Some TV projects have the power to make or break everyone involved. Producer Sophia Zachariou knows that her latest is one of them. “I remember when we were first pitching it, people were like, ‘you want to do an Australian version of The Office – why the fuck would you want to do that?’” she says. “That’s a career killer.”
The eight-episode season of Australia’s take on The Office will be released in full on 18 October, arriving with the unique potential to be either one of the biggest homegrown TV shows ever, or a global laughing stock. Already, the world is watching – the show’s trailer amassed more than 2m views in its first two weeks, along with plenty of unimpressed comments from fans of the original series determined to hate the adaptation before even seeing it. “The problem with a reboot,” one such commentator quipped, “is it feels like The Office, but wrong”.
