Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Did we really deserve a show as perfect as Superstore? I’m honestly not sure that we did, but lord knows we have loved having it around for the past six seasons. It’s a perfect example of a jokes-first sitcom, delivering nearly nonstop laughs week after week while the rest of the comedy genre dabbles with drama. Superstore has also been a great unifier, especially here at Decider. Since we started our Best Shows of the Month lists two years ago, Superstore has popped up a whopping seven times, from May 2019 to January 2021. The show has the longevity, and we love it just as much today as we did way back when—and truthfully, we’d love future seasons just as much if NBC can just change their mind about this whole “cancellation” thing. No? Please? Seriously? Whatever.
But here’s the thing about sitcoms, the ultimate in TV comfort food: they live on way, way after the end of their network run. Viewers continually discover old classics and new favorites via streaming services, and that’s what’s kept shows in the conversation and relevant even as they grow increasingly dated. There’s no better example of this than The Office.
Another NBC workplace sitcom, The Office debuted to lukewarm reviews and modest (at the time) ratings. But then this show about a place with a water cooler became the archetypal water cooler show—quite possibly one of the last of them, too, as water coolers were replaced by, like, fancy coffeemakers and free seltzer and, more recently, our boring home refrigerators. The Office was a word-of-mouth hit, fueled by early memeable moments and the rise of digital television purchases. If you owned a video iPod in 2006, odds are you had at least two episodes of The Office on there.
While The Office was never a hit in the traditional sense (comparison: The Big Bang Theory was a top 10 ratings hit while The Office never cracked the top 50), it became the kind of niche hit that was absolutely vital to NBC’s brand. During its 9-season run, The Office became a kind of if you know you know hit. Viewers felt like they were in on something special, even as the show succumbed to the usual signs of age: the big star left, a bunch of new characters were added, the initial will they/won’t they settled into the same old same old. The show ended in 2013, but its life was really just beginning. The fact that The Office was more of a cult classic during its original run is probably shocking to you, because the show is maybe the biggest comedy of the past 20 years thanks to years and years of Netflix dominance. The Office is just a part of American life now, so much so that there was a Twitter riot when the show’s Netflix contract expired and the show jumped to Peacock. You know, those episodes you downloaded are probably still on your video iPod, if you can find it!
I say all this in an article about Superstore as an intro to the main point: Superstore deserves to be the next Office. It deserves to become immortalized via streaming services (Hulu and Peacock, BTW). The show’s jokes need to become today’s catchphrases. My husband and I quote Justine’s “I hope not all of us sluts” all the time but, y’know, uh, you find a saying that works for you!
I want people to communicate only in Sandra or Marcus GIFs. We should get have Zephra product replicas and there needs to be an entire line of Superstore Funko Pops for people to gift around every holiday season. I want to own a miniature Cloud 9 floor cleaner robot—I mean a little statue, not an actual floor cleaner robot. Although, if there’s demand for a Cloud 9 Roomba, then pop off Superstore merchandising team! I also want Lauren Ash to join the cast of The Mandalorian, but that feels like a separate thing.
Really, I just want everyone—and I really do mean everyone—to watch Superstore now that its story is complete. I say this in all sincerity, because I really cannot think of a show that is more deserving. That’s because for six seasons, Superstore continually cleared the increasingly high bars that it set for itself. It wove the issues that define our times and define America into a tapestry of brilliant, character-driven comedy. Superstore did not have to talk about racism, healthcare, income inequality, unionizing, deportations, and COVID-19, but it continually rose to the occasion more than any of its sitcom peers (even Parks and Recreation didn’t get this political—and that’s a show about government).
I don’t know if that was part of the show’s initial pitch, but the brains behind the scenes realized early on that their show, the only sitcom set in a workplace that employs millions of Americans and touches all of our lives in some way, was able to really dig in and make these issues as integral to the show as they are to America.
But never once has Superstore felt preachy or problem-of-the-week-y. That’s what the tapestry metaphor implies; all of those close-to-home storylines are right there with the hijinks and quirky romance and physical comedy that makes comedies so rewatchable. Superstore is infinitely rewatchable because of the characters.
Amy’s ever-changing name tags, Mateo and Cheyenne’s gossiping, Sandra’s Oscar-worthy monologues, Jonah’s one-sided friendship with Garrett, the saga of Dina’s birds, the staggering blandness of Jerry, the slow burn supervillain origin story of Carol, Justine’s unquenchable thirst, Glenn’s grating optimism—I could keep going forever, because Superstore knew how to grow character arcs over seasons, resulting in some of the most dynamic pairings on TV. You will discover something new every single time you rewatch an episode.
Honestly, Superstore deserved a lot more in its six years. It deserved Emmy nominations and higher ratings and at least three more seasons. It deserved a post-COVID finale, so that this heartfelt found family could say goodbye under non-apocalyptic circumstances. But Superstore got what it got, and it gave so much more than it had to. The least we can do for this gem of a series, one that never backed down from tackling the issues that affect us, is to make sure it just becomes more popular than ever for the rest of time. I hope you have a heavenly binge.
