NBC’s new streaming service, Peacock, has arrived, and it’s–well, it’s not great. But great or not, many fans of classic comedy show The Office are going to be making the leap next year as The Office leaves Netflix for its new home. It’s a devastating blow, but we’ve all been given plenty of time to prepare ourselves. The move was first announced back in January of 2019 and won’t actually be carried until January 2021.
But, Peacock has found a clever way to feature The Office on their platform five months early, without actually featuring The Office on their platform five months early.
On the Peacock homepage, if you navigate to the “channels” tab and then scroll down, you’ll find one labeled–you guessed it–The Office, where you’ll be able to watch what seems like an endless loop of “shorts,” playing in random order. You can’t pause, skip, or otherwise interact with the shorts at all–it really replicates the feeling of leaving a DVD menu open, or watching the endless looping advertisements in a movie theater before the previews start to play–but they’re definitely there, and you’re sure to eventually stumble across some of your favorite classic gags.
We can assume, based on the other channels available currently, that once The Office does make the movie, the “shorts” will be swapped out for full episodes–though it’s impossible to tell right now whether they’ll still be left in a shuffled, randomized order or if they’ll play one right after the other, chronologically, on a loop. It could potentially be a neat feature for those of us who habitually leave The Office running in our homes just to have something on in the background–and, let’s be real, we’ve all seen the whole thing enough times through to not need the episodes to be played in chronological order, right?
Of course, once The Office has fully migrated, it will be available to watch in the standard fashion as well–but be aware that it’ll have ads (if you don’t pony up for the premium tier subscription), so, best prepare yourself emotionally for that.
