NBC’s ‘The Office’ series finale expanded; ‘Hannibal’ to run with limited commercials

“The Office” and executive producer Greg Daniels have managed to make their wish come true: When the series finale airs on NBC in just over a week, it will be doing so without having to make substantial cuts to the story.

The network confirmed on Tuesday that the episode on May 16 will be in total an hour and fifteen minutes long. It will start at its standard time of 9:00 p.m. Eastern, but will run until 10:15. Meanwhile, a new episode of “Hannibal” will follow, but it will contain limited commercial interruption. If you are DVR users, be sure to set this all accordingly.

Daniels has been campaigning for this change for much of the past several months, with the primary reason for it being that the series has so many stories and/or loose ends to tie up, and they want to find a way to make it happen without anything being cut out in the process. Considering that this show has become the network’s highest-rated comedy for much of the past decade, it’s hardly much of a surprise at all that they were kind enough to offer this. (Plus, the ratings for “Hannibal” are more or less in the tank.)

So will this finale bring the show back to some of its former ratings glory? When you remember who is going to be appearing on “The Office” for the first time in years (Steve Carell), you have to imagine that the interest level is going to be higher than it has been in quite some time.

Are you glad that NBC made this move, and do you believe it to be right for the show? Be sure to share some of your thoughts with a comment below!

Photo: NBC