The two-season solution

[Lance]

The Office (US) is another show that could have benefitted from an earlier cancellation. Not that the later seasons didn't have good episodes and a lot of good new characters, they just kept stretching to figure out where the hell to go with their character arcs. Get Jim and Pam together, good, done. No need to make up a new good guy/bad guy love triangle every season and come up with more new ways to have Michael act needy.

I'm not sure if two seasons would have been appropriate for The Office. Three or Four, certainly, but the first season was so weak that I think it needed more than two.

I meant two full seasons, season one was more a quarter-season. One of those 'We don't think people will watch this so we're ordering a very small amount of episodes just in case they do' seasons. It's not even sold separately in the DVD set. So, you're right, The Office should have ended after 2 1/4 seasons.

Its worth noting here that the UK original was two seasons long. Basically Ricky Gervais now claims that the show was all about Tim and Dawn getting together, and once that was achieved after the second year then the show was effectively over. I do admire the US version for attempting to explore beyond Jim and Pam, but I do also tend to think that the result rather vindicated Gervais' original decision vis-a-vis the UK version.

 

[Joe Washington]

I'm not sure if two seasons would have been appropriate for The Office. Three or Four, certainly, but the first season was so weak that I think it needed more than two.

I meant two full seasons, season one was more a quarter-season. One of those 'We don't think people will watch this so we're ordering a very small amount of episodes just in case they do' seasons. It's not even sold separately in the DVD set. So, you're right, The Office should have ended after 2 1/4 seasons.

Its worth noting here that the UK original was two seasons long. Basically Ricky Gervais now claims that the show was all about Tim and Dawn getting together, and once that was achieved after the second year then the show was effectively over. I do admire the US version for attempting to explore beyond Jim and Pam, but I do also tend to think that the result rather vindicated Gervais' original decision vis-a-vis the UK version.

I agree.

 

[jayceee]

Do you know of any shows (current or past) that would be better off that way?

The revived Dallas.

TNT should have ended the show after JR was killed.

Season 3 seems to be meandering without Larry Hagman. JR Ewing was very much the focal point of the original Dallas show for all 13 seasons.