Prime Video releases first-look images of its new The Office Australia series – and I hope it’s as good as Deadloch

Techradar raises an eyebrow and side-eyes the camera

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Whenever a much-loved show gets a spin-off, I tend to feel a mix of excitement and fear: excitement that it could be really, really great like theUS version ofThe Office(which had a longer run time than theUK version ofThe Office) and fear that it won’t be. And I’m definitely feeling both with the news that the Australian spin-off ofThe Officewill premiere on Prime Video this October.

The new show, calledThe Office, will debut on October 18 and have eight episodes. This time around the lead character and office boss is Felicity Ward ofTime Bandits, WakefieldandThe Inbetweeners 2, and that could introduce an interesting dynamic: the previous seasons have centered around male bosses. Between her casting and the Australian setting I’m hoping for a show that’s like anOfficemeetsDeadloch –which is one ofthree new crime shows with 100% Rotten Tomatoes– mash-up.

What do we know about The Office Australia?

The show is set in Flinley Craddick, a packaging company where boss Hannah Howard (Ward) is in charge. But when head office decides to shut down the branch and get everybody working from home, “Hannah goes into survival mode, making promises she can’t keep in order to keep her work family together,” Prime Video says.

In addition to Ward, the cast features Edith Poor, Steen Raskopoulos, Shari Sebbens, Josh Thomson, Jonny Brugh, Susan Ling Young, Raj Labade, Lucy Schmidt, Zoe Terakes, Pallavi Sharda and Claude Jabbour. It’s being made by BBC Studios Australia & New Zealand, Bunya Entertainment, andAmazonMGM Studios.

According toDeadline, this is the 13th global version of the show, which has also seen spin-off series in Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, Israel, South Africa and more. EvenPeacock is making a follow-up series toThe Office.Its version is set in an ailing Midwest newspaper where the publisher hopes to revive it with a team of volunteer reporters. The show is currently filming.

I’m crossing my fingers for these ones because it’s been a very long time since the first season ofThe Officeaired, and the mockumentary format it used has become pretty tired not just in broadcasting but on social media too. Many imitators have focused on the format without understanding that it was the writing, the characterization and most of all the warmth that madeThe Officespecial. Here’s hoping the spin-offs focus on those things too to make it one of thebest Prime Video series.

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Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir,Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock bandUnquiet Mind.

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