'The Office': How the Series Could End Next Year
It's official: "The Office's" Season 9 will be its last. While we can't say we're sad or even surprised that NBC is canning the series, there's always some nostalgia provoked when a long-running show finally gets an end date. Just in case the writers are completely sick of coming up with new "Office" material (and judging by Season 8, we're pretty sure they are), we've got a few bright ideas on how to tie up this once-great sitcom.
Michael Comes Back
The most obvious choice for a fan-pleasing series finale would absolutely have to include a lot of help from Steve Carell -- and since this show loves weddings so much, what would be happier and easier to write than Michael and Holly's nuptials? It could even be a two-parter and include another hour-long shower with guys. We mean a guy's afternoon in ... a GAI.
Someone Goes Postal
Any one of the current employees could easily go crazy and force "The Office" to go out bloody. Maybe Gabe finally loses it after Andy and Erin get engaged. Meredith's ill-behaved son could take a bad day out on the whole gang. Maybe Stanley's mistress calls it quits the same day that Pretzel Day gets cancelled, and he flips. Regardless of how it happens, it'll always make logistical sense that Dwight will be the only one to make it out alive.
The Company Tanks
They've been avoiding it for years now, but there's always the fallback plan of the company finally tanking. Everyone could get new jobs, and we could see what the former employees are up to in small future-jumping vignettes. Kind of what the writers of "Desperate Housewives" did in that finale, only ideally not as terrible.
The Documentary Workers Get Laid Off
In the same vein, the presumably expensive film crew goes bankrupt and everyone subsequently gets let go, making the whole documentary a colossal waste of money to begin with.
Life Goes On
Instead of a big, complicated storyline, David Wallace quickly sees how terrible a manager Andy is and finally persuades Jim to take the position as head of the office. Everyone keeps their positions, and we close on a seldom-seen mostly uneventful day at Dunder Mifflin.
Dunder Heaven
Like "Lost," another long-running and eventually disappointing series we couldn't bring ourselves to quit, we find out the whole gang has been dead since they first got hired at Dunder Mifflin, and it's served as a purgatory all this time. And in the end, Pam ends up with Toby, Angela loses her baby and then adopts some weird evil squirrel-looking thing, Kevin and Oscar choose to be the office protectors, and Creed becomes his true form -- a smoke monster. Also, at some point that will never be quite clear, Ryan, Kelly, Daryl, and Phyllis spend some time as Nellie's assassins.
Pam Leaves Jim
Given the dozens of chances "The Office" had to end on a sweet high note (Jim and Pam's first kiss, Jim and Pam's wedding, Jim and Pam's first baby, and Michael and Holly getting engaged), clearly the writers are waiting for something emotionally dark to happen. Our suggestion: After years of constantly making stupid faces, avoiding confrontation, and spending their life's savings on elaborate office pranks on Dwight, Pam finally packs up the kids and leaves Jim forever.
The Documentary Workers Get Laid Off
"Office" producers Greg Daniels and Paul Lieberstein have both hinted that we'll find out a little more about this documentary the no-doubt expensive film crew has been making. We suggest making the final episode about all of the documentarians getting let go after creating one very strange movie about the life and times of one Creed Bratton.
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