By now, it’s safe to say everyone with access to a Netflix account has seen at least one episode of The Office. For some people, on the other hand, the former NBC sitcom is a bona fide obsession … and it’s not hard to see why! The actors on The Office — including Steve Carell, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, Mindy Kaling and more — weren’t just hilarious, they were relatable, too.
After all, at its core, The Office was never intended to be flashy or dramatic. It’s literally 201 episodes about people working at a paper company in Pennsylvania. Of course, some episodes stand out more than others. If you’re a longtime fan of the series, there’s a strong chance you’re thinking about “The Dinner Party” right now.
Season 4, episode 13, “The Dinner Party,” which aired on April 10, 2008, is regarded as the best episode of The Office ever made. “The episode is a crucible for the various relationships on the show,” Ed Helms, who played Andy Bernard, told Rolling Stone in 2018.
“It’s a tight, contained space where so many relationship issues are bubbling around between Jim and Pam, Andy and Angela, Michael and Jan,” he continued. “It’s that pressure-cooker aspect that heightens everything, plus the decorum of the dinner party, the sort of need to rise to a different sort of social construct, as opposed to just being coworkers in an office space. It’s just a boiling-hot crucible of comedy.”
Another memorable episode of The Office was “Goodbye, Michael” in 2011. Fans of the show were (understandably) devastated when Steve Carell, who played Michael Scott, left the series in season 7. That said, The Office managed to stay afloat for another two years without him!
Very few shows in television history have lost a central character without drastically affecting the quality of the content — i.e. The O.C., One Tree Hill, The Vampire Diaries. Don’t get us wrong, The Office was never as good without Michael, but new characters like Jo Bennett (played by Kathy Bates) and Robert California (played by James Spader) made the loss somewhat easier.
To see where the cast of The Office is today, scroll through the gallery below!