The Dwight-led spin-off was first revealed shortly before season 9 premiered in September 2012, with “The Farm” being filmed and ultimately airing towards the back half of the season. Unfortunately, it didn’t pan out, as “The Farm” is widely regarded as being one of the worst episodes of “The Office.” However, as Wilson has told it, that’s not exactly why NBC decided not to proceed with the show.
During an interview on “The Last Laugh” podcast, Wilson discussed what went down with “The Farm” behind the scenes. “NBC, at that time, had a new regime that came in, and they wanted to do big, bright, flashy, splashy shows that were multi-cams and going back to ‘Friends’ kind of thing,” the actor explained. He went on to add that he feels the network made a costly mistake:
“They were just not interested at all in ‘Office’ spin-offs at the time. Had they taken ‘The Farm,’ they’d probably have another billion dollars in the bank. Even now, all the people that have seen ‘The Office’ 20 times, they’re going to watch ‘The Farm’ at least once or twice.”
“Would it have been as good as ‘The Office’? No. No way. Not even close,” Wilson admitted. “Would it have been good? Would it have been solid? Would it have been a good solid comedy? Yeah, it would have, and we would’ve done some really cool stuff. And I think they really missed out.”
