One inconsistent and frustrating love story proves that The Office needed to end with season 6 before the departure of Steve Carrell’s Michael Scott. Few sitcoms can survive the exit of their former main character, but this is not an impossible achievement. 2 out of the 3 seasons of 8 Simple Rules took place after the untimely death of the show’s original star John Ritter, while Roseanne’s 2017 revival was retooled into The Conners after racist tweets prompted ABC to fire Roseanne Barr from her starring role in the series. The Conners went on to last for five seasons (and counting).
As such, the fact that Steve Carrell’s Michael Scott left The Office for good at the end of season 7 didn’t necessarily need to be a death knell for the show’s potential future. However, over time, it became clear that The Office didn’t have a plan now that the show’s former center was suddenly gone, and this was exemplified by an inconsistent relationship between two of Dunder Mifflin’s employees.
Erin & Andy’s Relationship Showed The Office’s Inconsistency
Although there was a lot of support for the pair’s story online, Andy and Erin’s misjudged romantic plot was a microcosm of everything wrong with The Office seasons 6-9. Erin and Andy had a slow-burn workplace romance that had to weather plenty of conflicts but, unlike Jim and Pam, their story didn’t work. Where Jim and Pam did admittedly take their time, they didn’t spend entire seasons dating other people after their relationship started.
In contrast, in The Office season 5, Dwight and Andy tried to impress Erin, but only Andy succeeded. The Office season 6 followed Andy’s attempts to ask Erin out, along with their actual dating and unnecessary breakup. By The Office season 7, Andy and Erin were dating Jessica and Gabe respectively while still harboring feelings for each other. Erin dumped Gabe, but Andy stayed with Jessica, leaving The Office season 8 with no story beyond Erin’s attempts to make Andy jealous. Failing that, Erin ended up departing for Florida. By the time Andy realized he loved her and the pair reunited, viewers were now 3 seasons deep into this on-again, off-again romance.
To make matters worse, The Office season 9 soon proved all of this making up and breaking up was for naught when Andy inexplicably decide to boat to the Bahamas and left Erin behind. Erin ended up with Pete the intern when Andy returned and proved to be pushier and more thoughtless than ever, a surprisingly bleak ending for a lengthy sitcom romance and further confirmation that their love story served no narrative purpose.
Erin & Andy’s Story Proved Michael Scott’s Importance
Without Michael Scott’s drama to center its story around, The Office needed more emotionally involved storylines. Thus, the show ended up dragging out Andy and Erin’s messy, inconsistent pairing even though the duo seemed well-matched. In-universe, Andy and Erin also didn’t have Michael Scott cheering them on after The Office season 7, a factor that assisted Jim and Pam a lot during their courtship. Shortly after Andy and Erin started dating, they broke up and dated other people for a full season. While Jim and Pam’s The Office relationship faced this same snag, Michael was always there to pushily ship the pair.
Erin & Andy’s Love Story Involved Unnecessary The Office Characters
Erin and Andy were not the lead characters of The Office from seasons 7-9, but the involvement of ancillary characters in their romance only made their story feel more pointless. Most of the characters who got in the way of Erin and Andy were thin non-characters (like Pete the intern) or figures that fans actively hated (like Gabe). Similarly, The Office introduced more than 4 Michael Scott replacements in two seasons and, as The Office struggled to replace Michael, Andy and Erin’s story struggled to find a compelling core. In both instances, adding James Spader’s Office character into the mix didn’t help matters.
The question of whether these new characters were disliked or received neutrally was almost immaterial. The issue was that The Office’s later seasons treated Andy and Erin’s love story as if the plot required new characters, but failed to flesh them out. When The Office introduced Karen as a foil to Pam, the earlier season ensured that Jim’s alternative love interest was likable, funny, and interesting in her own right. However, no such considerations were made for any characters who got in the way of Andy and Erin’s union since, by this point, The Office was not working on making any of its new characters particularly appealing or original.
The Office’s Later Seasons Derailed Major Character Growth
The Office season 9 turned Andy back into the thoughtless blowhard that he was back in his first appearances, thus ruining his relationship with Erin. Just as Andy realized he loved Erin, he almost immediately left to sail to the Bahamas without her, the sort of absurd thing he would have done before all of his character growth. However, while this was a problem for the Ed Helms character specifically, it was also indicative of a broader issue with these later seasons of The Office. Even if Andy and Erin’s story had succeeded, it would still have been a retread of Jim and Pam’s romance.
After Micheal’s departure in season 7, The Office had no plans to go anywhere new in its later outings. When one hated episode of The Office season 9 changed the show’s tone and offered an alternative view of Jim and Pam’s relationship, this was roundly rejected as the sudden slide into pathos felt unearned. Similarly, the moment when a camera operator broke the fourth wall to comfort Pam might have worked in earlier seasons, but felt like a desperate ploy for ratings by season 9. Ultimately, Andy’s character devolution mirrored a bigger issue with later seasons of The Office, which was that the series wasn’t interested in investing in new stories.
