It May Be Leaving Netflix, But “The Office” Refuses to Give Up Icon Status
“The Office,” should come back, and better than ever. That’s what she said. There’s no guarantee of any revival of the series despite the seemingly constant rumors that there is, but there is something being released that may keep fans just as content. Announced as of September 11th, Jenna Fischer (aka Pam), and Angela Kinsey (who shares the same name as her character in the series), will be hosting an “Office” themed podcast!
This new podcast, named “Office Ladies,” will follow most traditional podcasts formats, but with a twist of course. Fischer and Kinsey will watch an episode of “The Office,” giving reactions, thoughts, and behind-the-scenes stories about all our favorite characters and the filming of the beloved show. The two also found it important to create content that the fans could interact with and will be answering fans’ dying questions during the show as well. They both promise a quality show about the show that they loved.
It seems like the perfect time for the podcast to be dropped, and will hopefully boost its popularity for “The Office” (though it doesn’t really need it) before its slated date of removal on Netflix in 2020. Not just this, but the film is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary, and it has now been six years since the show saw its final season. “The Office” grew to become a cult classic of this generation, in which ‘The Chicago Tribune’ found that over 45.8 billion minutes of the show had been streamed through Netflix over a twelve-month period.
We’ve seen the effects such a show has had on mainstream TV nowadays. The formatting has inspired several other sitcoms with the brief sit-down interludes to give way to characterization and an almost standup-like routine for actors, providing the opportunity for iconic one-liners that fans repeat until the end of time. It’s also interesting to see TV shows like this with extremely long seasons (most “The Office” seasons averaged around twenty episodes). With the reality of streaming and the short-attention spans most people have accrued through technology’s domination, we typically see short seasons averaging around eight episodes. People nowadays want to see an entire story unfold in a binge-able time period and won’t commit to anything more, which views “The Office” as an anomaly. However, if it is popular enough to have been watched so thoroughly by so many people, and popular enough to attain a podcast dedicated to stories about it and the watching of it, it begs to wonder if streaming services will ever see typical network TV-style shows.
There’s not a doubt that the podcast will be great, or do great for that matter. Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey are real life BFFs, and the show only evidence that even more. Kinsey took to Twitter, saying “The Office was such an amazing chapter of our lives and it means so much to us that we get to share some of our memories of filming it with our audiences. There’ll be lots of behind-the-scenes stories and lots of us just being BFFs.” We’ll get to witness not only never-before-told stories, but will get to witness their chemistry off screen firsthand. With a premiere date of October 16th, “Office Ladies” is sure to please anyone, no matter how invested in “The Office,” you are. It promises laughs, nostalgia, a good time, and I’m sure at times, some very special guests. We may not be getting a revival anytime soon, but the new podcast is certainly a welcomed treat.