Rumors of The Office being brought back have been circulating for awhile and let’s be honest: no one would really want it if Michael Scott isn’t involved. But while actors like Jenna Fischer and John Kraskinski have voiced their desire to return to the offices of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, Steve Carell isn’t too keen on returning to the role that earned him six Emmy nominations.
Carell, who played Michael Scott from 2005 until his departure in 2011 during the show’s seventh season, told Esquire that even though The Office is as popular as ever thanks to Netflix binges, he just doesn’t seeing it being viable in today’s climate. “Because The Office is on Netflix and replaying, a lot more people have seen it recently,” Carell said. “And I think because of that there’s been a resurgence in interest in the show, and talk about bringing it back. But apart from the fact that I just don’t think that’s a good idea, it might be impossible to do that show today and have people accept it the way it was accepted ten years ago.”
Specifically, Carell doesn’t think his character’s sense of humor, comprised largely of uncomfortable comments, would be as endearing to today’s audiences.
“The climate’s different. I mean, the whole idea of that character, Michael Scott, so much of it was predicated on inappropriate behavior,” he explained. “I mean, he’s certainly not a model boss. A lot of what is depicted on that show is completely wrong-minded. That’s the point, you know? But I just don’t know how that would fly now. There’s a very high awareness of offensive things today — which is good, for sure. But at the same time, when you take a character like that too literally, it doesn’t really work.”
If The Office revival does come to fruition, it looks like we can probably count Carell out. On the bright side, his film career is still going strong and he’ll next be seen starring alongside Timothée Chalamet in the critically-acclaimed Beautiful Boy, which is out this Friday.
Source: Esquire
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12 Disappointing TV Shows That Turned Things Around In Season 2
NBCVulture’s Nate Jones wrote an interesting piece earlier this year where he argued that a TV show’s second season is either its best or worst. Of course, there are exceptions to this “rule” but I certainly buy this argument in the general sense, as the sophomore year is when a show usually hones in on what it’s going to be, for better or worse. Off the top of my head, Friday Night Lights and Homeland come to mind as just atrocious second seasons, but I think there are a lot more shows out there that improved considerably in their second years. It makes sense, as many TV shows are still trying to figure out their characters and structures in Season 1 and you hope that that stuff falls into place by year two. Sometimes, even bad TV shows can become great in the transition from Season 1 to 2! While not every one of the following 12 TV shows had bad first seasons, it’s hard to deny they became noticeably better in Season 2.