Following comedian Ricky Gervais‘ announcement to resurrect his character from The Office, David Brent, in a mockumentary, VICE has hit back to try and sway the excitement as Gervais’ attempt may “smudge the memory”.

VICE’s argument is that Gervais may be not only flogging a dead horse, but beating the living-hell out of its corpse – potentially harming the “masterpiece” that was The Office, and it’s a risk the people of TV land are not willing to take.

Even if what he ends up doing with Brent does actually turn out to be any good, it’s unlikely to be as brilliant as The Office – and it certainly won’t be as good as how we remember it.

[…]

The problem here comes when Brent re-emerges into the real world and his story starts to progress – and that’s because his story can’t progress because it’s already complete. In that final episode, he – at last – became self-aware enough to charm a girl and stand up to his bully. The moment he did that he stopped being David Brent. Because he stopped desperately trying to impress everyone the schadenfreude was lost, and he could never be quite as funny again.

It was – and is – the perfect place to leave him: finally at ease with himself.

So whether you think Gervais should revive the beloved character or stick to making human cameos in The Muppets movies, the man himself believes it’s time to revisit David Brent and is “safe” after a 10-year absence.

[source: VICE]