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When it was announced that Steve Carell was going to be leaving his character Michael Scott on The Office, fans had no idea how the show was going to continue with out him. When it was announced Will Ferrell would be making a guest appearance on The Office along side Steve Carrell's final episodes, fans suddenly had hope for the future. But when Will Ferrell's episodes finally came, to everyones surprise, it seemed The Office was able to do the impossible. They made Will Ferrell, Not Funny.
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One, two, three, to new friends
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Wow. Wow. This is going to take hours. That is Will Ferrell, one of the funniest comic actors who ever lived
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showing up to play a guest role on The Office, one of the funniest and most revered sitcoms of its era
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It sounds like a recipe for laughs, but as it turns out, not so much. In fact, against all odds, The Office found a way to do something
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that's usually pretty close to impossible. they made Will Ferrell not funny
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Coffee keeps me regular. Yeah. That's the best time of the day in that regard
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Right, right, right. It's the best time of the day. The American version of The Office debuted in 2005
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It had an outstanding ensemble cast, but the star was clearly Steve Carell
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already famous for his appearances in movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and his regular spot as a correspondent
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on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Playing Michael Scott, the big-hearted but wildly unprofessional
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and borderline incompetent regional manager of the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company
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Carell was the linchpin and heart of the series. Fans and critics loved him in the role, and he received five Emmy nominations and one win at the Golden Globes for his performance
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Like the rest of the cast, Carell's contract expired at the end of Season 7
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But unlike the rest, Carell's contract would not wind up being renewed
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Continuing a series after losing a lead is never a sure thing. The Office, however, remained successful in the ratings, and thanks to the fact that its cast was still stacked with stars like John Krasinski, Mindy Kaling, and Ed Helms, it wasn't as reliant on Carell's drawing power as it once was
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For creative reasons, the decision was made to give Michael an emotional send-off four episodes before the end of Season 7, and then to continue the series without him
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Carell's departure was announced in January of 2011, and shortly thereafter, it was reported that the office had booked comedy legend Will Ferrell for a four-episode run that would mostly overlap with Carell's final appearances
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The coverage also revealed that Ferrell would play a Michael Scott-like middle management type, leading to speculation that the producers might be setting up Ferrell to take over for Carell as the boss in the following season
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Big changes are coming, and they're coming fast. Interestingly, the appearance was Ferrell's idea
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According to the actor, he approached the producers about doing a single guest spot
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but they came back to him with a whole character arc This all sounds great to me A veteran of TV from his days on Saturday Night Live Farrell had made sporadic guest appearances on the small screen even as his film career took off
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His role as Ashley Schaefer on Eastbound and Down proved he could do a lot with a small part
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and the movie Anchorman proved he had great comic chemistry with Carell. Yeah, I stabbed a man in the heart
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I saw that. Brick killed a guy. So Office fans were rightfully excited
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As promised, Farrell playing a character named D'Angelo Vickers arrived in the 19th installment of Season 7, Training Day
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The episode starts when Michael and D'Angelo meet at a bar. At first, they think it's random, but after a while, they finally figure out they were, in fact, there to meet each other
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That is insane! That is insane! It quickly becomes apparent that D'Angelo shares some of Michael's goofier idiosyncrasies, and they hit it off immediately
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Despite the similarities, though, D'Angelo seems to be a little more confident
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and generally more normal than Michael. And when he meets the employees of Dunder Mifflin
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they genuinely seem to like him. Someone started off on a good foot with the new boss
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His jokes land, his tastes are appreciated, and he's immediately embraced with the kind of warmness
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that Michael has always desired from his staff. Predictably, Michael starts to resent the situation
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and it creates tension between him and D'Angelo, putting the staff awkwardly in the middle of a struggle
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between their current and future bosses. Over the course of the story, it emerges that D'Angelo has a bit of a mean streak
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For example, when he seems to get off on making Andy humiliate himself, or when he rudely shuts down Pam
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when she's gushing about a cute thing her baby did. I'm telling you, that baby could be the star of a show called
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Babies I Don't Care About. But regardless of how badly he treats them
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everyone is well aware that D'Angelo is about to be the boss. So when push comes to shove
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the employees all side with him over Michael, despite a personal appeal from the latter
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It's a bitter reminder to Michael that his relationship to his work family would be different when he's not the boss
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While he doesn't get anything all that funny to do, D'Angelo actually makes a fairly complex and intriguing foil for Michael in that episode
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And though the understated role doesn't necessarily play to his strengths as a comic performer
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Farrell isn't bad in the part, which is why it's like Whiplash when episode 20, Michael's Last Dundies
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arrives and D'Angelo is a substantially different character. You, sir. We're having fun tonight
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Having a great time. Oh, good. Thanks yeah Where were you on September 11th No In this installment D is an insecure and easily manipulated buffoon His petty cruelty seems to completely disappear and he allows Michael to steer him against his will
