A popular character's absence will be noticed in the series finale of the award-winning comedy "The Office". Steve Carell will not return as his character, Michael Scott, according to Reuters.
Greg Daniels, producer of the hit comedy, will mirror the finale after the original British version of the TV show.
"After attempting to beat that (British) ending in a number of different ways, we ended up doing something very similar," Daniels said.
The show's finale consists of each character reuniting after becoming famous stars of reality TV. The finale, slated for a May 16 airdate, will push for extended time to air the episode.
"We are trying to get more time and the network (NBC) is being very creative about scraping some more time without us having to start the finale at a weird time that will cause half the audience to miss the first 10 minutes," Daniels said.
According to The Inquisitr, Daniels wants NBC to agree to "slightly more than one hour." And as for Carell's absence, Daniels said there are no hard feelings.
"I think Steve felt, and I agree, that the 'Goodbye, Michael' episode was his goodbye and he didn't want to overshadow the ending that all the other characters deserved," Daniels said.
Since the U.S. version of "The Office" debut, the show had around eight million viewers tuning in each week. Since Carell's departure, the show's audience has dropped to five million, Reuters reported.
Daniels hopes that fans of the four-time Emmy award winning comedy realize that the finale will span over a couple of episodes.
"My hope is that people will treat the last several episodes as the finale and not force us to do everything in the last episode," he said. "We didn't want there to be such anxiety over Jim and Pam that you could think of nothing else in the last episode," he said.
Jim and Pam Halpert are the married couple in "The Office", played by John Krasinki and Jenna Fischer.
