‘The Office’ Star Angela Kinsey Reveals Details On Scrapped Spin-Off
The Office star Angela Kinsey revealed some details about the scrapped spin-off The Farm. It sounds like it would have given Dwight Shrute a clean start.
The Farm was supposed to be the first spin-off to The Office right as it was coming to an end. It was going to follow Dwight as he left Dunder Mifflin to take care of his family’s farm. However, your favorite characters from The Office weren’t going to be involved–including Angela.
The Office Star Angela Kinsey Reveals Details On Scrapped Spin-Off
During a recent episode of her Office Ladies podcast with Jenna Fischer, Angela Kinsey revealed that her character Angela would have been the Lilith to Dwight’s Frasier and would not have been included or seen in the spin-off series. She really opened up about how the 17th episode of the final season was supposed to be the pilot episode of The Farm, per People.
“The Farm” episode was originally intended to be a pilot for the spin-off centered on Dwight Schrute, played by Rainn Wilson. During the conversation, she said that the episode was filmed in August 2012 prior to the show’s final season. According to People, the plan was for the spin-off series to debut in January of 2013, airing alongside the final episodes of The Office. Essentially, Dwight wasn’t supposed to be a major part of the final season. He was supposed to have his own thing going on in a separate show. However, NBC eventually decided not to move on with the project, meaning they had to pivot.
So, they went back and re-cut the would-be pilot episode to add characters from The Office because they weren’t going to be seen in the other show. Instead, they added a B-Plot about Todd Packer set in the Dunder Mifflin office. However, the show was canceled after the staff had some rough conversations. Angela opened up about what Wilson told her about The Farm and the plan not to have her involved saying, “He said, ‘Angela, I’d love to talk to you about The Farm.’ And I went to his trailer on my lunch break, and he said, ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘Ang, I’m gonna do this show.’ And he said, ‘You know, I sort of saw your character like Lilith for the Frasier spin-off, you know, where Lilith is the mother of Frasier’s child, and she pops in every once in a while. But, really, the show is about this new journey that Frasier’s on.’ And that’s how Rainn told me he envisioned the show.”
Angela Kinsey Opens Up About The Office Spin-Off The Farm
She went on to describe how writers wanted to give Dwight a clean break, so Angela wasn’t included in the pilot episode. However, this presented a problem because that episode featured the funeral of Dwight’s aunt who Angela became close with on the show. So, once it became a regular episode of The Office Angela’s absence from the funeral came off a bit strange and out of character. It sounds like the pair are not happy about that.
Co-host Jenna Fischer, who played Pam, agreed saying, “I think that if this episode and this story of Aunt Shirley’s funeral was just an Office episode from the beginning, I think Pam and Angela would have been invited to this funeral. You would have seen more Office people at this funeral.” She continued, “There was actually a lot of the first half of Season 9, particularly with the character of Dwight, that was written with the idea that his character would be leaving in the middle of the season. All of that had to be changed when The Farm didn’t move forward.”
Sounds a bit messy! I was familiar with The Farm possibly being its own spin-off but wasn’t aware that the episode was the pilot just modified a bit afterwards. Very interesting to hear and read about their perspective on it all.
Now, there’s reportedly a new spin-off of The Office that’s moving forward and has even started casting! You can read more about that here.
