Overview

The Office is a British television comedy series, created, written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, and first aired in the UK on BBC Two on July 9, 2001. After the show's critical success an American version was launched, premiering on NBC on March 24, 2005, as was a French version in the spring of 2006 called Le Bureau and a German version called Stromberg[1] has also been made. A fourth adaptation, the Canadian French language, La Job, has also debuted in January 2007 and BBC Films is reported to be considering a motion picture version. A Brazilian show on the Globo channel Os Aspones was also heavily modelled on the series format.

Widely acclaimed as the most successful BBC comedy of this decade, two six-episode series were made, along with a pair of 45-minute Christmas specials. As well as being shown internationally on BBC Worldwide channels such as BBC Prime, BBC America and BBC Canada, the series has been sold to broadcasters in over 80 countries, including ABC in Australia, TVNZ in New Zealand and the pan-Asian satellite channel STAR World, based in Hong Kong.

The Office shares some themes in common with the 1999 movie Office Space, mainly the banal and dissatisfying nature of office jobs. The show also shares themes with another social satire created by Gervais and Merchant, Extras, namely social clumsiness, the trivialities of human behaviour, self-importance and conceit, frustration and desperation and fame.

Background

The show is set in Slough, a satellite town of London that the DVD blurb describes as "dreary", in a small branch of the fictitious paper company Wernham Hogg (where "life is stationery"). The show has no laugh track and is in the mockumentary style, devised at a time when documentaries such as Airport and A Life of Grime (which follow people performing their jobs) were popular.

The office is managed by David Brent (Gervais) along with his assistant, Gareth Keenan (Mackenzie Crook), a lieutenant in the Territorial Army. Much of the series' comedic success stems from Brent, who frequently makes attempts to win favour with his employees and peers with embarrassing or disastrous results. Brent's character flaws are used to comic effect, including numerous verbal gaffes, unconscious racism, sexism and other social faux-pas.

Other characters include the unassuming Tim Canterbury (Martin Freeman), whose relationship with bored receptionist Dawn Tinsley (Lucy Davis) is a major arc in the series. Their flirtation soon builds to a mutual romantic attraction, despite her engagement to the dour and laddish warehouse worker, Lee (Joel Beckett).

The theme song for the show is "Handbags and Gladrags", arranged by Big George and originally written in the 1960s by Mike D’Abo, former vocalist for the pop group Manfred Mann.

Awards

The Office won the Golden Globe Award for "Best Television Series: Musical Or Comedy", beating nominees Arrested Development, Monk, Sex and the City and Will & Grace. It was the only British comedy to be nominated for a Golden Globe in 25 years, and the first to ever win one. Ricky Gervais was also awarded the Golden Globe for "Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series: Musical or Comedy" for his role.

The series won the Best TV Comedy award, and Gervais the Best TV Comedy Actor award, at the British Comedy Awards 2002.

In 2005, the series' concluding two-part special was nominated for two Emmys in the categories of "Outstanding Made for Television Movie" and "Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special"

Trivia

In a nod to the show, a minor character featured in the TV series Lost mentions during one of the flashback scenes in the season one episode "Homecoming" that her father is "buying some paper company up in Slough". Lost creator J.J. Abrams is a fan of Ricky Gervais and had previously employed him in an episode of his earlier series, Alias. Perhaps ironically, in the American version, the equivalent of Gareth says of meeting the warehouse staff, "remember in Lost, when they met the Others?". Later in the series, the same character asks another character "What is the DHARMA Initiative?" In an interview, J.J. Abrams revealed he would be directing an episode of the American The Office.

The Office is the first Gervais & Merchant sitcom to be commisioned by the BBC. Even though neither of them had directed, written or acted before, the show's low cost and a well-received demo tape were major contributing factors for the commission.

The town centre of Slough has a bar called Wernham Hoggs named after the fictional paper company in the show.