10 The Office Episodes That Didn’t Fit With The Rest Of The Show

From “The Farm” to “Stairmageddon,” there are some episodes of The Office that are so tonally jarring that they don’t even feel like episodes of The Office. Throughout its nine-season run, The Office delivered some truly great episodes. These ranged from cringe-fests like “Dinner Party” and “Scott’s Tots” to heartwarming milestones like “Niagara” and “The Delivery.”

But they weren’t all great. Any TV series that goes for more than 200 episodes is bound to have a few stinkers along the way. Some of the worst episodes of The Office aren’t just unfunny; tonally and narratively, they don’t even feel like episodes of The Office.

10. Roy’s Wedding

Season 9, Episode 2

The A-plot of season 9, episode 2, “Roy’s Wedding,” sees Jim and Pam taking the morning off to attend the wedding of Pam’s ex-fiancé, Roy, where they’re surprised to see that he’s a completely changed man. It’s odd that Roy would invite his ex and her new husband (who she first hooked up with while they were still engaged) to his wedding, but that’s not what makes this episode so terrible. The worst part is the B-plot with Clark trying to lure Erin to his apartment for a fake newscaster audition.

There’s some humor in Andy unwittingly foiling Clark’s plan at every turn, but it’s mostly just a creepy storyline. It made Clark completely unlikable in just his second episode, and it was sad to see Erin get taken advantage of. This episode is deeply uncomfortable.

9. Get The Girl

Season 8, Episode 19

Season 8, episode 19, “Get the Girl” has two storylines that don’t make sense. After Erin decides to stay in Florida, Andy drives across the country to declare his love for her (despite having a serious girlfriend and claiming, just a few episodes earlier, that he was over Erin) and bring her back to Scranton. Meanwhile, with Andy out of the office, Nellie Bertram randomly decides to sit in his office, name herself the new regional manager, and start giving out raises.

It doesn’t make sense that Andy would drop everything to chase Erin down — and since he’s dating Jessica, it’s hard to root for their love story, as Erin’s elderly friend Irene continually points out. It doesn’t make sense that all the employees, who have worked with Andy for years, would just accept this stranger as their new manager. “Get the Girl” doesn’t work at all.

8. Customer Loyalty

Season 9, Episode 12

The infamous Brian the sound guy was introduced in season 9, episode 12, “Customer Loyalty.” The storyline of Dwight trying to keep Darryl from leaving the office didn’t make much sense, because Dwight had never shown much affinity for Darryl, but what makes this episode stand out from the rest is the dark turn that Jim and Pam’s relationship takes. After spending eight seasons making viewers fall in love with Jim and Pam, the writers torpedoed their marriage in season 9.

This all culminates in a frustrated Jim, who has abandoned Pam to take care of the kids by herself while he chases his dreams, making Pam cry over the phone. Then, a random crew member, who’s never been seen before but is apparently a close friend to Pam, steps on-camera to comfort her. It was far too meta, and way out of step with the established format of the series.

7. Lotto

Season 8, Episode 3

On paper, season 8, episode 3, “Lotto” sounds like a good premise for an episode of The Office. The warehouse guys win the lottery, so they all quit at the same time and leave Andy and Darryl to find a whole new crew. That was a fun setup for an episode: a comic situation with a clear-cut conflict and the opportunity to bring in a bunch of wacky one-off characters for job interviews. But the episode’s B-plot is way too zany to feel like The Office.

Jim, Dwight, Kevin, and Erin go down to the warehouse to get the next shipment onto the truck. Jim and Dwight are dumbed down to Kevin and Erin’s level as they try all kinds of asinine methods of moving boxes of paper across a room. This was once a show about a relatable, mundane workplace, but in “Lotto,” that workplace is just a playground.

6. Promos

Season 9, Episode 18

Brian the sound guy came back in season 9, episode 18, “Promos.” This episode goes all-in with the self-awareness as a trailer for the documentary is released and the characters are shocked to discover that they were always being filmed, even when they thought they had privacy. When Pam goes to visit Brian, who’s separated from his wife, it’s suggested that Brian has romantic feelings for Pam.

