version of The Office asks its audience to soldier on even though Ricky Gervais’s David is relentlessly horrible. While he does share some qualities with characters like Tim or David (especially the incompetence and loneliness), Stath and his colleagues are dysfunctional and endearing in their own distinctive, clueless ways. Stath is entirely his own man - his own sweet, obnoxious, inept, strangely sheltered, and beautifully cheerful man. The great thing about Stath Lets Flats, though, is that it’s not a copy or a knockoff or a barely adapted new version. There’s a cringing discomfort in watching perfectly nice, normal people try to stay calm while Stath fails at his job, and it’s a close cousin to the awkwardness of watching Tim and Dawn try to maintain a typical office environment while working with David Brent. Stath is an unutterably bad employee it’s truly hard to imagine how anyone could be worse at showing apartments. Stath Lets Flats ditches the mockumentary format, but the workplace dynamics and grubby, low-to-midrange scrappiness of it feel direct from the U.K. The Office parallels are obvious and no doubt intentional. The office is staffed with plenty of distinctive, goofy characters - Carole (Katy Wix) is hypercompetitive and much more effective than Stath but also a bit of a mess Al (Al Clark) is sweet, awkward, and weedily tall Dean (Kiell Smith-Bynoe) hates his job and the agency and all the employees but is among the best agents. Stath’s sister, Sophie ( Natasia Demetriou), is equally incompetent and equally enthusiastic, especially in her efforts to chase her dream of becoming a professional singer and dancer. If your brain doesn’t immediately parse the Britishisms in the title, the premise of Stath Lets Flats needs some explanation: Stath (Jamie Demetriou), an enthusiastic and incredibly incompetent young man, works for his father’s rental agency, where he helps people find apartments (flats) to rent (let).
I watched both seasons in one day and then I sat and thought about why Stath Lets Flats is the first show in nearly 20 years to feel like a legitimate successor to The Office. So when I finally got a chance to sit down and do some work, I decided it was time to try Stath Lets Flats, a British comedy that had been on my list for a while, something that felt light and low stakes but also absorbing. I spent the weekend trying to frantically scrape together some sense of order, which mostly failed. My family just moved, which is a harrowing situation with two young kids even if you’re not doing it in the middle of about a dozen overlapping global crises.
My life has felt a little discombobulated lately. Natasia and Jamie Demetriou in Stath Lets Flats.
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