The Office mystery cleared up by stars of hit sitcom
Much-loved show rain for nine seasons from 2005 to 2013
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The Office star Jenna Fischer has shed light on why Dwight Schrute (played by Rainn Wilson) never got a special recognition as manager at the end of the series.
The NBC show ran for nine seasons from 2005 to 2013, having been adapted from the UK series. A spin-off show is in the works, with an Australian adaptation is set to air later this month.
Schrute obsessively longs to be manager, enacting a series of harebrained plans through the years, before eventually achieving his goal in the final season.
However, he is never featured as a manager in the title credits, despite other replacements for Michael Scott (played by Steve Carell), including Andy Bernard (Ed Helms), getting the full managerial treatment.
Fischer, who played office admin Pam Beasley, reached out to David Rogers who directed the final season’s penultimate episode “A.A.R.M” (Assistant to the Assistant to the Regional Manager), to understand why.
In an episode of their rewatch podcast,Office Ladies, Fischer and Angela Kinsey, who played uptight accountant Angela, explained that the reasons were more logistical.
“There was discussion about adding a Dwight-as-manager shot at the end of this title sequence,” explained Fischer.
“But, ultimately, they never filmed anything new for it, and here is why: The main reason was they wanted to use Pam and Jim kissing as the final image in the main title for several episodes because they felt that, at this point, the idea of who is his manager had been eclipsed by the character’s personal lives, and they felt like the focus here of these final episodes was more about summing up Jim and Pam.”
She explained that Rogers told her that “they were really pressed for time, and they literally didn’t have time to shoot a new little manager title with Dwight.
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“And also there was so much in this episode that they had to make the main titles really short anyway. So there were kind of three reasons.”
Fischer also revealed that she had been diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of breast cancer last year, in a post on Instagram earlier this week, but shared she is now cancer free.
“Triple positive breast cancer is an aggressive form of breast cancer but it is also highly responsive to treatment,” Fischer said.
She revealed she “had a lumpectomy to remove the tumour” in January of this year and the “cancer was caught early and it hadn’t spread into my lymph nodes or throughout the rest of my body.”
“I’m happy to say I’m feeling great,” she continued. “I lost my hair during chemotherapy but thanks to some great wigs and hats with hair (which my family affectionately called Wigats) I have been able to wait until now to reveal all that has been going on for me.”
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