Goodbye Mr. Scott

Last night was Michael Scott's final episode on The Office. After seven seasons, we bid farewell to the man who made the Scranton branch, for better or worse, what it is today.

When I first heard that NBC would be doing a remake of the British The Office, I had mixed feelings. I was from the camp that quickly decided that the British version was perfect and one of the greatest achievements of television I had ever seen. It had comedy gold, it had cringe worthy moments, but above all it had heart. I just couldn't see a major American TV network being able to pull off the same concepts so wonderfully as Ricky Gervais did on the BBC. So going into the premiere season of the US The Office, I immediately had my barriers up and really wasn't able to give it it's fair chance right away. I'm glad I came to my senses.

While it was a bit infuriating that newly adopted fans of the US version hadn't seen the UK original or had any idea of it's existence, I did appreciate the fact that the US version was at least being embraced. The first season (lasting only 6 episodes) was basically scene for scene remakes of UK episodes. Luckily, the executives at NBC had the foresight to let the US version find it's own voice and things took off splendidly in season 2 and never looked back.

And now here we are, 6 years and 148 episodes later. Steve Carell walked down the terminal last night to be with the one person we knew he was perfect for, Holly. But to be with her, he had to give up his real "family", those at the office of Dunder-Mifflin. We saw some great moments last night; Dwight feeling he was finally appreciated by Michael, Jim telling Michael what a great boss he had become and Pam tracking down Michael to say goodbye just as he was about to leave Scranton. The final episode for Steve Carell wasn't as much of a tear-jerker that I thought it would have been, but I was still satisfied in his send off.

Just like there will never be another David Brent, there will never be another Michael Scott.
Goodbye Mr. Scott.