Queen of her domain: Felicity Ward as Hannah Howard in ‘The Office’.

THE OFFICE ***1/2 (eight episodes; 21 minutes each)
full series review
The knives have been out for the Australian chapter of The Office franchise ever since the release of a poorly compiled teaser trailer that played more like a public warning than a warm invitation.

Online commentators wasted no time firing up their editing software apps to lambast the show with lengthy video hit pieces tearing the trailer apart frame-by-frame, foretelling of a ghastly, ill-conceived version of The Office replete will dull characters, cheap humour and a woke sensibility that would render the enterprise a laugh-less, stillborn embarrassment.

So, sitting back to preview the entire run came with some degree of trepidation – and with more reason than the Office trailer’s poor reception.

For no nation on Earth makes bad comedy like Australia does – as Screen Australia and the ABC have spent millions demonstrating over the past five years.

The expectation here, despite an open-minded reviewing policy, was for almost three hours of wince-inducing torture.

Bracing for impact, with teeth clenched and the cursor hovering over PLAY, the touchpad was clicked.

Glad to report after a marathon viewing session that all fears were unfounded, evaporating within the first five minutes of Episode One, and with no relapse occurring across the length of the show.

Whew.

Frankly, it came as a relief to see how the show is as understated, inventive and funny as it is.

While adopting the general template of the UK original and the hugely successful US version, the Australian adaptation reconfigures and updates the Office premise with a reassuring sureness of touch, becoming its own thing while operating well within the purview of the Officeverse we have come to love and rewatch over and over.

Faithfully replicating the awkward humour, mundane routines and straight-faced performances created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant back in 2001, the show is nobly anchored by a terrific, richly nuanced centrepiece performance from Felicity Ward as Hannah Howard, an office manager at packaging firm Flinley Craddick.

Taking her cue from Michael Scott (Steve Carell), with touches of David Brent (Ricky Gervais), Ward presents a florid, garish study in false confidence, hollow bravado, clumsy walk-backs and borderline manic-depression.

Informed by her boss Alisha (Pallavi Sharda) that economic pressures deem that everybody must work from home, Hannah commits to reaching an impossible performance target to prevent the office from being shut down.

Motivating her is a massive insecurity over losing direct touch with those in her workplace, a bunch of insouciant wage slaves who have become the surrogate family for someone whose life has been sapped dry by excessive and mis-guided devotion to career.

We saw hints of this trait with David Brent, but here the theme is much more prominent and poignantly developed. Beneath all her bluster, Hannah is one sorry soul.

Just how starved for affection she actually is gets thrown into sharp relief in The Melbourne Cup episode. A stinging insight into middle-aged loneliness it is easily the most funny/sad ep of the show, keeping faith with the tragi-comic undertones of the original The Office.

And though it might have been unintentional, Howard appears to be a casualty of the false feminist promise that told women how putting everything into a career early in life wouldn’t have consequences down the line. That seems to be the situation Hannah is stuck in. (Might this theme be developed in future episodes?)

Even if this isn’t intended as an overt critique, it works nonetheless as underlying motivation for Hannah’s increasingly desperate moves to keep her people happy and the office desks occupied.

Blending aspects of Gareth (Mackenzie Crook) and Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) is Hannah’s fanatically loyal underling Lizzie (Edith Poor in a fab turn), an officer whose love of the brand is closely matched by her Dwight-like gullibility.

Neatly replicating the Pam/Jim-Dawn/Tim romantic tension are sales reps Nick (Steen Raskopoulos) and Greta (Shari Sebbens), who share the same desk island. With Greta’s boyfriend Mason (Claude Jabbour) on the scene, it’s the closest set-up to the UK and US shows.

Filling out the workstations are delightfully dry finance officer Deborah (Lucy Schmidt), IT sad sack Lloyd (Jonny Brugh, very funny) and timid sales drone Tina (Susan Ling Young), whose unobtrusive presence ironically sees her emerge as a key comic source.

Annoying everyone is human resources despot Martin (Josh Thomson), a well-etched character who demonstrates – as did the US Office, Utopia and the animated series Dilbert – that people from HR are worth their weight in horse manure.

Gratefully, any fears the show would be infected by a woke mindset prove baseless. The Parramatta branch office of Flinley Craddick is just a humdrum workplace filled with shlubs trying to make it through their shift.

If anything, the show is post-woke, never making an issue of any of the agenda items usually found on the woke bingo card.

Example: there are a few small indigenous flags here and there, but they’re just part of the office decor, nothing more. It’s a prime example of keeping progressive stuff off the sandwich board and blending it into the story.

Some fun is had with feminism, welcome to country, pronouns and presumptions about a person’s sexual orientation. To wit, the show features a killer lesbian joke that, unlike the general tone of the show’s humour, is laugh-out-loud funny.

Overall, the show honours the tone and intent of The Office ethos. A tough job, well done.

Some minor quibbles.

The show does play it a bit safe, something the US Office brilliantly pushed against in its later seasons. Here’s to this Office being more daring in the event it gets renewed. (Fingers crossed)

There’s been a lot of hoo-haa about Hannah Howard being the first female boss in any Office iteration. She’s not. She might well be the first female branch office manager, but both David Brent and Michael Scott were answerable to corporate women who ranked above them. And so is Hannah.

Felicity Ward is the first female lead of an Office ensemble, but it’s 2024. Is that really supposed to be such a big deal? Aren’t we meant to be passed all that by now? Perhaps not.

The show is partially populated by a clutch of NPCs (non-player characters) who fill out the background to the main cast. We saw the same thing in early eps of the US Office before it gave everyone in the Scranton branch their own distinctive profile.

Hopefully the same will happen should this Office continue, because some of them look pretty interesting in an Office sort of way.

On Prime from Friday 18 October