Superstore Deserves to Be as Big as The Office

The Office enjoyed strong ratings during its original broadcast run on NBC, but its audience grew even larger once the series arrived on streaming platforms years later. The show remains a standard answer whenever viewers debate the greatest sitcoms, largely because its depiction of everyday workplace dynamics resonates with a broad audience. Another comedy from the same creative lineage deserves equal recognition.

Superstore is television’s most underappreciated comedy

Justin Spitzer, who served as a writer and producer on more than 130 episodes of The Office, created Superstore. The series adapts the workplace format to Cloud 9, a fictional big-box chain store where staff members navigate corporate policies, eccentric shoppers, and daily friction with coworkers.

The central dynamic pairs Amy Sosa (America Ferrera) and Jonah Simms (Ben Feldman), echoing the Jim and Pam romance from The Office. Over time, the series built an ensemble around them. Characters such as Dina, Glenn, Garrett, Cheyenne, and Mateo regularly carried major storylines and individual episodes.

The comedy also relies on brief, silent cutaways of retail shoppers behaving strangely in the aisles. These cutaways capture customers destroying product displays, misusing merchandise, or wandering through the aisles in total confusion.

Across six seasons, Superstore grounded its humor in real economic pressures. The writers regularly addressed healthcare access, maternity leave, immigration policy, union organizing, low wages, and the instability of hourly retail employment. Rather than turning these topics into special lectures, the series wove systemic labor issues directly into the daily routines of the staff, outside of occasional rants from Jonah.

The show balances sharp jokes with an understanding of how an ordinary job creates deep bonds among the people working it. Much like Dunder Mifflin, Cloud 9 becomes less about the store itself and more about the community formed inside it. Since streaming helped The Office find a second life, Superstore deserves the same widespread appreciation.

Source: Polygon