A workplace sitcom shot as a mockumentary. How the camera's presence becomes the joke.
The Office is a sitcom built on the premise that a documentary crew is filming an office. It remakes the earlier BBC series of the same name for an American setting, ran from 2005 to 2013, and became one of the reference points for workplace comedy that followed.
The central device is that the characters know the camera is there. A glance toward it during an awkward moment produces the joke with no dialogue at all. Interview segments are also cut in, letting characters explain what they just did, and the gap between that explanation and the actual behaviour becomes the joke again.
Much of the comedy comes from awkward and difficult situations. Silences that conventional editing would remove are left in place, making the audience endure that time. Early seasons pitch this high, and finding them hard to enter is a common reaction; as episodes accumulate, affection for the characters builds and the same scenes read differently.
Produced around twenty episodes a season to fit the American network schedule, it continued across many years. Key production staff and cast changed during that time, and the tone shifted with them. That change is frequently identified as the reason opinion divides from particular seasons onward.
The tone of the first few episodes differs considerably from what follows, so judging by the opener gives an impression unlike the series as a whole. Episodes are close to self-contained and can be joined midway, though relationships accumulate, so watching in order is easier to follow. The British original differs in cast structure and in the character of its ending.
Each button runs this keyword on that search engine