The Untold Story of "The Office" Spinoff That NBC Let Slip Away

Rainn Wilson isn’t shy about admitting that The Office pushed the limits — and sometimes went too far. On a recent episode of The Last Laugh podcast, the actor behind the unforgettable Dwight Schrute explained that the hit NBC comedy would need a serious overhaul if it were ever to make a comeback in 2025.

“The show had moments that were just flat-out shocking,” Wilson said, pointing to the infamous “Benihana Christmas” episode as an example. “You’ve got Michael and Andy literally marking one of the women with a Sharpie so they can tell her apart. Looking back, it’s brutal. The characters were oblivious, and that obliviousness made them casually racist, sexist, and wildly inappropriate. That was their whole deal — Michael, Dwight, Andy, even Kevin. The comedy worked because it held up a mirror to America’s own insensitivity. But let’s be honest, it doesn’t exactly age gracefully.”

Wilson added that while the outrageous behavior was part of the show’s biting satire, audiences today might see things differently. “It was hilarious and cutting, but it went deep into uncomfortable territory. Could you make the same show now? Only if it was drastically reimagined.”

The world of The Office hasn’t completely vanished, though. This September, Peacock launched The Paper, a spinoff series set in the same comedic universe. Of course, this isn’t the first time producers tried branching out. Wilson himself was once slated to headline The Farm, a Dwight-centric spinoff that even got a backdoor pilot in the final season. NBC, however, passed on the project.

“At the time, the network was chasing glossy, big-audience sitcoms — shows that felt more like Friends than The Office,” Wilson recalled. “They just weren’t interested in expanding the Office brand. But if they’d gone forward with The Farm, they’d probably be sitting on another billion-dollar franchise. Fans would have tuned in at least once, even if it didn’t hit the same heights as The Office. It would’ve been a solid comedy with its own weird, funny flavor. Honestly, they blew it.”

Wilson also pointed out that NBC didn’t fully grasp what it had until long after the series ended in 2013. “It wasn’t until the Netflix streaming boom, when people were watching it in the billions of minutes, that NBC finally realized they had a monster hit on their hands,” he said. “By then, it was too late. The show had already become bigger than they ever imagined.”