The Office: Season 4

The fourth season of the American television comedy The Office premiered in the United States on NBC on September 27, 2007, and concluded on May 15, 2008. The season consisted of 9 half-hour episodes, and 5 hour-long episodes to comprise the 19 total episodes of material created. The Office is an American adaptation of the British TV series of the same name, and is presented in a mockumentary format, portraying the daily lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of the fictitious Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. The season was interrupted and shortened due to the effects of the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, in which the writers and some actors of The Office went on strike; although 30 half-hour episodes had been ordered, only 19 were actually filmed. Several of the finished episodes were condensed into hour-long episodes, resulting in only 14 episodes being aired. Season four marked the departure of Karen Filippelli as a regular character, although she appeared for a few seconds in the first episode, “Fun Run” and in the sixth episode, “Branch Wars”, as the regional manager of the Utica branch. Relationships again emerged as the main theme of the season, with Jim Halpert and Pam Beesley’s rising, and Michael Scott and Jan Levinson’s, as well as Dwight Schrute and Angela Martin’s declining. Technology was another prevalent theme as the office staff struggled with initiatives introduced by Ryan Howard to modernize the company.