I said throughout the seventh season of The Office that the show could actually benefit from the inevitable departure of Dunder Mifflin Scranton Manager Michael Scott (Steve Carell). At the same time, I wasn't too sure about the cast and crew's ability to produce a seventh season worthy of our time. Time will tell if my first hypothesis is accurate, but after a second viewing of this past season, it turns out that those who toil on The Office still had at least one more quality run left in them.
This article appears in Sep 8-14, 2011.