Why ‘The Office’ mattered: It adapted scripted TV to the reality TV era


Why “The Office” mattered: It adapted scripted TV to the reality TV era

As “The Office” exits tonight, James Poniewozik explains six ways “The Office” was hugely influential in TV, including bringing hard reality to the workplace sitcom and helping mainstream the cringe factor. But perhaps most importantly, “The Office” applied reality TV tropes successfully to he sitcom format. As he explains, “to NBC”s primetime audience, its signifiers–the confessional interviews, the cameras rushing to keep up with the action–were more immediately familiar from reality TV, which in 2005 people were talking about replacing sitcoms altogether.”
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