Summary

• After seven successful seasons of The Office, Steve Carell's iconic and beloved character, Michael Scott, quit Dunder Mifflin and left the series.
• Steve Carell stepped aside from his role as Michael Scott after his seven-season contract ended. The reasons behind this include Carell wanting to spend more time with his family, but also the network not contacting Carell about renewing his contract.
• Continuing The Office without Steve Carell's Michael Scott was a big mistake, as the series went downhill without featuring the most important character of the show.

The Office is one of the most hilarious, heartwarming, and clever sitcoms ever created. However, even hardcore fans admit that the series stumbled a bit after Michael Scott left. Since Steve Carell was such a key part of the show in terms of comedy and story, it's hard to believe that the network decided to proceed without the actor. Many people believe the sitcom should have ended once Carell left the series, but the question remains as to why Carell didn't continue to portray this iconic character.

In 2010, Steve Carell commented that he probably was going to leave The Office after its seventh season to spend more time with his family. However, since then, actors and producers from The Office have told other stories about Carell's departure from the show. It seems that the truth is more complicated than Carell let viewers know at the time, and the network, NBC, had a role in Carell deciding to step aside from this role.

Why Did Steve Carell Leave The Office?

Michael Scott, played by Steve Carell, was undoubtedly the humorous and emotional axis of The Office as the Regional Manager at Dunder Mifflin, Scranton's paper company. A mediocre boss who always needed to be the center of attention, Michael was constantly making controversial statements, annoying his employees, and creating more problems than solutions. However, as the show progressed, Michael learned to be a better team player, friend, and boss. With the most important character development in The Office, it surprised the audience when Carell left the series for good after its seventh season. There are several statements about why Carell left The Office, and most likely, it is a combination of all these reasons.

At the time, in 2010, Steve Carell commented in an interview with EW that he was probably going to leave after his seven-season contract ended. Carell explained that he wanted to spend more time with his family. However, in 2020, in the podcast, An Oral History of The Office, actor Brian Baumgartner, editor Claire Scanlon, and producer Ben Silverman commented that the NBC network didn't contact Carell about his contract renewal. Since Carell was already a consolidated actor at this time, the actor decided to move on to greener pastures.

More recently, in the podcast led by The Office actresses Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey, Office Ladies, Steve Carell said that he left The Office because he felt like other characters deserved to be further explored in the series, so Michael needed to leave for others to shine. Carell also stated that it was a very emotional moment in his career and that he felt fortunate to be able to create such emotive episodes for both Michael and himself. Whatever the reason for Carell's departure, it was a sad moment for television, as his portrayal of Michael Scott was a treasured television performance, and many believe the show went downhill after Michael Scott quit Dunder Mifflin.

Why Did Michael Scott Quit Dunder Mifflin?

After Steve Carell decided to no longer be a part of The Office, the show's writers created an outstanding storyline to justify Michael Scott's departure. In Season 5 of The Office, Michael starts dating Holly Flax, a Dunder Mifflin HR representative who temporarily replaced Toby while he was absent. However, the two had to break up when David Wallace transferred Holly to Nashua after seeing her and Michael kissing. This moment broke Michael's heart since Holly was the first woman who really loved him. Michael and Holly had a lot in common and the audience was heartbroken when Michael and Holly split up.

The Office cleverly retook this storyline to give Michael his happy ending. In the seventh season of The Office, Holly goes back to Dunder Mifflin when Toby has to leave for jury duty. Michael and Holly reconnect as Holly breaks her current relationship with her boyfriend, AJ. Soon after Michael and Holly start dating again, Michael proposes, and Holly accepts. Holly then moves back to Colorado, with Michael soon moving with her, finally getting the family he always wanted.

While people were sad to see Michael leave, this arc made sense for the character. At the beginning of the show, Michael has no life beyond Dunder Mifflin. He spends a lot of his free time with his employees because he doesn't have any friends. When Holly leaves for the first time, he agrees to break up and doesn't follow her. However, in the end, Michael learns to let go of his treasured role at Dunder Mifflin. While he's a great salesman and he enjoys being the boss, he understands that he needs to leave for the next chapter of his life to begin. Michael's growth is masterful, and it's a joy to see Michael's newfound emotional awareness in the episode "Goodbye, Michael" as he says farewell to all his coworkers.

Did The Office Stumble After Michael Left?

In terms of viewership and critical reception, it's clear that The Office did backslide somewhat after Michael left. However, the show had been losing viewership since the sixth season, two seasons before Steve Carell stopped portraying the character. As The Office competed with other media and streaming platforms, their numbers started to decay. Not only that, but it's hard to keep a show like The Office running for too long. Since the plots depend on the characters and their environment staying roughly the same, it's inevitable that story arcs and jokes are going to become repetitive or forced. By the time Carell left the series, it was clear that the show had also reached an end, and "Michael Goodbye" could have been the perfect Series Finale.

The Office had a clear structure that crumbled down as the series tried to fill the massive hole left by Steve Carell's character. From the seventh season onwards, The Office desperately introduced a slew of new characters. Will Ferrell's Deangelo Vickers, Lindsay Broad's Cathy, James Spader's Robert California, and Catherine Tate's Nellie Bertram are just a small sample. As hard as the series tried to replace Michael's brand of absurd yet redeemable humor, it wasn't possible. While they introduced amazing actors and actresses to the series, they simply lacked the chemistry that had been built among the cast during the previous seasons. The eighth season of The Office is a bizarre pastiche of forced and unamusing storylines.

Despite all of this, many people still love the eighth and the ninth seasons of The Office, especially the latter. After Michael leaves, there are still interesting stories about Jim, Pam, and Dwight, all beloved characters of the series. Seeing Dwight and Angela finally get their happy ending is one of the highlights of the show, as well as Jim and Pam moving together to achieve their dreams while raising a family. Still, there's no doubt that these seasons would have been much better with Steve Carell's Michael Scott's unforgettable presence.