5 The Office Episodes That Are Unwatchable Today

This article contains discussions of addiction and sexual assault.

When the American version of "The Office" premiered on NBC in 2005, it seemed doomed to fail. A remake of the extremely beloved British series of the same name, "The Office," pioneered by Greg Daniels, cast Steve Carell as Michael Scott, the Stateside version of Ricky Gervais' odious paper company boss David Brent from the original series — and also cast a whole host of fresh faces like John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, Rainn Wilson, B.J. Novak, and Mindy Kaling. The pilot of the American take on "The Office" wasn't exactly encouraging, as it attempted to simply copy its predecessor's homework directly. Then it changed course, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Now, people forget that "The Office" emerged as a seemingly lifeless mid-season replacement — because it's one of the most popular sitcoms in recent television history. Thanks to its sharp jokes, relatable characters, and even its underlying sweetness, the American version of "The Office" became a classic in its own right as we followed Michael and employees like salesmen and rivals Jim Halpert (Krasinski) and Dwight Schrute (Wilson), secretary turned office manager Pam Beesly (Fischer), and the rest of the gang that works at the Scranton branch of the fictional paper company called Dunder-Mifflin.

Still, there are episodes of "The Office" that feel just a little weird watching them later on. Here are five episodes of "The Office" that haven't aged all that well and, for that reason, are borderline unwatchable now — which is why cringy episodes like "Scott's Tots" and "Koi Pond" aren't on this list. Frankly, those episodes were never watchable!

The whole deal with Steve Carell's Michael Scott on "The Office" is that he's well-meaning but bumbling, which often results in offensive jokes and awkward situations. This is pushed to an extreme in the Season 3 opener "Gay Witch Hunt," where Michael uses a homophobic slur against one of his employees, Oscar Montoya (Oscar Nuñez), only to be told by the office's reviled human resources representative Toby Flenderson (Paul Lieberstein) that Oscar is actually a gay man, making Michael's use of the slur way worse than it already was. (Right, just in case this wasn't clear: slurs are never acceptable, regardless of anyone's actual sexual orientation!) As Michael always does, he tries to rectify the situation and just makes everything way worse by inviting his entire staff into the conference room — the site of many of his most offensive overtures — and trying to prove he's totally fine with the queer community.

How does Michael do this? He starts audibly crying and kisses Oscar on the mouth to prove how "okay" he is with Oscar's sexual preference. This is, obviously, unbelievably gross. Not only is it outright sexual harassment and even assault, but it's a humiliating way to put Oscar, who's already embarrassed and anxious about Michael forcibly outing him to his coworkers, on the spot. Oscar gets three months of paid vacation and a company car for his trouble, but whether Michael actually learns from this entire thing is another discussion. Thankfully, there's one plotline in this episode that's still pretty funny — Jim, at his new Dunder-Mifflin desk in Connecticut, convinces Dwight from afar that a "gaydar" machine exists and sends his nemesis a metal detector from Sharper Image, which completely fools Dwight to great effect.

Episodes that take place after the workday is over are a pretty mixed bag on "The Office" — there's another one matching that description on this list, in fact — and "Night Out," a Season 4 lowlight, is a perfect example. By this point in the show, Jim and Pam are finally an official couple, and after Jim comes up with the idea for everyone to work late and avoid coming in on a weekend — something they might actually do because Michael and Dwight abscond to New York City to hang out with her new manager, former temp worker Ryan Howard (B.J. Novak). Here's the problem: Jim doesn't ever stop to consider that the office park locks the parking lot's gates overnight, so when everyone emerges after getting everything done, they're trapped inside. There's some garden-variety racism included in this whole thing — like when Jim begs Oscar to call the office building's cleaning crew, assuming that he speaks Spanish, though Oscar does turn out to be bilingual — but the worst part is when Toby, who's always been carrying a torch for Pam, puts his hand on her knee and then runs away when everyone notices, announcing he's moving to Costa Rica. Uh, okay?!

