The Office has triumphed over The Mandalorian to earn the number one streaming spot in the Nielsen Rankings. Despite ending over seven years ago in 2013, The Office has proved to have an impressive and enduring legacy as a fan-favorite thanks to its many memorable characters and its seemingly endless supply of meme-able content. A remake of the U.K. show of the same name, the NBC workplace sitcom introduced the mockumentary to the masses, following the lives of ordinary office workers and their well-intentioned but often hilariously incompetent and inappropriate boss, Micheal Scott (Steve Carell). The Office has enjoyed a highly successful second life on streaming services, with many U.S. fans devastated after the show left Netflix for NBC’s Peacock on New Years Day.
In many respects, The Office and The Mandalorian are polar opposites – while one is a long-running comedy about the employees of paper company Dunder Mifflin, the other is a tightly packed sci-fi and fantasy western that takes place in a very familiar galaxy far far away. The first-ever Star Wars live-action TV series follows Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin and the force-sensitive child under his protection. Grogu, aka Baby Yoda, has captured the hearts of just about everyone on the internet since The Mandalorian’s debut in 2019, and the sci-fi show has also proved to be immensely popular, most recently winning the somewhat dubious honor of becoming 2020’s most pirated show.
If there’s one thing both shows have in common, it’s how popular they are with fans, who have championed both shows at a time where watchlists have become more important to our lives than ever. Now, Variety has revealed that in the week beginning December 7th, The Office managed to beat out The Mandalorian to gain the number one spot in Nielsen’s Top 10 SVOD programs list. That’s an impressive feat on its own, but it’s also worth noting that it’s the seventh time The Office has claimed the prestigious top spot, making it a “record-breaker.”
According to Variety, the workplace sitcom was streamed for a staggering “approximate total of 1.3 billion minutes” that week, while The Mandalorian clocked in at a respectable one billion. It’s worth noting that The Office boasts an impressive 192 episode run compared to The Mandalorian’s sixteen episodes so far, which may be partially responsible for skewing the numbers – there’s just so much more of it to stream. It’s also fair to assume that fans had much more of an incentive to binge in The Office December before it left Netflix.
Nonetheless, considering the global chatter surrounding The Mandalorian at the moment (with many fans still reeling from a very special season finale cameo), The Office proudly toppling the sci-fi series in the streaming rankings is no mean feat, especially when you take into account just how beloved Mando and Grogu's father-son relationship has become. Nothing can touch Jim and Pam's relationship, apparently. Mostly, it seems to prove that escaping to an office right now seems just as appealing as escaping to the outer reaches of the galaxy, considering there’s currently not much chance of getting to do either.
Source: Variety