This fall, NBC’s
The Office welcomes one of the series’ original creators, Stephen Merchant. In fact, last week, Merchant took a spot behind the camera to shoot the show’s Halloween episode.
The Office was originally created by the Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning Merchant, alongside Ricky Gervais, the English comedian, writer, director and actor behind The Ricky Gervais Show.
"He was in the writers room with us rewriting over the last several days,"
The Office writer-producer-actor
Paul Lieberstein said of Merchant in a conference call with reporters Monday. "It was really exciting having him there."
During
The Office’s third season, Gervais and Merchant co-wrote an episode of the NBC show, but this marks the first time that the Merchant will be directing the American series. Lieberstein pointed out that Merchant has been strict about keeping the “integrity of the documentary” to ensure that the series wanders off from the original idea of a film crew filming the lives of the characters.
"He calls us out every once in while -- like, 'How are they gonna do that with a little documentary?'" Lieberstein says of renowned Merchant. "When we seem to go a little too far or get too personal with them or set a scene in the bathroom, he's like, 'Really? I don't think they follow them.' But he's extremely funny, and it's been great working with him."
The new season of
The Office is set to air beginning September 25 at 9pm on NBC, and Paul Lieberstein’s Toby Flenderson will be finding his way back to the office after leaving for Costa Rica in last season’s finale.
"What brings him back is a failure to escape," Lieberstein says. "There was a friend of mine ... who about 10 years ago collected enough money to live poor in Hawaii. He was gonna just do it and surf, because he loved to surf. He made a big deal of it, had a going-away party, and he was back in two weeks. He was lonely, no one talked to him, he was robbed on the beach, and that was it. So that was our model."
Don’t forget to catch the return of
The Office with Season 5’s hour-long premiere on Thursday, September 25 at 9pm.
-Valerie Anne del Castillo, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source:
Zap2It
(Photo courtesy of NBC)
