The Office is closing. That is correct, NBC is pulling the plug on their highest rated scripted series after the end of its ninth season. The show’s rating fell after Steve Carell left the show. The fans also felt as if the show’s best days were behind it.

Greg Daniels, who ran the show for it’s first five seasons, returns for the final season and stated “This year feels like the last chance to really go out together and make an artistic ending for the show that pays off a lot of the stuff that matters most to fans. This will be the last season of The Office. And we’re planning a very big exciting last season. We’re going to have a lot of faces coming back … There are a lot of things that I’ve personally been wanting to do since season two … All questions will be answered this year. We’re going to see who’s behind the documentary … Now that we know we have an end date we can blow things up and take some chances and it will be very freeing, creatively.”

Entertainment Weekly stated that:

The decision was partly driven by the sense that many of the actors would likely not be around for a tenth season (either due to commitments on other projects, like Mindy Kaling and Rainn Wilson, or due to the rising cost of the show’s key players, like John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer). “You have a choice — only tell the beginning of story and the middle, or allow a story to end,” Daniels said. “If we didn’t let it end this year, I don’t think we would have been able to tell the ending stories of so many characters… we couldn’t count on getting everybody back for season 10.”

According to Daniels, though, they had thought about retooling the show. He stated That said, creatively rebooting the show was considered. “You could see a world where new people keep coming on the show, but I think [we want to] do justice to the existing characters in the most creative and explosive way and that means the show will be changed to such a degree that if anything was to continue it wouldn’t be the same show.”

So, what should fans expect for their final season? Well, Daniels stated that they should expect some ‘crazy Dwight’ stories, drama centering around Jim and Pam, Roy’s wedding, and David Wallace running Dunder Mifflin. No word if Carell will show up at all in the last season, though. Daniels stated “We would certainly wish for it. We’re not going to put so much pressure on Steve by writing something that would only work if he would return. He really loves how he was exited. He’s probably anxious about not messing up such a stylish exit. It’s a perfectly legitimate point. We’ll see.”

The Office is based off of a British series by the same name. The original series ran for just 14 episodes over two seasons- or series as the British would say. The series originally starred Ricky Gervais.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/08/21/the-office-season-9/