...and I can't tell if I'm getting burned out or if it's just not as good. But I'm losing interest.
Is it solid to the bitter end or is there a season you all generally bail on? For instance, I tell people that The Simpsons generally isn't worth watching after Season 12.
THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE...OFFICE FANS AND NON OFFICE FANS...OFFICE FANS ARE NEVER NOT WATCHING THE OFFICE...ANY OFFICE FAN WHO ANSWERS YOU WILL SAY IT IS SOLID FROM BEGINNING TO END...BECAUSE IT IS...I AM BIASED...I AM AN OFFICE FAN.
shareFunnily enough, I also felt this. I actually found the tipping point to be the Valentines Day episode of Series 5. The show just kept getting better and better and better, up to and including that one (it's not the best episode ever but the last in a good run of them), and then it all went south.
And I was especially disappointed because I'd been looking forward to Idris Elba appearing in it - until this point, they hadn't had an equivalent to Neil (from the English version), and smooth business-school Stringer Bell seemed perfect for the role, and the thought of him clashing with Michael seemed to good to miss. But it just didn't work. And I can't explain why it didn't work. The whole story with The Michael Scott Paper Company just seemed to fall flat too, and again, I don't know why.
With the exception of the Wedding episodes, Season 6 continues in a downward trajectory, in my opinion, and after only catching episodes intermittently, I stopped watching when Steve Carrell departed during Season 7 (for me, Michael Scott WAS the show) so I couldn't tell you if it picked up again after this.
I did watch the finale and found that to be hit and miss too, but maybe I didn't appreciate a lot of the jokes or references or whatever having missed so many years. When it hit, though, it still had all the humour and heart that it had during its earlier years.
to be all classy and reply to my own post, having recently gone through Season 5 again, I'd say tipping point actually comes towards the end of Golden Ticket - the episode after Valentines Day.
Until the last few minutes, it's a brilliant episode, which gets ruined when Michael, unable to handle the fact that having Dwight take responsibility for the 'golden ticket' idea has backfired, bursts into David Wallace's meeting and admits everything. In addition to how cringey and awkward it makes the last few minutes to watch, it just seemed so stupid even for Michael Scott. For all his flaws and vanity and at times poor judgement, having reached the position he's in, he must have enough people skills and enough sense to realise that letting his boss know that he'd asked an underling to take the 'blame' for the idea to avoid what he thought would be negative consequences would be far far worse than having Dwight now take 'credit' and have a moment of glory for it.
The entire episode is ruined by this moment and I don't think the show ever recovers. In fact, this incident kinda sets the chain in motion for the rest of the series - David Wallace sends Idris Elba's character to Scranton to keep an eye on Michael, who now feels undermined and so quits.
Honestly, if the episode had just faded out with Michael left simmering while Dwight took the acclaim, it would possibly have been the best episode they'd ever made, which is some compliment consider how good the show had been up to this point