Steve Carell/Michael Scott: An Appreciation

In terms of laughs, in terms of dramatic substance, in terms of originality, and in terms of an amazing cast, The Office has been the best show on any of the four major American networks for years now. And I fear that its heart has been torn out.

As most people know by now, Steve Carell’s contract ran out this year, and as a result he has decided to leave the show. The first episode without Carell’s character, the childish Michael Scott, airs on NBC this week.

The cast of the show is very strong, maybe one of the best ensemble casts ever to be compiled, so there is good reason to believe that there’s nothing to worry about. But Steve Carell is exceptional, and Michael Scott superlative, the most fully fleshed out comic character since Homer Simpson. Like our beloved Homer, he has transcendent moments of being everything at once: funny, pathetic, base, awe-inspiring, sad, idealistic, thoughtful, to list only a few convenient adjectives. We see him interact with others and it’s impossible not to be touched, or not to keel over laughing our asses off. Sometimes both these things happen at once, which shows that like The Simpsons, The Office is masterful with what James Joyce (who didn’t know shit about comedy) once called “laughtears”. There are writers shared between the two shows (Greg Daniels, Brent Forrester and Jon Vitti, to name just three heavyweights), so this common sensibility is perhaps easy to explain.

When I first started watching The Office a couple years back, I was hesitant. This is because I didn’t like Steve Carell’s film work, which I thought generally unfunny. But I was quickly onboard, thanks to the beautifully written stories, the hilarious improv, the sometimes chilling sometimes awkward similarity to real life; but I must admit that it was mostly because the largeness of Michael Scott’s endless personality reached out from the TV and slapped me in the face. To use a cliché phrase, he stole my heart. He has the most basic needs and desires: he wants only a family, and a woman to love. He moves too fast for others, usually at the expense of making sense. He is immature as they come. But he is also a shrewd businessman, a good salesman, as is shown at every possible turn. Michael Scott knows paper, that industry on the wane.

That Dunder Mifflin sells paper, and will inevitably be made obsolete, is one of the keys to the show’s overcast feel. Another key is the very setting: they are at work, working (of course, this touch is owed to Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the show’s English creators). By being an expert in paper, and by constantly referring to the fact that they are at work, Michael Scott, of all the characters, most strongly embodies these two dramatic aspects. This is one of the reasons why I worry about his absence: he is a classic, a relic of the American business world, which will soon have no place for him. Now that Michael Scott is gone, this aspect is lost. Dwight knows a lot about paper, but only because he works at Dunder Mifflin. His encyclopaedic mind would learn everything about whales if he worked in the ocean, or cars if he worked in a garage. Paper is not something he clings to like Michael Scott does.

Steve Carell’s leaving, and Michael Scott’s, therefore symbolizes an ending of the show’s desperation. There is no more character in the show constantly searching. I have no doubt that the show will carry on for a couple more seasons, very funny, and still wonderfully written. But this dramatic aspect is surely lost now, as that universe of emotions revolved around Michael Scott. It’s not just the privilege of the camera: in The Office, in Michael Scott, and in Steve Carell, we have witnessed genius for seven years straight.