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into co-hosting his awkward and often offensive Dundee Awards. Listen to me
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You're not doing this for me. You're not doing this for you. You're not even doing this for them
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What am I doing it for? Stricken by stage fright, D'Angelo does some dumb
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but not terribly funny things like read the stage directions off his cue cards
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other than giving Michael someone to lecture to about the importance of the awards
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D'Angelo doesn't really serve much purpose in the story. And anyone hoping that D'Angelo's third appearance in the double-sized episode 21
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Goodbye Michael, would sort the character out, or make his role in the grand scheme of things clear
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was going to find themselves sorely disappointed. That's because, in his third outing
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Farrell seems to be playing yet another version of the character. Give me that damn dog, you f***ing thief
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It's her dog! Don't ever do it again! This D'Angelo is a recklessly incompetent salesman who seems to be caving into his
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previously mentioned former habit of overeating. He plays no significant role in Michael's departure
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and a final scene in which he seemingly has some sort of food-related breakdown while eating a
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cake with his hands is never mentioned again. What am I doing? Come on, D'Angelo
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D'Angelo's final appearance comes in episode 22, The Inner Circle. This time
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he's back to being mean, except he's a much brasher jerk than he was in his first appearance
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and he's also now openly sexist toward the female employees of Dunder Mifflin
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I like Ryan. You seem kind of hysterical to me. Ryan's your supervisor
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Let's just leave it that way. On the other hand, he's also back to being somewhat competent
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with even Jim reluctantly acknowledging... He's good at his job, and I like working for him
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Despite this, he extols the virtues of juggling as an executive skill
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and then clownishly performs a mime-juggling routine set to Evanescence's Bring Me to Life for all his employees
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D'Angelo's tenure as regional manager comes to an end when he pulls a basketball hoop down onto himself while showing off his unlikely ability to slam dunk
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The whole thing feels totally random, but really, so does everything about D'Angelo
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The mean streak, the stage fright, the overeating disorder, the juggling dance, the basketball skills
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At the end of four episodes, D'Angelo just seems like a string of unrelated gags that even the great Will Ferrell couldn't get big laughs out of
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In fact it not unreasonable to say that outside his attempts at drama his run on The Office might be the least funny Farrell has ever been That is cold sir Absolutely cold You know what It was a complete waste of my time And just to be clear that not his fault in any way Farrell absolutely throws himself into
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everything he's given to do, from his low-key introduction to the manic dance routines. It's
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just that nothing he's given to do is really funny. That's because it's pretty obvious that
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the writers never had a clear vision for D'Angelo's personality or purpose on the show. And as a
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character-driven comedy, The Office typically draws its laughs by placing the employees of
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Dunder Mifflin in situations that are personally awkward for them. D'Angelo's character shifts so
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frequently and so haphazardly, we're never able to form a lasting sense of his personality
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what is or isn't awkward for him, or how most of the gang feels about him and his antics
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so none of the humor really lands. Fall asleep right after sex. Huh, guys? Nope. Go back to the
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script. From episode to episode, the writers seem to be searching for his character
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trying new and progressively weirder takes. They seem to be searching for better uses for Farrell's skill set
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but the net effect is that D'Angelo just winds up changing into whatever they think they need him to be for any given joke or scene
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They are trying to figure me out, and I don't like it
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It's not impossible that a character like D'Angelo could have been at the center of some sort of passing of the torch arc
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that let Michael interact with, and maybe even leave an impression on his replacement
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What we actually got, however, turned out to be meaningless from a storytelling perspective
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And with Farrell making it clear he wasn't sticking around, there wasn't even any suspense as to whether D'Angelo was there to stay
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But really, the worst part of it all was simply that D'Angelo wasted so much time in Carell's final episodes
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This is likely because someone assumed the audience would want to see the two comic megastars
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interact with each other a lot, and that's not unreasonable. But those interactions weren't exceptionally funny
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and they ate a time that would have been much better spent letting Michael interact with his office family
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Ultimately, it's hard not to think the series wouldn't have been creatively better off
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simply ending the season with Michael's departure. Season 8 could have led off with the search for a new boss
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or even with just a new boss already in place. Sure, some of the material from Farrell's run has grown on audiences over the years
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but at the end of the day, his presence on The Office never felt like much more than a gimmick
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And while it's understandable producers would want to do something to boost ratings
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for Carell's final episodes and give viewers an incentive to keep watching after he left
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If your gimmick makes Will Ferrell not funny, maybe it's time for another rewrite