Michael Scott

There was a lot of talk about the end of The Office as it came on, including this:

So I write this for those of us who stayed behind, the losers who kept clocking in with “The Office” after Carell’s Michael Scott character left. We watched the rest of the series without shame or apology — and, in fact, a pleasant sense of satisfaction, especially this season. My own contrarian streak runs so deep that I might be the only TV critic on the planet who put the first post-Carell season (when James Spader’s Robert California character briefly helmed Dunder Mifflin) on my top 10 list of 2011.

I was not one of those people that swore that the show could not survive Steve Carrell's exit. I was actually excited about the James Spader character, but then they withdrew his uber-weirdness, which made Season 8 kinda suck.

Meanwhile, there remains the Michael Scott paradox: I didn’t mind him leaving as much as some folks, all while watching early episodes now I'm shocked at how much he carried the show. He is the Chris Mullen at St Johns of tv: you know he's the superstar, you know he put up crazy numbers, and yet you don't even notice him until there's a minute left and he's at the free throw line and he's put up 36/12/8, and you don't remember any of it. Silent fucking killer.