🏢 The Office US vs UK version, which one actually holds up better

Watched the original UK version of The Office for the first time last month after years of only ever having seen the considerably longer running US adaptation, mostly out of simple curiosity about how the source material actually compared to the version I had already watched multiple times myself over the years. The UK version is noticeably shorter overall, just two proper seasons plus a specific Christmas special wrapping everything up, and the tone felt genuinely more uncomfortable and cringe inducing by comparison, in a way that felt deliberate rather than accidental, leaning fully into genuine secondhand embarrassment rather than the gradually warmer, more heartfelt tone the US version eventually settled into across its considerably longer run. I actually prefer the US version overall myself, mostly because the ensemble cast had genuinely more room to develop over such a considerably longer run, side characters got real, meaningful arcs that the shorter UK version simply never had enough actual time to properly explore given its much more compact overall length. But I completely understand why some people prefer the UK version's tighter, more focused, and consistently uncomfortable specific tone throughout its shorter run. A friend who is genuinely a purist about this specific comparison argued the UK version is objectively the better piece of writing specifically, more disciplined and considerably less prone to the occasional filler episodes the US version definitely accumulated across its own considerably longer run, a fair point I cannot really dispute even though I still personally enjoy the longer version more overall. What genuinely surprised me most watching the original for the first time was how directly certain specific US episodes actually lifted structure and even individual jokes from the original UK material almost exactly, something I had vaguely known about beforehand but had never actually seen laid out so clearly side by side myself before this specific comparison. Which version do people here genuinely prefer, and did watching the original UK version, for those who came to the US version first the way I originally did myself, actually change how you feel about the American adaptation afterward?

Watched both back to back a few years ago and the tonal whiplash going from the UK version straight into the US one was honestly bigger than I expected, it took a good couple of full episodes before the warmer tone actually stopped feeling quite so jarring by direct comparison to what came right before it in that exact same sitting.

The UK version genuinely feels like it was never trying to be liked in the same way, considerably more willing to just sit in pure discomfort without softening it, which honestly makes it a harder but more interesting watch for me personally overall, even if it is genuinely the tougher one to actually recommend to most casual viewers I know.