The Farm (The Office)

The episode guest stars Majandra Delfino, Matt Jones, Thomas Middleditch, Blake Garrett Rosenthal, David Koechner, Allan Havey, Nora Kirkpatrick, Mary Gillis, and Michael Schur.

"The Farm" was produced to serve as a backdoor pilot for a proposed spin-off series starring Wilson as Dwight, which NBC ultimately did not pick up.

At the funeral, Dwight's family gathers: his cousins Mose and Zeke, his brother Jeb, his sister Fannie, his nephew Cammy, and his uncle Heinrich.

[1] It was originally supposed to act as a backdoor pilot for a spin-off series, also called The Farm starring Wilson and focusing on Dwight.

[5] Executive producer Greg Daniels revealed that the episode would have additional material shot so that it fits better into the season, as the original version contained "certain aspects that were appropriate for a pilot of a new show".

Tom Bower appears as Dwight's great uncle Heinrich in a deleted scene only, although he retains his credit in the broadcast episode.

None of this was necessarily bad on its own, but because we know what we know, it came off less like a weird outing for Dwight and revealed the stitching of people trying to patch in a standalone episode... which by mere approach made it feel larger and grander, the seams of the monster."

[17] TV.com columnist Nick Campbell called the farm storyline "unnatural" compared to the episode and the series, as a whole, and wrote that the tone to the ending "didn't match".

Club reviewer Erik Adams complimented the episode for serving as a "breather" from the season's long arcs, and gave good background information into Dwight's personality.

He went on to criticize the pilot's broad humor, writing that following the scene featuring Dwight shooting a shotgun into his aunt's casket, "it would be next to impossible for The Farm to heighten from that point".

[18] Damon Houx of Screen Crush called the two storylines "two pieces of that [sic] didn't work all that well together", which all added to a "dull" episode.