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Here are the best shows like The Office for fans of the NBC hit

Workplace comedies, mockumentary sitcoms, and more great titles for fans of the classic show.
By
March 20, 2023
The Office
NBC

The Office left a huge mark on TV when it went off the air in 2013. Fans panicked when it was pulled from Netflix, where they could rewatch the bingeable favorite at will, but you can currently catch it onNBCUniversal’s top-notch Netflix alternative Peacock, where it’s one of the best comedies to stream. So, what are some other shows like The Office that you may want to check out?

Shot like a documentary, The Office follows the employees of Dunder-Mifflin, a paper company in Scranton, Pensylvania, led by their blundering oss and  would-be mentor Michael Scott. The employees pass the time playing pranks, planning events, and doing anything they can to avoid work.

Read on for a list of 10 shows like The Office that may scratch a similar itch as the NBC classic. Or, if you’d like to watch The Office, you can check it out now on Peacock.

Peacock logo large
Peacock
NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming service offers a lot of great movies and TV shows to stream on demand, along with live news and sports. Best of all, you can watch lots of its content for free, or watch all of it with a paid subscription starting at just $5.99 a month.

Shows like The Office

The Office (2001-2003)

The Office
BBC

What you need to know:

  • Rating: TV-MA
  • Runtime: 30 minutes per episode
  • Creator: Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant
  • Main cast: Ricky Gervais, Martin Freeman, Mackenzie Crook, Lucy Davis
  • Genre: Workplace comedy/mockumentary
  • Ratings: 8.5 – IMDB / 97% – Rotten Tomatoes

In this BBC original, paper company manager David Brent thinks he’s a funny, loveable boss. In reality, his employees put up with his antics each day because they have few other options.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that the number-one show like The Office is, er, The Office. The British version of the show offers a much drier, more cynical take on office politics. While its American counterpart leaned into feel-good comedy, allowing many of its characters to grow into a found family, the original, with its shorter run, remains much more satirical throughout.

Ready to watch? You can find the show right here on Hulu.

Parks and Recreation (2009-2015)

Parks and Recreation best peacock shows
NBC

What you need to know:

  • Rating: TV-14
  • Runtime: 22 minutes per episode
  • Creator: Greg Daniels, Michael Schur
  • Main cast: Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt, Adam Scott
  • Genre: Sitcom/workplace comedy/mockumentary
  • Ratings: 8.6 – IMDB / 93% – Rotten Tomatoes

Leslie Knope does her best in her midlevel role at Indiana Parks and Recreation to make her home better for everyone. That often means facing off against tired, bored, overworked, and generally disinterested bureaucrats and a hostile public, not to mention her coworkers at the Parks and Rec department.

Originally conceived as a spinoff of The Office, Parks and Recreation ultimately went another route, but it kept the mockumentary format and general sense of humor of its NBC counterpart, becoming beloved workplace comedy with its own distinct creative identity and cast of colorful characters.

Ready to watch? You can find the show right here on Peacock.

Space Force (2020-2022)

Space Force
Netflix

What you need to know:

  • Rating: TV-MA
  • Runtime: 28-37 minutes per episode
  • Creator: Steve Carell, Greg Daniels
  • Main cast: Steve Carell, John Malkovich, Diana Silvers, Ben Schwartz, Jimmy O. Yang
  • Genre: Workplace comedy
  • Ratings: 6.7 – IMDB / 58% – Rotten Tomatoes

Following President Trump’s announcement that he wanted to format Space Force and put more Americans on the moon, Netflix launched this workplace comedy about the team tasked with doing just that.

With mixed reviews and a brief, two-season run, Space Force is hardly a knock-out hit, but it’s a show like The Office in a few important ways. It shares a creator, and it importantly features Steve Carell as the manger of a comical workplace.

Ready to watch? You can find the show right here on Netflix.

Modern Family (2009-2020)

The cast of Modern Family stands together at the foot of the stairs in the Dunphy home
ABC

What you need to know:

  • Rating: TV-PG
  • Runtime: 22 minutes per episode
  • Creator: Christopher Lloyd, Steven Levitan
  • Main cast: Ed O’Neill, Sofía Vergara, Julie Bowen, Ty Burrell, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Eric Stonestreet
  • Genre: Sitcom/mockumentary
  • Ratings: 8.5 – IMDB / 85% – Rotten Tomatoes

This long-running ABC sitcom followed a titular modern family. Patriarch Jay lived with his new wife and step-son, his daughter headed up a nuclear household with her husband and their kids and his son raised an adopted daughter with his husband. The three families were close and relied on each other from episode to episode.

While it’s not a workplace comedy, Modern Family is nevertheless a show like The Office in its general format as a mockumentary, joining several shows that drew from the massive success of The Office by allowing characters to interact more directly with the camera for comedic effect. It’s a hilarious show, full of touching family love and relatable comedy.

Where to watch:

Abbott Elementary (2021-ongoing)

Abbott Elementary
ABC

What you need to know:

  • Rating: TV-PG
  • Runtime: 22 minutes per episode
  • Creator: Quinta Brunson
  • Main cast: Quinta Brunson, Tyler James Williams, Janelle James, Lisa Ann Walter, Chris Perfetti, Sheryl Lee Ralph, William Stanford Davis
  • Genre: Workplace comedy/mockumentary
  • Ratings: 8.2 – IMDB / 99% – Rotten Tomatoes

Abbott Elementary follows the teachers at the titular Philedephia public school. The series follows interpersonal relationships and office politics while also exploring broader structural issues like underfunding, inequality, and charter schools.

