My favourite TV show of all time is the American version of The Office. I've seen every episode multiple times, can rattle quotes and trivia off the top of my head and can talk about it for hours. Sure it may not be the best or the funniest or the most consistent show ever made, but it's my favourite, the show to which I judge all other shows, (or at least all other comedies) and I've missed it since it went off the air in 2013. Sure, there's been plenty of great comedies on TV since then but none of them (Except for Jane The Virgin, which is a lot more than just a straight-up comedy and Parks and Recreation, which was well into it's run when The Office ended so can't really be considered a successor) have made me feel the level of joy The Office gave me week in and week out. Over the course of it's first season though, new NBC comedy Superstore (which returns for it's second season Thursday Sept. 22nd) came incredibly close.
Superstore (created by Justin Spitzer who was a longtime writer for The Office) has a lot of similarities to The Office. It's a workplace comedy about a group of people trying to pass the time at their boring, monotonous job while their hopes and dreams go mostly unfulfilled. There's a well-meaning but ineffectual manager and an over-bearing zealous assistant manager who's essentially a female Dwight Schrute. At the heart of the show is a pair of people trying to make the best at a job they're wasting their talents on, while developing a friendship with a definite "Will They/Won't They" spark to it. There's also a varied, diverse group of supporting players rounding out the ensemble and an ever-expanding group of minor characters who can pop in for a quick laugh and pop out again. All this and more makes Superstore feel familiar, but the show feels avoids feeling like a tired retread thanks to good writing, some very well-drawn characters and excellent use of the show's setting.
The show's setting is vital to it's success. Cloud Nine, a Walmart-esque big box store where the show is set isn't the kind of place you see on TV very often but is a place ripe with storytelling and comedic possibilities, as Superstore demonstrates each and every episode. Secret shoppers, hapless customers, flu vaccines, wedding sales, shoplifters, corporate magazines eager to highlight diversity, pointless grunt work and more come up throughout the first season. Small interstitial vignettes of life throughout the store (such as children tearing up the make-up aisle or customers sleeping on the display couch or quickly groping a mannequin) help transition between scenes and bring the world of the show to life in hilarious detail, while adding to the idea that anything can happen here. The fact that this is a minimum wage job and Cloud Nine corporate is more concerned with the bottom line and appearing to care and listen to employee needs than actually caring or listening to employee needs is also ever present (a late season scene where a simple request call to employee services escalates dramatically with an off-hand mention of the word union is both hilarious and chilling), giving a dark edge to the bright surface of the show that pays off dividends as the season goes on. Few of the employees actually want to be at this dead-end retail job, but they don't have a better option, which is something the show understands and highlights.
The show is also expertly cast, with the actors bringing to life characters that in lesser hands could feels like simple stock types and together, sharing an easy-going chemistry that almost makes you want to work at a Cloud Nine, just so you could hang out with these people. Heading up the ensemble is Amy (America Ferrara), a long-time employee and shift manager who loves her family but regrets getting pregnant at 19 and having to put her dreams on hold to support them and Jonah (Ben Feldman), a fresh employee and business school drop-out who applied for the job on a whim and whose more privileged upbringing often sticks out among the other employees. The two develop a friendship/rivalry that feels lived-in and natural and while there's definite chemistry, Amy being married with an 11-year-old helps offset the relationship causing a natural slow-burn on the possibility of romance between the two. Amy and Jonah may be at the show's centre, but they don't overwhelm it, being surrounded by a group of characters who can just as easily take the lead when needed. Store manager Glenn (Mark McKinney) is an evangelical Christian (which is played for laughs while still treated seriously as a part of his character) who's clueless but kind-hearted, and who turns out to be much more frustrated with Cloud Nine and the way they treat their employees than he lets on under his cheery exterior. He's counterbalanced by Dina (Lauren Ash) who's rule-obsessed and strives for excellence, but also has a softer side which comes out in her love for the many birds she owns and her affection for Jonah. She's the broadest character, but Ash is great at finding the humanity behind her need for order and love of authority that keeps her from being a total caricature. Garrett (Colton Dunn), an easy-going, wheelchair-bound agent of chaos always looking for ways to avoid work, Mateo (Nico Santos), an ambitious, competitive employee hoping to rise to the top, and Cheyenne (Nichole Bloom) a pregnant teen trying to get money to support her baby round out the cast, with all of the actors doing great work to bring dimension to their characters. There's also plenty of supporting players like Bo (Johnny Pemberton), Cheyenne's ridiculous but devoted rapper wannabe fiancé, elderly employee Mertle (Linda Porter) or creepy employee Sal (Sean Whalen) and an endless supply of customers to further flesh out Cloud Nine and make it feel like a real place.
Superstore is also a very funny, confident show and it uses both setting and character to create plenty of great, specific moments. When the store is forced to stay late to change the signs to a new colour, the new colour turns out to be essentially the same as the previous one ("The old signs were a pale, outdated colour called "Glossy Dolphin". The new signs are a bold, exciting colour called "Glossy Dolphin-B". Jonah's classically handsome looks and pretentious manner are routinely mocked ("He looks like the villain on the CW"). When an elderly customer dies on a display couch, Cheyenne and Nico compete for the right to take home the couch. When openly gay Mateo compliments Christian Glenn on how open minded he is, Glenn laments the view of Christians as intolerant then obliviously adds "you have no idea what it's liked to be stereotyped like that". Garrett has no problem taking full advantage of his wheelchair bound status to sell product during a sales contest with 100 dollars on the line ('"I wish I would've bought a Vitamix" was the first thing I said when I woke up from my coma'). The show's setting also allows for them to routinely have the kind of large-scale set-pieces The Office could only occasionally pull off (Their recent Olympic special features an Olympic tribute that quickly devolves into a chaos quite reminiscent of Dwight's fire drill from The Office's Superbowl episode). The previously mentioned interstitial scenes add to the comedy of the show and bring jokes to routine scene transitions. Of course, the comedy isn't perfect and plenty of the jokes are hit or miss but that's to be expected of a show in it's first season while it figures out what works. Superstore is figuring out what works pretty fast though and I expect it to soon be as good at bringing the comedy as it is at bringing the humanity.
Ultimately though, the humanity is the reason I've grown to love Superstore as fast as I have, just as it's the same reason I fell in love with The Office all those years ago. It's the reason I see Superstore as a promising successor to The Office, even if it still has a ways to go before even coming close to The Office in it's prime. See, as hilarious as The Office was, I loved it because it felt real. The characters felt real so it was easy to become invested in them, to root for them to succeed and to feel a little heartbroken when the world seemed to be against them. Superstore is the same way. After 12 episodes, I want to see these characters succeed and find a way so that they don't have to work at Cloud Nine anymore. Everyone feels real and that makes the emotional moments on the show all the more potent. The first season ends with almost the entire staff staging a walk-out in support of Glenn, who's been fired for defying corporate policy and finding a loophole to give Cheyenne a bit of paid maternity leave. It's a moment that feels earned and is as powerful as anything I've seen on TV this year. A moment that gets you both worried and excited to find out what's next for these characters.
Superstore's not a perfect show. It's not even really a great show yet, but it's a show that starts fine and keeps getting better, and if it can keep up it's momentum heading into the second season, it'll be a great show in no time. I strongly doubt it'll ever replace The Office as my favourite show of all time, but if it keeps carrying on it's spirit the way it does, it just might make me forget how much I miss it.
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