Office

The Office (known in Britain as "The Office: An American Workplace") is an Emmy Award-winning American television comedy about the day-to-day lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of the fictitious Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company. more...

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Although fictional and scripted, the show takes the form of a documentary, with the presence of the audience and camera often acknowledged.

Based on the British series of the same name, it was developed for American audiences by producer Greg Daniels, of Saturday Night Live, King of the Hill and The Simpsons fame. Original series creators Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant have production credits on the show, but they are not otherwise involved on a regular basis, although the producers do send various scripts to the pair for suggestions and critiques. Gervais and Merchant have written an episode for the show's current season.

It is co-produced by Deedle-Dee Productions and Reveille Productions, in association with NBC Universal Television Studio. The show is currently broadcast by NBC in the United States, Global TV in Canada, Channel 6 in Ireland, ITV2 in the United Kingdom, Star World in the Asia Pacific region, Tango TV in Lithuania and Channel Ten in Australia, in Saudi Arabia and Arab World the show broadcast by Showtime Arabia Paramount Comedy Channel and Paramount Comedy Channel +2 .

Creation

After the original British series won two Golden Globes, a U.S. version of The Office was commissioned by NBC. Though it retains the same title and premise, the U.S. version of the show has a new cast and crew and changes the locale to Scranton, Pennsylvania. NBC has described it as a faster-paced version of the original; Gervais jokingly said before the premiere that it would probably have actors with better teeth. The first season of the show had a run of six episodes. To write the series, the producer hired four writers; Michael Schur, B.J. Novak, Paul Lieberstein and Mindy Kaling. In addition, he hired two consulting producers, Lester Lewis and Larry Wilmore.

The second season brought three new writers: Jennifer Celotta, and the screenwriting team of Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg. Paul Feig, of Freaks and Geeks, directed some of the episodes and Ken Kwapis, who established his ability with the genre in The Larry Sanders Show and Malcolm in the Middle, directed the pilot and has produced/directed several episodes.

Casting

All original series characters were renamed and re-cast for the American version.

When producer Ben Silverman approached NBC with the concept, network programmer Kevin Reilly suggested Paul Giamatti take the lead role of Michael Scott, but the actor declined. Other interested actors included Martin Short, Hank Azaria and Bob Odenkirk. In January 2004, Variety reported Steve Carell of the popular Comedy Central program The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, was in talks to play the role. At the time, Carell was already committed to an NBC midseason replacement comedy, Come to Papa, but the series was quickly cancelled, leaving him fully committed to The Office. Carell later stated he had only seen about half of the original pilot episode of the British series before he auditioned. He didn't continue watching for fear that he would start copying Gervais' characterizations. Rainn Wilson, who was cast as the power-hungry sycophant Dwight Schrute, had watched every episode of the series before he auditioned. Wilson had originally auditioned for Michael (which he referred to as a terrible Gervais impersonation). The casting directors liked his audition as Dwight much better and hired him for the role.

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