The Office Reboot: Can It Work?

The Challenge of a The Office Reboot

With a new The Office show potentially happening, there is one way for such a risky project to work, but it would be a tough idea to sell. Greg Daniels recently clarified The Office reboot rumors, explaining that the original characters will not be recast. Instead, Daniels would be more interested in doing a new story within that universe, and he mentioned The Mandalorian as an example of how to expand something that already exists.

Erin, Michael, and Jim in a custom The Office image

On one hand, The Office is one of the most popular comedy shows on streaming several years after the end of its original run, meaning that revisiting this IP was bound to happen at some point. On the other hand, The Office was already overstaying its welcome toward the final stretch of the show, and a reboot would struggle to be as good as the previous series. This is why a potential The Office reboot should go for a more unique approach and ditch the classic characters.

John Krasinski as Jim doing an impression of Dwight in The Office

The Necessity of All-New Characters

As many iconic characters as The Office had, bringing any of them back to a new series would not work. Television’s history has proved over and over that comedy spinoffs centered on one or just a few of the original characters will likely not work, and The Office itself has an example of it. The Office season 9, episode 1 was meant to be a backdoor pilot for a Dwight Schrute spinoff titled “The Farm,” yet the project never happened. As such, bringing a couple of The Office’s characters back would be risky, even if it included some of the major names like Jim and Pam.

Even if most of The Office’s cast returned for a potential reboot, this new show would still struggle to recapture what made the original one so good. There are only so many jokes to be told about Jim, Pam, Dwight, and Andy, even though these are beloved characters who may have missed since the show ended. The Office US, which was a remake itself, became a successful show thanks to its original characters and stories. Therefore, the only way a new The Office can work is if it is as special and well-written as the previous series – and that includes following an all-new set of characters. Fortunately, this seems to be what a potential reboot would do.

The Commercial and Creative Perspectives

From a creative standpoint, having The Office reboot set in a completely different workplace and featuring brand-new characters might be the best way to bring the show back. However, from a commercial perspective, a The Office revival without the original characters would be hard to sell. As funny as The Office was, part of what makes the show so successful to this day is its characters and how they were portrayed. Steve Carell’s exit from The Office, for example, played against the series, which never really successfully moved on from Michael Scott. Still, rather than risking ruining The Office’s perfect ending, going for new characters is the most solid option.