TV review: There is nothing new or funny in Australia's The Office remake

Felicity Ward in The Office.

I think that’s enough remakes of The Office.

A lot of people were against the U.S. remake of the U.K. hit comedy. I was one of them, because I thought there was no way the Americans could capture the melancholy tragi-comedy of David Brent in the British version of The Office. It turns out they didn’t bother trying. 

The U.S. version was a straightforward sitcom, saved by the fact the Steve Carrell (playing Michael Scott) is one of the best comic actors in the world.

They’re trying to repeat the trick from Australia, with a new version of The Office on Prime Video. The boss here is Hannah Howard, played by Felicity Ward. It doesn’t work.

Any fan of the U.K. or U.S. version gets to spend the first few minutes playing ‘Spot the Character’. 

So there’s the zany boss, psycho assistant, flirty couple who aren’t there yet because she has an annoying boyfriend and the boss from Head Office who is running out of patience with the zany boss. Beyond that, I didn’t laugh once.

The plot driver here is that Head Office wants everyone to work from home to save money, but zany boss Hannah Howard needs them to stay in the office five days a week because she has no life outside of her job. This is made explicit in a clumsy ‘not that I have that problem’ denial from Howard.

Here’s the problem with this latest take on The Office. Both the U.K. and U.S. shows thrived on pregnant pauses and awkward glances at the camera. 

The main characters would never say “not that I have that problem”, because David Brent and Michael Scott lacked any self-awareness. 

We were only allowed to see their vulnerability when the camera lingered on them for a few silent seconds.

This doesn’t work any more because of Second-Screen writing. There is a realisation in the TV industry that loads of people watch telly while also scrolling on their phone. 

A glance to camera no longer works, because the viewer is probably viewing Instagram on their phone. So the gags go unnoticed unless one of the characters says them out loud.

As a result, this latest take on The Office is a middling comedy. You might warm to the characters over time, as we all did with the original series. 

But there are only eight episodes in the Australian flavour, which isn’t long enough to fall in love.

There is nothing new or funny here for fans of the U.K. or U.S. version. If this is your first time to The Office, my advice would be watch one of those.