The Office Is Closing

The_office_USAfter 9 seasons, NBC’s The Office will close its doors for the final time tomorrow.

Some of you have never seen the show. Others watched the British version and didn’t like the way it translated to American English. Others may have watched until Jim and Pam got together and then stopped, while many others may have tuned out when Steve Carrell left the show. Perhaps you moved on after Season 8, during which the writers made a number of poor choices.

If you are any of those people, this blog entry isn’t for you. This one goes out to everyone who have stuck with the show until the end, laughed at least a few times every episode, and felt emotionally invested in the characters. This entry is for those who were lucky enough to make it to last week’s episode, which was easily one of the top 10 episodes of The Office ever. This is for those who await tomorrow’s final episode with hope and sadness, as it is the end.

I love the show. For all its faults, I’m there every week, rooting for Jim to prank Dwight, hoping for love to blossom in all the right places, accepting that new characters make sense in the context of an office and enjoying the journey I’ve had with those who have been with us since the beginning.

Michael Scott was a huge part of the show–he was the awkward, uncomfortable man-child manager around which the show rotated. But no one would have cared about the show if not for Jim and Pam and Dwight and all of the ancillary characters who had story lines of their own. Even characters like Creed who have absolutely no story arc gave the show some spice by being so weird.

I keep coming back to Jim and Pam, and I want to end them. Here’s what makes the show for me: Jim loves Pam so, so much. He’s not a perfect guy, as seen this season, but his love for her is epic. If I ever love a woman half as much as Jim loves Pam, I will tell the second greatest love story ever told. But Jim and Pam will always have the greatest love story.

Most of it is about Jim’s love, but a good part of it is that we get it. We love Pam too. She is not a 1-dimensional rom-com love interest whose appeal we don’t understand. With Pam, we get it. We understand why Jim loves her so much. We believe it.

To the writers and producers of The Office, thank you for 9 seasons of one of the greatest sitcoms ever to grace my TiVo. I will miss you more than you know.

Question for fellow Office fans (only answer if you don’t know the real answer): Do you think Michael Scott will appear on the finale?

10 thoughts on “The Office Is Closing”

  1. I’m with you, cannot wait for tonight. I honestly cannot decide if I think Michael Scott will appear or not. I am no help.

    But I do have one question for you. I wholeheartedly agree that Jim’s love is one of the best things on television. If he, Jim, the character, showed up on my doorstep, we would run away together. But I don’t agree about Pam. What do you see in her? Besides that she will be playful with Jim on pranks, I feel like she has never shown a ton of greatness. I love her because Jim loves her, and because she is a good person who was good to poor Michael and Dwight. But I am curious about what else you see. I agree that she is not a 1-dimensional character like some stupid romances, but when I try to take a good hard look at her personality, I am left wondering why Jim adores her SO much.

    Convince me.

    Reply
    • Ha ha…does your husband know how you feel about Jim? 🙂

      Okay, that’s a fair comment about Pam. I think her character has grown over the course of the show. She was a bit of a pushover early on, but then she started to ask–or demand–what she wanted. There was a beach episode that focused on this, and the episodes when she and Michael started their own paper company. She’s genuinely funny, she’s pretty without trying too hard, and she’s genuinely kind to people. Although art didn’t become a career for her, she continues to use it as a creative outlet via things like the mural in the warehouse. And she trusts Jim. She’s had some self-doubt lately, but I don’t see it as an overwhelming insecurity. I see it as pretty realistic–as she told Jim, she doesn’t want him to resent her.

      Is she perfect? Not at all. But there’s more than enough there to understand why Jim digs her, in my opinion.

      Reply
      • Oh absolutely she has grown a tremendous amount. I think originally she left something to be desired so I was loving her only via Jim. I think it’s an excellent character and Jenna Fisher does an amazing job, and I like her a lot. But sometimes it was hard for me to see why he adored her SO much, but I think that’s also just more a reflection of him rather than her. I think husbands everywhere know they have competition in Jim Halpert. 🙂

        Reply
        • I like how they addressed the Jim/Pam imbalance in the public forum on the finale. I think something we forget sometimes is that they show their love to each other in different ways. For Jim, that’s often a sweeping gesture. For Pam, it might be a quick kiss or watching the kids so Jim can play basketball or something like that.

          I really loved the finale, by the way. Although Erin’s moment in the auditorium really got me, I think my favorite line was Andy’s retrospective near the end about the good ole days. Almost every character had something touching and thought-provoking to say. Pam’s speech was really good too–I was thinking that you might see the appeal of Pam more after that speech. 🙂

          Reply
  2. The finale was really good, I agree. Not particularly funny, but the stuff w/ Erin was very poignant. And it was awesome to see Michael. Too bad he only had about 2 1/2 lines, but “that’s what she said” was worth it. (I think the rest of this final season has been god-awful, just for the record. But I’ve stuck w/ it.)

    Reply
    • Oh come on, you can’t say that last week’s episode was god-awful!

      Michael had one other good line that made me laugh…I can’t remember it now. I’ll definitely watch the finale again.

      Reply
      • The other Michael quote you’re thinking of is “I feel like all my kids grew up and then they married each other. It’s every parents dream.” So great!

        Reply

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