"David Brent and the staff of Wernham Hogg paper merchants in Slough changed the face of British comedy when they first arrived on BBC2 in 2001," said Tim Glanfield in The Sunday Times.
Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's mockumentary series wasn't an immediate hit, but it has come to be seen "as one of the most influential sitcoms of the modern era", and it went on to spawn more than a dozen international versions, the most recent of which has just arrived from Australia on Prime Video.
Writing feels 'flat'
While some things are the same – Nick and Greta, for instance, "are very much the down under answer to Tim and Dawn" – others are new, said Jonathan Dean in the same paper. "There was no HR department in Slough", for instance. There's also – for the first time in the history of "The Office" – a female boss, played by Felicity Ward. But alas, though the "central conceit" of a post-Covid office is fresh, the writing feels "flat" and the characters over-familiar.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A nail in the coffin?
This production is "kind of 'The Office', but not really 'The Office'"; and for fans of the original it might produce "a bad case of déjà vu", said Luke Buckmaster in The Guardian. From the start, "the jokes are pretty lame", and the cast look "a bit dazed and glassy-eyed, like fish nearing their last breath".
"Accents and a few plot points aside, "The Office" Australia is so lacking in distinctive flavour, and so adherent to such a generic format", that it feels as if it could have been made anywhere, anytime. Perhaps this version will put a nail in the franchise's coffin once and for all?
-
Trump’s poll collapse: can he stop the slide?Talking Point President who promised to ease cost-of-living has found that US economic woes can’t be solved ‘via executive fiat’
-
Sudoku hard: December 7, 2025The daily hard sudoku puzzle from The Week
-
Codeword: December 7, 2025The daily codeword puzzle from The Week
-
Wake Up Dead Man: ‘arch and witty’ Knives Out sequelThe Week Recommends Daniel Craig returns for the ‘excellent’ third instalment of the murder mystery film series
-
Zootropolis 2: a ‘perky and amusing’ movieThe Week Recommends The talking animals return in a family-friendly sequel
-
Storyteller: a ‘fitting tribute’ to Robert Louis StevensonThe Week Recommends Leo Damrosch’s ‘valuable’ biography of the man behind Treasure Island
-
The rapid-fire brilliance of Tom StoppardIn the Spotlight The 88-year-old was a playwright of dazzling wit and complex ideas
-
‘Mexico: A 500-Year History’ by Paul Gillingham and ‘When Caesar Was King: How Sid Caesar Reinvented American Comedy’ by David Margolickfeature A chronicle of Mexico’s shifts in power and how Sid Caesar shaped the early days of television
-
Homes by renowned architectsFeature Featuring a Leonard Willeke Tudor Revival in Detroit and modern John Storyk design in Woodstock
-
Film reviews: ‘Hamnet,’ ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ and ‘Eternity’Feature Grief inspires Shakespeare’s greatest play, a flamboyant sleuth heads to church and a long-married couple faces a postmortem quandary
-
We Did OK, Kid: Anthony Hopkins’ candid memoir is a ‘page-turner’The Week Recommends The 87-year-old recounts his journey from ‘hopeless’ student to Oscar-winning actor
