There is a video out there of Harry Connick Jr playing to a crowd who are incorrectly clapping on the 1 and 3 beat of a song, but through some wily playing he gets the audience back on beat. Unfortunately, The Office Australia has no such concert master.
Comparison is the thief of joy
Party planning commitee that never really goes anywhere, awkward Nick(Jim)/Greta(Pam) flirting, a set that looks like it was designed by someone who made the US set from memory, even the theme song – all of these things just fly a little too close without iterating on the original. It leaves the show feeling like a poor parody of the American version.
The Jim/Pam relationship is flat, there is a lack of believability in their dynamic. There seems to be no building of the characters outside of what we see in the office. We know that Michael Scott is lonely and that he is desperately trying to form connections with other people, but there is no build or background for Hannah Howard, Michael’s analog. Why does she act the way that she does? The Lizzie/Dwight character is another odd one. Dwight has periods of being the nefarious manipulator through out the series, but he also has his fair share of acting normally and engaging in work. Lizzie, again, does not have any levels or personality depth- just weird sneaking around the office, constantly trying to make Hannah happy. There are no ups and downs, no actual human-ness.
Another issue that grates is that instead of having some original story lines, The Office Australia has just picked and chosen scenes and stories throughout the run of The Office (US) and thrown them together. At times it feels disjointed and that I’m watching a sketch show of ‘Speed run The Office’
To use a social psychology approach, I feel that the audience is the In-Group – most of us have seen the original(s), we have an idea of the show beats, the sense of humour, what the expectations are of the characters. This is why remakes can be so difficult to impress, we all have our biases about how we think the show should go and when this isn’t met then we are more likely to have an overly negative view of the product
But…I don’t think that this is really the case. Remove the original and call this something different and The Office Australia is just still not good at all. There’s more forced comedy than a Jedi stand up show, and like Harry Connick we are desperately waiting for the beats to hit right, but they just never make it.