In June 2005 I used methods I do not wish to disclose to watch the first few US episodes of The Office on a choppy internet connection. It was a bizarrely jarring experience: I was such a fanboy of the original British version (and still am: in fact I am still quite annoyed I have to specify the British version when talking about it) that I could recite entire scenes word for word.
Seeing American actors – Steve Carell from Anchorman, Mindy Kaling from The 40-Year-Old Virgin, John Krasinski from absolutely nothing – doing exactly the same was unnerving. And wrong. The British beats of the show fell incorrectly out of their mouths, the interpretation of The Office as “cringe = that’s all it is!” felt like a fundamental misread, the whole thing smacked of folly. I went to university, I had sex, I got over it, and after a shaky start the US version found its stride to become arguably the biggest and most beloved sitcom that has ever existed. So … why is Australia making it again?
People are going to be asking this question through all eight episodes of The Office (Australia), which debuts on Prime Video on 18 October. People have been asking this question ever since the announcement of the remake dropped last year. Fans of either version (though there are other remakes, including Quebec, Chile and Saudi Arabia) are fiercely protective of it, and that means this new take already has an uphill battle to be loved. There is an adroit adage that is impossible to find the source of online but basically goes: “People who watch The Office always ask you ‘Do you watch The Office?’ not ‘Have you watched The Office?’ because they are literally always watching The Office.” The Office, whatever version they watch, is meaningful to people.
The Australian version takes its cues more from the American iteration than the British one. The Michael Scott is now Hannah Howard (Felicity Ward), the Dwight Schrute is now Lizze (Edith Poor), Jim is now Nick (Steen Raskopoulos) and Pam is now Greta (Shari Sebbens). But while the actors and first names have changed, the beats are all the same: Nick and Greta keep blushing and flirting, Hannah and Lizze have a corporal/too-dedicated-lieutenant dynamic, there’s a woman in accounts who couldn’t care less about all this, and the fact that cameras are there is never ever explained. In fact, there are all the old favourites: guy in brown suit! Warehouse manager who doesn’t like fun! Regional manager who would actually quite like them to get some work done! “Hey everybody – meeting room, five minutes”! The layout of the office is the same! The theme tune may as well be the same! They look at the camera when someone does something weird! They play pranks! An intern repeats a question he was asked in a to-camera interview! An HR seminar gets derailed!
Both of the previous English-language series of The Office shaped the comedy landscape for ever: in the UK, nothing got made for a half-decade that wasn’t “cringe comedy”, and most straight men under the age of 40 take their linguistic tics from Ricky Gervais; in the US, the format (“There are cameras at work, two people are falling in love too slowly, everyone keeps saying ‘so … ’ instead of making an actual joke”) paved the way for Parks and Recreation and, recently, Abbott Elementary. Comedy influencing more comedy is fine, “good” even – comedy influencing the exact same comedy again is a little more jarring. Watching the Australian version feels as if you’ve stumbled across an alternative universe remake that has jumped timelines into our own. On Earth-617 they are probably going crazy for this.
Move past that, though – once the first couple of “here’s who everyone is, Nick and Greta haven’t kissed yet” scene-setting episodes have happened – and it’s possible to squint your eyes and imagine this is a late, lost series of the American Office, beyond even the Catherine Tate episodes. Workplaces have changed in the 11 years (!) since the end of the NBC run – the Australian version opens with a reckoning with work-from-home culture, a nod to Zoom quizzes, the reality of corporate rent, and a fairly good bit about standing desks. All that is ripe for a comedy side-glance, though why that side-glance has to be “What about The Office, but again?” is still beyond me. Next time they remake The Office, in about 16 months at this rate, maybe they’ll do something subversive with it (my pitch: they kill either Jim or Pam before they get together; the other one exists in a shock of grief for the rest of the show’s run. Also it’s in Scotland) but for now, the Australian version does exactly what you expect it to.