This whole idea of a love triangle between Jim, Pam, and the boom operator felt really forced, and not in line with the grounded tone of the show. And that’s not the only ludicrous plot point that breaks the audience’s immersion in “Promos.” This is also the episode where stunt-casted Major League Baseball player Ryan Howard reads his self-penned, self-aggrandizing sci-fi script full of ego-stroking and product placement. This is supposed to be a show about ordinary people with ordinary lives.

5. Pool Party

Season 8, Episode 12

Unlike most of the other episodes on this list, season 8, episode 12, “Pool Party” is actually a pretty good episode. It has an intriguing premise — Robert California invites the staff over to his house for one last hoorah before he loses it in his divorce settlement — and the characters are firing on all cylinders. But despite being a funny half-hour of television, it doesn’t really feel like an episode of The Office.

For starters, it takes place almost entirely outside the titular office. Traditionally, the characters in The Office are miserable, going through the motions, and looking for a distraction. But in “Pool Party,” they’re all genuinely having a good time together and enjoying each other’s company. Plus, Robert’s hedonistic lifestyle brings a shock factor to the humor that this show isn’t really known for.

4. Suit Warehouse

Season 9, Episode 11

The character of Clark never really worked, despite The Office’s writers pushing him to be one of the stars of season 9, and his forced pairing with Dwight didn’t work at all. From the moment he was introduced, The Office tried to create a weird faux father-son relationship between Dwight and Clark, and that came to a head in season 9, episode 11, “Suit Warehouse,” in which they bizarrely impersonated a father and son to try to land a big account.

This episode failed for a few reasons. Dwight is the top salesman at the branch and he never had a problem winning over clients, so he wouldn’t need to recruit a fake son to get someone’s business. And their ridiculous riff about collecting cat turds isn’t exactly good salesmanship. Meanwhile, everyone else in the office acts wildly out of character as they become a gaggle of raving crackheads after a couple of espressos.

3. The Banker

Season 6, Episode 14

One of the most egregious things a TV show can do is a clip show. There are economic reasons to do a clip show; it saves time and money and helps the showrunners fill out their annual quota. Plus, before the days of YouTube and streaming, TV shows were a lot more disposable. When a show like The Office or The Simpsons did a clip show, it was sometimes the audience’s first chance to see those clips again since their original airing.

Still, it’s a cop-out to make a whole episode out of existing footage from previous episodes. In season 6, episode 14, “The Banker,” Sabre sends a financial expert to review the Scranton branch before acquiring Dunder Mifflin, which leads to a series of clips. The Office squanders guest star David Costabile to set up these clips.

2. Stairmageddon

Season 9, Episode 19

Just a few episodes from the end of the series, it would seem pertinent for the writers of The Office to start building toward the dramatic conclusions of their characters’ journeys and the resolutions of their conflicts and relationships. But instead, in season 9, episode 19, “Stairmageddon,” they decided to turn the show into a full-blown cartoon. Stanley refuses to climb a flight of stairs to help Dwight with a sales call, so Dwight fills him with tranquilizer darts and kidnaps him.

He wraps an unconscious Stanley in bubble wrap and slides him head-first down the stairs. He drags Stanley across the parking lot and straps him into his car. It felt more like a Three Stooges short than an episode of The Office. The zaniness of that storyline is a jarring tonal shift from Jim and Pam’s marital drama in the B-plot.

1. The Farm

Season 9, Episode 17

The episode of The Office that feels the least like an episode of The Office is the one that was conceived as an episode of a different series entirely. Season 9, episode 17, “The Farm” was a backdoor pilot (a pilot episode for a new show passed off as an episode of an existing show) for a potential Dwight-centric spinoff set on Schrute Farms. It sees Dwight’s family gathering at the farm for the funeral of their late Aunt Shirley.

It’s a good thing this backdoor pilot went nowhere, because it proves that a full series of The Farm never would’ve worked. The character of Dwight works in The Office because his eccentricity is contrasted with the normalcy of his co-workers. A whole series set in an environment where Dwight is the normal one would’ve been a disaster.