I would like to preface by saying that although I’m suggesting you watch something other than the Ricky Gervais created, Americanized version of the show, that “The Office” is, without doubt, the show I have clocked the most hours watching.
“How could you not love ‘The Office,’” say most fans of the show, who find so much to love about a show that speaks to the normalcy of everyday life but also the underlying humor of our embarrassing moments, including that of our overbearing boss who just wants to be our friend? I say that being the kind of boss who sincerely tries to be a friend to the people I work with. I’m sorry.
With Peacock, NBC’s new streaming service, buying back one of their biggest, most popular shows over the past two decades for their streaming service, it begs the question, “For those of us who haven’t jumped on the Peacock train yet, what is there to watch now?”
Without further adieu, here are five shows that, although not “The Office,” they are still almost as comforting in their cringe humor and warm domesticity.
Community:
The Dan Harmon (creator of “Rick and Morty” and “Harmonquest”) created show originally aired alongside “The Office” back in the mid-aughts before it was unceremoniously canceled only to find a second life online. In many ways, “Community” is a different kind of sit-com altogether, with its sometimes surreal plots and recurring references to popular culture. It still has as much heart at the center of all of that, if not more than what “The Office” serves up.
A show about community college students that, much like its name, is very much a show about togetherness, as disparate people find ways to come together and find, well, a community in each other.
The Good Place:
“The Good Place” is the latest in a series of shows that were birthed from the mind of former “The Office” writer and eventual co-creator Michael Schur. Shur created “Parks and Recreation” alongside Greg Daniels (the creator of the American “The Office”) and also played Dwight’s cousin Mose on “The Office.” Schur also created “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” starring Andy Samberg and Terry Crews.
“The Good Place” is a little higher concept than Schur’s previous efforts, such as “The Office.” However, it certainly still bears all of the heart that makes “The Office” so beloved by its fans. It tells the story of Eleanor Shellstrop, a deceased pharmaceutical saleswoman who definitely doesn’t belong in “the good place,” a place in the afterlife reserved for good, philanthropic, decent people, all of which Eleanor (played by Kristen Bell) is not.
A big plus for the show, much like Schur’s “Parks and Rec.” and to a lesser extent “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” is how it breaks down social philosophy into easy to metabolize chunks.
The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt:
Going again with a fellow Thursday-night NBC comedy alum, as Tina Fey’s “30 Rock” (which is also great and will satiate your “The Office” habit, too) aired alongside “The Office” in the middle-aughts, too. Though a totally different monster and more in tune with Fey’s particular brand of sandwich-centric (“30 Rock” fans will get that joke hopefully) comedy, it carries a lot of the same DNA as the American version of “The Office.” Namely, that much like the other shows on this list, it finds humor in the mundane and community in the absurd.
The premise of the show revolves around Kimmy Schmidt (played by Office-alum Ellie Kemper) who has spent most of her life in an underground bunker, being kidnapped by a religious zealot played by Jon Hamm.
Though Kemper is brilliant in the titular role, it can’t be understated how brilliant both Tituss Burgess and Carol Kane are as Kimmy’s roommate and landlord respectively, the former, Burgess, stealing nearly every scene he is in.
Broad City:
One of the defining characteristics of “The Office” is the warmness of friendship displayed in Dwight and Michael, Pam and Jim, and on rare occasions, between Dwight and Jim. With that in mind, I’d like to introduce you to “Broad City” a show about the show’s creators (kinda) Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson, who play heightened versions of themselves, again kinda, just trying to make a living in New York.
Perhaps you’re already a fan, but if you aren’t, you should be forewarned that the show is considerably crasser than “The Office” at times. However, it is without a doubt on par with the humor. At times, “Broad City” reaches considerably greater heights of humor. I mean, any show that features a joke revolving around Tinder dates using a picture of Denzel Washington and an old man using a picture of himself at 26, because Abbi didn’t know you could swipe left, is definitely well worth its comedic mettle.
Superstore:
Perhaps “Superstore’s” Achilles’ heel is that it is, at times, too much like “The Office.” It, like “The Office” is a workplace comedy set in a small town with normal, everyday people, living normal everyday lives in a job that they hate but also never seem to actually do any real work in. Man, TV work seems so much better than real work, am I right?
Though despite the show’s failings (it’s set to show its final episodes in the upcoming months), it is without a doubt a tightly written, genuine, and at times brilliant show filled with likable characters. From “Kids in the Hall” and “SNL” alum Mark McKinney’s too nice for his own good boss, to America Ferrara’s determined and hardworking floor supervisor, to Ben Feldman’s college dropout, the show is filled with characters who feel like heightened versions of real people living normal lives, something that “The Office” was pretty great at doing. And after all, wasn’t that the whole point of “The Office?”
Part of what made “The Office” so appealing to me, as well as its numerous fans, was what it gave us that so many other shows weren’t: a welcoming place with genuine earnestness and all of the humor of everyday life. When I first saw that snow-covered hill in the show’s opening, with the piano lines, slowly building, it felt not too far from a sort of nostalgia that harkened back to a Norwell Rockwellian idealized version of my own small town. It felt, in short, warm.
Now, obviously, the show has been off the air for years, as well as most of the shows on this list, and you can just as easily sign up for Peacock–there’s plenty to like about it and it’s still relatively cheap–but if you’re craving that sort of earnest comedy, these are a few shows I would personally recommend.
As author David Foster Wallace, author of “Infinite Jest” once wrote, “What passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human […] is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naïve and goo-prone and generally pathetic.”
“The Office” was full of flawed, arguably at times pathetic characters who were just trying to find community in each other. I think the other shows on this list do that, to some degree.
Richard Foltz
Associate Editor