‘Who approved this?’: The Australian version of The Office sets a new standard for cringe

Here’s the only thing you need to know about the Australian spinoff/remake/reboot of The Office , the first trailer for which has just hit the internet and sent fans of the beloved NBC franchise into an uproar: Imagine the version of The Office that you know and love, the one that ran for nine seasons here in the US, but with every trace of anything even remotely funny ripped out of it.

That remaining dried husk of a sitcom — minus even the faintest trace of “com” — is Australia’s The Office , an extremely cringe-inducing retread of the existing UK and US versions of the show, this time with a woman as the hapless office manager character reminiscent of Michael Scott. Dumb physical comedy, creepy-looking characters, jokes that don’t land, it’s all there in the trailer below, and woe betide anyone whose nostalgia for the past draws them to this aggressively unfunny disgrace to the franchise.

Thankfully, when Australia’s new version of The Office hits Prime Video on Oct. 18 , it won’t be available in the US. And you can take it from these netizens, folks — we dodged a Dunder Mifflin-sized bullet here:

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“I have been confined to a wheelchair for the past 20 years – today I stood up and walked just to turn this off,” one person wrote in the comments section for the trailer on YouTube. Adds another: “On behalf of everyone in my country: we completely understand if this results in a nuclear strike.”

And the comments keep getting better: “Dear United Nations please pass a binding resolution to ban Australia from ever producing anything that falls under Motion Arts with immediate effect.”

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“I’m 40 seconds in and the frown on my face keeps getting frownier.”

“Who approved this and why do they hate us?”

Netflix, HBO, and FX. You can only keep one — which do you choose?

And, my personal favorite: “How do I delete someone else’s video?”

Oddly enough, Australia’s version marks the (lucky!) thirteenth adaptation of The Office , and it follows the employees at a packaging company called Flinley Craddick in Sydney. When “Hannah” (the wackadoodle, Michael Scott-style manager) gets news from the head office that the branch will be shutting down, “she goes into survival mode, making promises she can’t keep in order to keep her “work family” together.

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“The staff of Flinley Craddick indulge her and must endure Hannah’s outlandish plots as they work toward the impossible targets that have been set for them.”

Never have I been so proud to live in the US, with this travesty forced on Prime subscribers everywhere else but here.

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