Steve Carell’s career has only gone up following his first leading television role as Michael Scott on The Office. Yet before finding success, Carell faced major backlash from audiences and critics alike for his NBC sitcom.
While the US version of The Office has since garnered a massive following and is universally loved by audiences worldwide over a decade after its season finale, the NBC comedy was initially met with constant vitriol. It got to the point where Carell was shocked that the series eventually took off.
Why Did Audiences ‘Really Hate’ The NBC Sitcom?
It was during the pilot episode of The Office that the workplace comedy received outstandingly poor reviews from the masses.
While appearing on Amy Poehler’s podcast, Good Hang with Amy Poehler, he revealed to the Parks and Recreation actress that The Office got off to a brutal start. “Our pilot was the lowest-testing pilot in the history of, I think, NBC,” the Rooster star revealed on the podcast. “People really hated it. They actively hated this show, and I don’t quite know how it got legs after that.”
As Carell and Poehler observed, one of the main reasons The Office initially got so much flak was because audiences felt it was a rip-off of the UK version starring Ricky Gervais.
Poehler shared that he wasn’t alone in bearing the brunt of the initial backlash. According to the SNL alum, viewers were quick to hate on Parks and Recreation as well when it premiered on the network. “Parks and Rec had the worst launch ever,” she revealed. “Everyone was like, ‘This is not The Office. We don’t like this.’ I just remember people being like, ‘You’re not Steve, and we don’t like it!’”
