"I would really like your buy-in on this event"

September 18, 2024 12:27 PM

The Office, fittingly, is never going to let us go. We’re clearly always going to be tethered to a sitcom desk. And not just because we can’t stop watching old reruns. The franchise that started in the UK before making waves across the Atlantic is still going strong. An upcoming spinoff will return the show to U.S. airwaves (likely) in 2025. But before it does, we’ll have another way to get our fix of workplace comedy with a very different kind of boss. Well, not that different. Because while the new trailer from Prime Video’s Australia remake of The Office features the franchise’s first-ever woman boss, she reminds us a whole lot of David Brent and Michael Scott. from Australian Remake’s Trailer Gets Back to Work with Franchise’s First Female Boss [Nerdist]

The trailer for The Office Australia starring Felicity Ward is here and we have thoughts [ABC]
Prime Video dropped The Office Australia trailer and I already miss Michael Scott [TechRadar]
‘The Office’ Australia shows female David Brent in first trailer [NME]

posted by chavenet (12 comments total)

In the same vein, there is also Fisk, which scratches that Office itch while having a totally different premise and set of characters. It is also Australian!
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:41 PM on September 18 [11 favorites]

This is Nellie Bertram erasure!
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 12:54 PM on September 18 [7 favorites]

Hotstar produced a series for India as well.
posted by neuracnu at 1:27 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]

1981 to 1985's Gliding On series from New Zealand enters the chat.....
posted by inflatablekiwi at 1:32 PM on September 18 [3 favorites]

God i’d really love an Office type mockumentary at a nonprofit. I guess that’s what sort of what Nicole Daniels’ Nonprofit Boss on Tiktok is.
posted by supercres at 1:50 PM on September 18 [6 favorites]

Loot isn’t a mockumentary, but it has a lot of deadpan humor with colorful characters set in the working environment of a nonprofit. Might scratch the itch?
posted by lostburner at 2:21 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]

If you haven't seen Fisk on Netflix, I highly recommend. It's probably the reason they remade The Office in Australia at all.
posted by parmanparman at 2:28 PM on September 18 [5 favorites]

Thanks for the Fisk rec— Rhys Nicholson being 😗👌 hilarious in the first 3 minutes is a good sign.
posted by supercres at 2:37 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]

If nothing else this’ll be an interesting post-cultural cringe landmark for media historians. When I was a kid the idea of remaking a cult BBC comedy series for Austraian audiences would have seemed bizarre and probably insulting. It was a point of cultural pride that we understood UK comedy’s sarcasm and surrealism, unlike gee-whiz Americans who only understood The Brady Bunch.
posted by No-sword at 6:24 PM on September 18 [5 favorites]

I understood Monte Python when I was 9.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 6:45 PM on September 18 [3 favorites]

Yeah, it was always a vibe-based analysis that simultaneously assumed the US was exactly like on the TV shows aired on Australian TV and accused Americans of believing everything they saw on TV. But it was in the air nonetheless.
posted by No-sword at 7:25 PM on September 18 [3 favorites]

Two people today have attempted to talk to me about The Auffice and they’ve both received the same response: “I’m not paying Amazon to fill my head with anti-workplace flexibility propaganda just for the benefit of the real-estate lobby.”
posted by MarchHare at 9:47 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]