Elsewhere, in Manhattan, Dwight and Michael accost an obviously intoxicated Ryan, who's on some sort of cocktail of drugs and alcohol and is so messed up that one of his new friends tells Michael and Dwight that Ryan should seek help. Addiction being played for laughs is par for the course on "The Office," where Meredith Palmer (Meredith Flannery) consistently grapples with alcoholism, but this feels like a particularly low point for the series.

Michael Scott has so many embarrassing moments on "The Office," but for our money, his brief and excruciating turn as "Date Mike" in the episode titled "Happy Hour" is in his hall of shame. (Yes, Date Mike is, in fact, worse than "Prison Mike" from the Season 3 episode "The Convict." Close call, though!) In "Happy Hour," where Pam emerges from her first of two maternity leaves to reunite with her co-workers at a post-work happy hour at a local watering hole, Jim and Pam make the decidedly bold decision to introduce Michael to Pam's friend Julie (Laurie Naughton Okin), hoping that the two might hit it off romantically. Instead, Michael figures out it's a set-up and heads to his car to grab his Kangol flat-brim cap. Putting it on backwards, he looks directly into the camera in a confessional and utters the immortal line, "I'm Date Mike. Nice to meet me. How do you like your eggs in the morning?"

Using tactics immortalized by sleazy pick-up artists, Michael ends up making Julie incredibly uncomfortable and getting nearly kicked out of the bar by its beautiful proprietor, Donna Newton (Amy Pietz), who ends up taking a strange liking to Michael despite, you know, everything. "Happy Hour" isn't necessarily the most offensive episode of "The Office," but Date Mike is absolutely unbearable to witness, and rewatching this episode — especially in an era where dating is more fraught than ever thanks to apps and toxic behavior from all parties — is not for the faint of heart.

On its surface, "Product Recall" is a pretty standard episode of "The Office." As the third season draws to a close and Jim finds himself back at the Scranton branch (when his Connecticut one shuts down), the entire office is thrown into disarray when an offensive watermark is placed on multiple reams of paper, all of which are sold to customers when quality assurance doesn't catch the sabotage. (It's explained that a disgruntled employee did this, and Michael obliquely refers to the watermark being a cartoon duck and mouse, likely ones that resemble Disney characters, in a compromising position.) While Creed Bratton (Creed Bratton), Scranton's quality assurance guy, tries to pin the blame on someone else, Michael films multiple versions of an apology video and is castigated by multiple irritated customers, and Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling), who usually works the customer support phone lines solo, gets to train Kevin Malone (Briam Baumgartner) and Angela Martin (Angela Kinsey) on how to deal with even more angry patrons.

So where's the problem? It's found in Andy Bernard's (Ed Helms) storyline. When he and Jim head to a local high school to apologize for the fact that their prom invitations were printed on the problematic paper. While they're there, Andy realizes that his new "girlfriend" isn't just young, but a current high school student. To be fair to Andy, he doesn't know this, but his literally illegal relationship is played for laughs, and it's just an awkward, weird joke to stick into this otherwise really funny episode.

After its weird pilot, the American version of "The Office" really hits its stride in its second-ever episode, "Diversity Day," which was apparently inspired by a truly bizarre exercise that one of the show's writers did during their college years. After sending an off-color joke around the office, Michael is reprimanded by his boss Jan Levinson-Gould and the entire office has to go through a racial sensitivity seminar led by Mr. Brown (guest star Larry Wilmore). As he's wont to do, Michael derails the seminar by making his employees stick cards on their head with different ethnicities and, uh, other terms (Michael gives himself a card that says "Martin Luther King Jr.," and some of the cards refer to countries of origin rather than broader ethnicities) and then interact with people as if they're that assigned race.

This, obviously, culminates in disaster — specifically, a particularly ugly racist outburst from Michael leads to Kelly rightfully slapping him — and even though "Diversity Day" has some solid jokes and helped put the show on the map, it's really, really, really uncomfortable to revisit during regular rewatches of "The Office." If you'd rather not see Steve Carell, in character as Michael Scott, insult literally every ethnicity imaginable, it's probably best to skip "Diversity Day" going forward.

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).