The award-winning Abbott Elelmentary is one of the best shows currently on the air. It shares much of The Office’s DNA, primarily its mockumentary format. Unlike most of its predecessors, Abbott Elementary more explicitly acknowledges the camera crew filming and works their fictional documentary project into the show’s narratives.

Where to watch:

Superstore (2015-2021)

Department store employees stand together in Superstore
NBC

What you need to know:

  • Rating: TV-14
  • Runtime: 22 minutes per episode
  • Creator: Justin Spitzer
  • Main cast: America Ferrera, Ben Feldman, Lauren Ash, Colton Dunn, Nico Santos, Nichole Sakura, Mark McKinney, Kaliko Kauahi
  • Genre: Workplace comedy/sitcom
  • Ratings: 7.8 – IMDB / 93% – Rotten Tomatoes

This NBC sitcom follows the employees of a fictional Walmart-like superstore in St. Louis, Missouri. Told almost entirely inside the big-box Cloud 9, the series focuses exclusively on relationships within the store, including staff rivalries and romances, mismanagement, and the threat of cut hours.

A major point in common between Superstore and The Office is the range of attitudes and experiences within the workplace. While some are looking for a long-term career, others are just doing enough not to get fired as they see their futures elsewhere. The series never looks down on retail workers but still finds comedy in their daily struggles, ambitions, and frustrations.

Ready to watch? You can find the show right here on Peacock.

Severance (2022-ongoing)

Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, John Turturro, Tramell Tillman, and Zach Cherry in an office in Severance - shows like severance
Apple TV Plus

What you need to know:

  • Rating: TV-MA
  • Runtime: 55 minutes per episode
  • Creator: Dan Erickson
  • Main cast: Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman, Jen Tullock, John Turturro, Patricia Arquette
  • Genre: Thriller/drama/sci-fi
  • Ratings: 8.7 – IMDB / 97% – Rotten Tomatoes

In the near future, an experimental procedure allows workers to sever their working minds from their leisure minds. When you clock out at work, your workplace memories vanish, and vice versa, allowing you to be the best possible employee while leaving work stress where it belongs. But when a man receives messages from the outside world while at work, he begins to investigate what he’s really working on.

Severance may not at first seem like an obvious show like The Office, and it’s admittedly the most unlikely addition to this list. That’s primarily because it’s a dark thriller with sci-fi elements. Still, the series, one of Apple’s best, explores the monotony of office work from a fresh perspective that is a compelling complement to The Office’s comedic interpretation.

Ready to watch? You can find the show right here on Apple TV Plus.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013-2021)

Brooklyn Nine Nine best peacock shows
NBC

What you need to know:

  • Rating: TV-14
  • Runtime: 22 minutes per episode
  • Creator: Dan Goor, Michael Schur
  • Main cast: Andy Samberg, Stephanie Beatriz, Terry Crews, Melissa Fumero, Joe Lo Truglio, Andre Braugher
  • Genre: Sitcom/police procedural/workplace comedy
  • Ratings: 8.4 – IMDB / 95% – Rotten Tomatoes

This sitcom, from Parks and Recreation co-creator Muchael Schur, follows the cops and other employees at the Brooklyn 99 police precinct. As a team, the group grows together, facing various challenges as they seek to serve and protect.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is among the best workplace comedies, and it premiered just as The Office was ending. It focuses on a very different workplace and has a more traditional format as opposed to The Office’s mockumentary approach. But the two share a wacky sense of humour, silly office hijinks, and an emotionally satisfying core, with employees of the Nine-Nine becoming a surrogate family.

Ready to watch? You can find the show right here on Peacock.

Party Down (2009-ongoing)

Party Down
Starz

What you need to know:

  • Rating: TV-14
  • Runtime: 26-31 minutes per episode
  • Creator: John Enbom, Rob Thomas, Dan Etheridge, Paul Rudd
  • Main cast: Adam Scott, Ken Marino, Jane Lynch, Ryan Hansen, Martin Starr, Lizzy Caplan
  • Genre: Sitcom/workplace comedy
  • Ratings: 8.2 – IMDB / 94% – Rotten Tomatoes

A group of out-of-work actors in California work for a catering company in this hilarious comedy about making ends meet when your dreams are taking a little longer than planned to come true.

With a comically inept boss who just wants everyone to give it their all, Party Down is a show like The Office in its treatment of hierarchies within workplaces, with most low-level employees keeping their heads down and biding their time as management begs for big smiles and can-do attitudes. With a growing cult following, the series landed a long-delayed third season, streaming only on Starz.

Where to watch?

Scrubs (2001-2010)

Scrubs
NBC

What you need to know:

  • Rating: TV-14
  • Runtime: 22 minutes per episode
  • Creator: Bill Lawrence
  • Main cast: Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke, Donald Faison, Neil Flynn, Ken Jenkins, John C. McGinley, Judy Reyes
  • Genre: Workplace comedy
  • Ratings: 8.4 – IMDB / 83% – Rotten Tomatoes

New medical students learn the ropes at Sacred Heart Hospital in this top-notch 2000s sitcom. The series follows characters through their early careers as doctors, surgeons, and nurses, focusing on mentorship, professional growth, and other life lessons.

Despite a shaky last season, Scrubs remains one of the best workplace comedies like The Office for its numerous outstanding early seasons. Like The Office, the show features workplace pranks, gross mismanagement, and some heartfelt moments of connection between its characters.

Ready to watch? You can find the show right here on Hulu.