Rainn Wilson Says "The Office" Spin-Off "The Farm" Would Have Been A Hit On Netflix

Dan Lalonde
Sep 13
2 min read

Rainn Wilson Dwight Schrute The Barn The Office

How many failed TV shows do you think would have been a success if they were given a chance on Netflix? I can think of the two 'Supernatural spin-offs, Jorge Garcia's 'Alcatraz', and if we go further back, 'My So Called Life'.

Rainn Wilson, who played Dwight Schrute on 'The Office', talked on 'The Last Laugh' podcast about how NBC lost money by not going ahead with the spin-off 'The Farm' which was introduced as a backdoor pilot on the show's last season:

“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. And they were just not interested at all in ‘Office’ spinoffs 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. 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.”

Wilson added, “But the the history of ‘The Office’ in NBC is, they never really got the show. Honestly, it was like five years after the show was over, when all of a sudden it started being watched in the billions of minutes on Netflix, that NBC was like, wait a minute, this is kind of a cash cow. This is actually a really good show and it’s got some legs.”

Were you a fan of 'The Office'? Would you have watched 'The Farm'? Comment below with your thoughts.