In season nine of The Office, there was a hidden pilot episode that could have been the start of a potential spin-off for Dwight Schrute. The beloved, hard-working salesman almost hit the jackpot with his own show titled The Farm.
The Farm centers around Dwight and accountant Oscar. They go to Schrute Farms to attend the funeral of Dwight's Aunt Shirley. While in attendance, Dwight learns that he inherited Schrute Farms. The episode proceeds to give watchers a peek into his personal life. The show would have included Dwight's sister Fannie Schrute, her son Cameron Whitman, his brother Jeb Schrute, and their great uncle Heinrich Manheim.
The seventeenth episode of the ninth season was intended to introduce the characters that would be in the spin-off while keeping the documentary filming style.
According to an article published by Looper, the actor who played Dwight (Rainn Wilson) had previously teased that The Farm would be "even more far out and weirder than The Office." He was confident that fans would find the spin-off "really cool."
But, the show was doomed from the start. Wilson confirmed on Twitter that NBC had rejected the spin-off series. This news was announced months before the episode aired.
"Farm Update: NBC has passed on moving forward with The Farm TV show," he posted. "Had a blast making the pilot – onwards & upwards!"
When the episode aired, it was received poorly by fans. According to an article published by Screen Rant, many fans felt that it lacked elements that made The Office special. Also, viewers thought it was too late for a spin-off. The Office was ending and fans thought an immediate spin-off wouldn’t have been the right move. Fans wanted to remember Dwight as he was on the show. His chapter, along with the rest of the characters, deserved to end along with the show.
In a review written by Alan Sepinwall for Uproxx, he said, "As a surreal, occasional accent on the mundane world of The Office, Dwight's beet farm and the weird Schrute family traditions can be incredibly funny. As the center of a show, though, I reacted to it in much the way Oscar did when Dwight started pumping shotgun rounds into the coffin. Even the scene where Dwight teaches his nephew how to milk an animal; while humanizing, wasn't enough to compensate for the cartoonishness elsewhere."
If the pilot episode performed successfully, Dwight’s fate on The Office would have changed everything. The plan was for Wilson to be in 13 episodes of the final season and then leave to tap The Farm. If he made an exit before the show’s finale, would he have proposed to Angela? The wedding was the event where everyone, including Michael Scott, reunited. After the wedding, everyone went back to the office to spend one final moment together before they went their separate ways.
Furthermore, he was given the Regional Manager position, which is something he strived for since the start of the show. Who knows if that would've happened if he left.
In the end, maybe it wasn’t meant for The Office to have a spin-off. In the age of so many reboots and remakes, The Office remains a classic that was great for its time.
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