I watched The Office (Australia) so you didn’t have too!

It’s tough to know where to start with this as I imagine quite a few people are unaware it even exists but today, an Australian version of The Office was released to the world. This makes it the 13th version of the iconic franchise being created and as a big fan of the American equivalent, I was intrigued about how this series was going to go.

The show stars Felicity Ward in the Michael Scott/David Brent role making her the first female lead of the franchise and follows her character as she attempts to keep everyone in office as threats from higher ups mean they might have to go fully remote, which she is less keen on instead wanting to ‘keep the family together’. It’s an interesting starting point that brings the traditional Office format to the modern day with characters being initially unimpressed at no longer being able to work from home.

After watching the first few episodes (there’s only 8 episodes in Season 1), it’s clear that as a whole the show is sticking to the very established formula that exists within the franchise. Edith Poor plays Lizze Moyle, the receptionist and ‘productivity manager’, which is the equivalent of Dwight from the US version and Gareth in the UK version. Jim and Pam (US)/Tim and Dawn (UK) in this version are Nick Fletcher, a sales rep and Greta King, another sales rep, played by Steen Raskopoulos and Shari Sebbens respectively. With Greta already arguing with Mason, her characters boyfriend, in the first few episodes as well as Nick and Lizzie already having a similar office rivalry. I wonder how it’s going to go with Nick and Greta! Interestingly, it’s also billed as being ‘female-led’ with many of the characters that were male in the original cast as females in this production. Although truthfully, despite this billing, it wasn’t something I actually noticed in particular upon watching.

I’ve read a couple of critics reviews as I watched the show and as a whole, it’s not getting the highest praise so far which I think is a shame. I think it was always going to be incredibly difficult to land successfully from the get go with both the US version and the UK version having incredibly loyal fan bases still arguing their favourite version is better despite both versions ending years ago. It’s also easy to forget that the US Office took a while to find it’s footing given how much of a phenomenon it became when it was at full speed. A lot of reviews I read seem to focus on the ‘does this really need to exist?’ angle, which I understand. However for me, as long as the show has a fresh take on the franchise, which I think it does, then I think it should be given a chance.

Overall, I think the show has potential. I think if it manages to survive not getting cancelled too soon (which who knows in the current era of TV) then it could genuinely go for a few seasons and establish a decent audience. With many The Office fans likely to give it a go when they realise it actually exists. Season One actually has some good episodes with Melbourne Cup (Episode 3) being a stand out for me.

The show is currently available on Amazon Prime Video (who co-produced it with BBC Studios Australia and New Zealand).

3 out of 5.

Image via Amazon Studios