Jenna Fischer Says the Later Seasons of ‘The Office’ Are ‘Really Good’ Despite ‘Belief’ that the Show Was ‘Treading Water’ After Steve Carell’s Exit: ‘There Were Still These Amazing Storylines’

As one of the show’s most iconic characters, it’s fitting that Jenna Fischer has love for every season of “The Office.”

Fischer, who played Pam Beesly across 188 episodes of the classic NBC workplace comedy, revisited all 201 episodes of “The Office” and documented her journey on her “Office Ladies” podcast. She finished the series in October, and in a recent conversation on Dana Carvey and David Spade’s “Fly on the Wall” podcast, she shared one of her major takeaways.

“My biggest takeaway from having rewatched it was that it’s really good the whole time,” Fischer said.

She explained that there is a consensus that after series frontman Steve Carell exited the show in Season 7, the series took a nose dive in quality. However, upon her rewatch, Fischer found this to be a misconception.

“I think there was this lore, especially among the cast and the creatives, that maybe we hit our peak in Season 3 or Season 4,” Fischer added. “And also this belief that the two seasons after Steve left, we were just treading water and maybe they weren’t as good. But when I watched everything, some of my favorite episodes were in seasons 8 and 9 after Steve had left. There were still these amazing storylines.”

She added that her favorite era of the show was “seasons 4 through 6,” shouting out “Dinner Party” in Season 4 as a standout episode.

Although the original “Office” ended in May of 2013, Peacock recently unveiled a spinoff series titled “The Paper.” The official logline for the show reads, “The documentary crew that immortalized Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch is in search of a new subject when they discover a historic Midwestern newspaper and the publisher trying to revive it.”