at 21:00 on the Paramount Comedy channel.