10 Times The Office Already Jumped The Shark Before Michael Left

Everyone knows that The Office went entirely off the rails once Steve Carell, who had played Michael Scott for eight seasons, left the show. However, the series insisted on releasing an eighth and even a ninth season despite this, creating some of the worst seasons of The Office.

However, some fans argue that The Office had jumped the shark many times way before Michael Scott left the series. While Carrell’s absence put the last nail in the coffin, the series’ quality had definitely decreased over the years. Events as early as season 4 were already signaling that the show was stretched beyond its years.

10.Angela’s Love Triangle

Angela Martin

While Angela and Dwight are one of the weirdest sitcom relationships, they have a surprisingly sweet dynamic. But everything goes downhill when Angela gets engaged to Andy while having a sexual relationship with Dwight. This is one of the first signs that writers were running out of storylines, more so taking into account the lack of chemistry between Angela and Andy.

What’s more, the odd relationship between Andy and Angela wasn’t even funny. It was hard for the audience to laugh about Andy’s heartbreak, while Angela is openly cheating on him with Dwight. While The Office is known for creating despicable characters, this arc took it way too far, and it was obvious that the writers were just trying to stretch Dwight and Angela’s dramatic relationship arc.

9.Jim Transferring To The Stamford Office

Jim Halpert

In the early seasons of The Office, when Jim is unable to deal with Pam’s engagement to Roy, he asks Jan to transfer him to another office in Stamford. The show’s third season begins with Jim already working in this office, where he meets Karen and Andy, and creates a romantic relationship with the former.

However, this was a bad decision for many reasons. The first one is that Jim and Pam’s office dynamic is one of people’s favorite parts of the show. Another issue is that it divided the show between Jim’s scenes and Scranton’s scenes. This is one of the first times the show jumped the shark, as it was obvious that they were trying to delay Jim and Pam’s relationship to make The Office last a bit longer.

8.Dunder Mifflin Being Bought By Saber

Gabe Lewis

In the sixth season of The Office, Saber buys Dunder Mifflin. This leads to many changes in the office dynamics, including removing Jim from his co-manager position and adding a new character, Gabe Lewis, who becomes a sort of supervisor of the Scranton branch.

At this point of the show, The Office had already lost its spark. It goes from intelligent jokes that challenge the status quo to bizarre and absurd scenes, such as Dwight completely mutilating a CPR practice manikin. Saber buying Dunder Mifflin seems like one of the last attempts to try and salvage the show, but it didn’t really work.

7.Danny Cordray’s Character

Danny Cordray

In season 7 of The Office, Danny Cordray is introduced as a very successful seller who constantly creates problems for Dunder Mifflin. Michael decides, then, to deal with the situation by hiring Danny as one of their traveling sales representatives, which makes sense in theory.

However, funny enough, Danny only appears in two episodes and doesn’t become a recurrent character despite working for Dunder Mifflin. His bigger storyline is that he supposedly went on two dates with Pam back when Jim was working in the Stamford branch. This only shows how all over the place the writing of The Office was at that point, leaving loose ends all over the place.

6.Angela Getting Married

Robert Lipton

After seven seasons of the audience following Angela and Dwight’s all-over-the-place relationship, the show takes the messy relationship one step further. In the late episodes of the seventh season of The Office, Angela dates and eventually marries in the eighth season state senator Robert Lipton. Moreover, the two of them have a child together, Phillip (although in the ninth season, it’s revealed that Philip is Dwight’s son).

To make matters worse, in the ninth season, it turns out that Robert is gay, and he starts to have an affair with Oscar. At this point, it seemed that The Office wasn’t trying to write compelling storylines anymore, but just creating constant plot twists and unnecessary drama, using cheap tricks to keep the audience interested.

5.Jim’s Promotion To Co-manager With Michael

Michael Scott

In the sixth season of The Office, David Wallace promotes Jim to Regional Co-manager, so he works side by side with Michael Scott. However, just like Jo Bennett points out later on, this is an absurd position. There’s no reason for having two managers running the Scranton branch.

This was obviously an excuse to have Jim and Michael at odds during this season and create situations where Michael becomes petty and insecure. However, not many humorous situations came out of this storyline, making it less and less believable that no one decided to simply fire Michael.

4.Dwight’s Blatant Flanderization

Dwight Schrute

In the first few seasons of The Office, Dwight is an obsessive man who rigorously believes in following the rules and doing a competent job. The central joke of the series was that while Dwight religiously followed Dunder Mifflin’s rules (even if they didn’t make sense), Jim was lazy and thought he was beyond the system.

However, as the show progressed, Dwight became delusional, violent, and inconsistent. In future seasons, he isn’t even as concerned about his job. Dwight started getting more and more ridiculous storylines, which completely ruined his character development and signaled that the show should have come to an end way sooner.

3.Jan And Michael Rekindling Their Relationship

Jan Levinson

Jan is one of the worst-written characters in The Office. When Jan and Michael start dating the first time around, it’s absurd, but it makes sense in the show’s context. However, the second time, when Jan is fired and stays at home while Michael works, it feels forced and extremely out of character for Jan.

In earlier seasons of The Office, Jan is a no-nonsense, intelligent, feminist woman who can’t even be in the same room as Michael. When they turn her into Michael’s demanding girlfriend, they completely butcher the character just for the sake of a few jokes, signaling that the show was way past its prime.

2.Ryan’s Terrible Character Development

Ryan Howard

Ryan has the most bizarre character development in The Office. He went from being an intern at Dunder Mifflin to an employee to Vice President of Sales. However, he was later fired because he was committing fraud. What gets even more unbelievable is that, after all of this, Michael manages to convince David Wallace to hire him again.

The moment in which it became obvious that The Office had already jumped the shark is when, after being fired, Ryan becomes a regular employee in the Scranton branch once again. This kind of absurd storyline is typical of The Office in later seasons and truly cheapens the show.

1.Michael Creating His Own Paper Company With Pam And Ryan

Pam Beesly

In the fifth season of The Office, Michael tries to teach Dunder Mifflin a lesson, and he quits and starts his own paper company. What’s even more absurd is that he manages to recruit Pam and Ryan to the cause. Most of the fifth season sees these three characters while they try to create their own company, led by Michael.

Additionally, Michael actually manages to become a threat to Dunder Mifflin. The company, not knowing that Michael is on the edge of bankruptcy, makes a deal with Michael and gives him and his colleagues their jobs back. For a series that started out creating relatable and (unfortunately) realistic workplace dynamics, it started to depend on ludicrous plots such as this one, which ruined the essence of The Office.