The Office Heard Round The World

I know that we’re all only thinking about the episode tonight, but this article is too good to pass up. And should be good at passing the time.

Today on TVSquad, they linked to a really interesting article that talks about the differences between the four current versions of The Office. (UK, US, Germany, France) The author writes about why they all work in their own country, but not so much in others.

Why, I wondered, had the French and the Germans bothered to overhaul Gervais’ comedy? For that matter, why had we? In 2004, Gervais helped midwife the Emmy-winning American take on The Office, which has made a countrywide anti-hero of Steve Carell, who plays bumbling boss Michael Scott. Why couldn’t the original stand as a symbolic global office?

The writer is intelligent and the article is very good. For instance, he does a very good job of explaining why the UK Office is good for us, but just not quite right.

To the outrage of many of my British friends, I find the American version superior to its British relative. It’s not that I don’t like the U.K. Office, I just don’t like it as much. It doesn’t reflect the reality of any U.S. workplace I know. The sexism is too blatant and the inside jokes are often too, well, inside.

The whole Slate article is really good.

Read the article: Foreign Office

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