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Interesting premise with clearly no story to tell. The writers created a world and had no clue what story to tell. Like Lost or the Star Wars sequels this show clearly just wants to keep making stuff up as it goes along. Forget the plot holes or the dubious "ideas" this wants to explore. The emperor has no clothes.

I can only imagine this was created by shallow bearded millenial hipsters who have no story to tell. Nothing personal. Nothing real. Just a half baked undergrad treatise on capitalism Marxism. All with and overwrought black mirror premise.

This show should have been one or two seasons. With a full story to tell. That's how great tv is made. It has to have a complete vision. Not just a cool idea.

It's kind of sad to be that this obvious difference between series is not talked about.

The original office was populated by real human beings. Everyone totally relatable and believable. David Brent was absurd. Yes. But not really. I've known plenty of awkward people who try too hard to be liked, to be accepted, to fit in... and fail miserably. He is a real 3 dimensional human whose behaviour is embarrassing and annoying but not cartoonish. He is funny because his behaviour believable not because he's trying to be funny.

Steve Carrell on the other hand is entirely phoney. There is NO ONE who acts like that. Because it's acting. It's a cartoon. A caricature. 2 dimensional comedic acting played for laughs. It's shallow and silly. Not real.

It's very much like the difference between sopranos and breaking bad. Great performances all around. But one is a deeply realistic depiction of a certain way of life, one is an absurdist comic book where nothing and no one is plausible.

Season 1 and 3 are great. I never saw 2 for some reason. Season 4 is far below the quality of 1 & 3. Started out potentially interesting. Unique location, characters and plot. The lead cops are solid. I love John Hawke. Acting isn't the issue. A weak story, with weak writing, and weak subplots is. Too many awkwardly scripted scenes that didn't have the gravitas the writers clearly were trying for. Too many threads exposed in each episode, only to be left dangling, then tied off in unsatisfying ways. And the borderline supernatural "spiritual" dreamy nonsense. No thank you.

The main plot moved unnecessarily slowly because of superfluous subplots that were meant to be meaningful but felt contrived. This played very much like an xfiles episode. And they could have done this story in one episode (maybe a 2 parter). My wife (the real xfiles and true detective fan) and I kept watching knowing we were likely being led nowhere. And that's exactly what happened. The final episode was the nail in the coffin. Just ridiculous. Absolute nonsense. None of it made sense. No Logic. Just Dumb writing.