introduced in the last couple seasons were terrible.

Brian Baumgartner (Kevin) recently did a podcast series looking back at the office. At that point in the office NBC had been sold to Comcast and none of the same executives were around that initially believed in the show.

They failed to renegotiate Steve Carrell’s contract and let him walk away from the show. They then insisted that a big name actor come in to replace Steve Carrell rather than trust in the characters that had developed to carry the show. Several of the actors that he talked to on the podcast expressed that they felt it was a mistake not to believe in the show and the characters, and acknowledged that the last couple seasons were kind of rough and that the tone of the show changed significantly.

Rainn Wilson specifically talked about how James Spader didn’t really fit into their world very well and was tough to work with.

And yeah, the brief Will Ferrell experiment was terrible.