The Office: The Accountants

The Office: The Accountants
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Genre	Mockumentary Comedy
Written by	Michael Schur Paul Lieberstein
Directed by	Randall Einhorn
Starring	Brian Baumgartner Oscar Nunez Angela Kinsey
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	10
Production
Running time	2–3 minutes
Production company(s)	NBC Studios
Release
Original network	NBC.com
Original release	July 13 – September 7, 2006
Chronology
Followed by	Kevin's Loan (2008)
Related shows	The Office
External links
Website

The Office: The Accountants is an American comedy web series, spin-off from the television show The Office.^[1] The series depicts office accountants in the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company trying to find $3,000 missing from the office budget. The webisodes generally became available as they were uploaded onto NBC's website for free streaming on Thursdays from July to September 2006, and were later included as a special feature in the second season's DVD releases.

The project was announced in March 2006. The series was shot over two days in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, and produced by the same crew with the same cast as the television series. The series won an Emmy Award in 2007.^[2]

Production

Development

The Office actor and producer Paul Lieberstein co-wrote The Accountants.

In March 2006, while the second season of The Office was airing, NBC announced that 10 webisodes were expected to be produced.

It took two days to film the series.^[3]

Release

A new webisode would generally become available each Thursday on NBC's website. The webisodes were later released as special features on the DVD sets of The Office – Season Two in the second half of 2006.

In November 2007, the webisodes became a point of argument for the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, as none of the writers or actors featured in the webisodes received residuals for their work.^[4] Greg Daniels and many of the cast members who double as writers posted a video to YouTube shortly after the strike began, particularly upset that they weren't compensated for The Accountants, which NBC considered promotional material despite the embedded commercials.^[5]

Crew

The Accountants was produced by NBC. The Office director Randall Einhorn directed each webisode, with writing duties divided between producers, screenwriters and actors Michael Schur and Paul Lieberstein.^[3]

Plot

Cast and characters

Left to right: Brian Baumgartner, Oscar Nuñez, Angela Kinsey

The Accountants retained many of the cast members from the television series. Brian Baumgartner plays Kevin Malone, who is based upon Keith Bishop. Oscar Nuñez acts as Oscar Martinez. Angela Kinsey portrays Angela Martin, the uptight Head of the Accounting Department, Office Safety Officer and Head of the Party Planning Committee.

Guest stars Melora Hardin, Phyllis Smith, Kate Flannery, Leslie David Baker, David Denman and Rainn Wilson reprise their roles of Jan Levinson, Phyllis Lapin, Meredith Palmer, Stanley Hudson, Roy Anderson and Dwight Schrute, respectively.

Webisodes

Reception

The series won an Emmy Award in the "Outstanding Broadband Program – Comedy" category at the 34th Daytime Emmy Awards in 2007.^[2] Tim Stack of Entertainment Weekly graded the series with an "A-" and wrote, "While we miss Jim and Pam (not to mention star Steve Carell), these shorts prove that spending time with their excessively awkward co-workers can be just as sweet."^[6]

References

External links

• The Accountants at the Internet Movie Database