http://www.hitfix.com/tv-tattle/why-the-office-mattered-it-adapted-scripted-tv-to-the-reality-tv-era

http://entertainment.time.com/2013/05/16/six-ways-the-office-mattered/

As "The Office" exits tonight, James Poniewozik explains six ways "The Office" was hugely influential in TV, including bringing hard reality to the workplace sitcom and helping mainstream the cringe factor. But perhaps most importantly, "The Office" applied reality TV tropes successfully to he sitcom format. As he explains, "to NBC’s primetime audience, its signifiers–the confessional interviews, the cameras rushing to keep up with the action–were more immediately familiar from reality TV, which in 2005 people were talking about replacing sitcoms altogether."
Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/tv-tattle#lKCUV5ksaO1uABue.99

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/opinions/while-nobody-was-watching-the-office-became-a-commentary-on-reality-tv-fame.php

In addition to its American counterpart, Ricky Gervais’s The Office has been remade in at least a half dozen different countries, including Chile (La Ofis) and Israel (HaMisrad). It’s often reductive to declare any cultural phenomenon universal or ubiquitous, but, more so than any other television series concocted during the twenty-first century, The Office approaches omnipresence. There’s something about the show’s droll depiction of quotidian cubicle drama that resonates across borders, languages, and cultures. It’s a profound statement about globalization that so many different countries recognize such a similar work environment to the point that such similar comic situations can be structured around it. For every fluorescent-lit cathedral of number-crunchers and quota-seekers, there seems to be an inevitable David Brent or Michael Scott. Since Steve Carell’s departure from the US Office, the show nose-dived into forced and contrived relationship drama. Despite its acts of trading in its trademark (and incredibly effective) cringe-humor for uninspired quirk, I’ve stuck with the show. Every now and then, The Office still delivers an inspired set-piece that reminds me of why I used to wait anxiously for a new episode each Thursday. And every now and again, characters connect genuinely and develop that way that pays off when you’ve been sticking with a sitcom through its ups and down for nine straight seasons. But The Office has made a remarkably different transition late in its last season, where the show’s focus has switched from depicting the droll absurdity of everyday middle class labor to something