Four years after the series’ end, “The Office” may be coming back to television.
TVLine reported that NBC is considering reviving the series for the 2018-2019 season.
Citing unnamed sources, TVLine reported that the show would be set at the Scranton, Pennsylvania, office of Dunder Mifflin, and a mix of old and new characters would be included.
Steve Carell, who played Dunder-Mifflin manager Michael on the show’s first seven seasons, won’t be involved.
Variety echoed TVLine's report with its own unnamed sources, noting that Jenna Fischer, who played Pam on the original NBC version, expressed doubt about a revamp on a November episode of Variety's "Remote Controlled" podcast.
“I don’t think it’ll ever happen. I would do it if there was some circumstance where everybody got back together, and could be brought back together in some amazing way, I would say yes,” Fischer said. “But I’m not sure it’s realistic. The characters, they had arcs. They had growth. Jim and Pam left Dunder-Mifflin. Michael left Dunder-Mifflin. And it would be hard to manufacture why all the people were back working together. And I’m not sure the show works if we’re all in different locations. … I immediately start thinking: How did Jim and Pam get back from Austin? And Michael’s living with Holly now. It would almost have to be a scenario where it’s ‘the lost tapes of “The Office,”’ where you somehow go back in time and there’s all of these lost stories where we weirdly look five years older.”
The success of NBC’s revival of “Will & Grace” may give the network reason to revive “The Office,” but it had been over a decade since “Will & Grace” ended in 2006 before it returned for a ninth season in 2017.
An NBC spokesperson declined to comment about the rumored revamp of the show.
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