The Office through the years

I disagree with your season 1 assessment it cherry picked ideas from the original which fell flat for the most part. The original ideas such as the basketball game were much better when they gave up on following the UK version closely things really started to fly.

I only thought the pilot episode from season 1 was following the British version too closely. It was almost a scene for scene remake just not as good.

If you had never seen the British version of the show it wouldn't be an issue of course.

Seasons 1-4 were just pure perfection, with Season 4's Dinner Party being absolute perfection.

Seasons 5-9 had some pretty great episodes, however, there were some weaker moments here.

Although the first few had some gems in there, I found the farce much more enjoyable. Sometimes the cringe is too much for me and makes it much harder to just jump in to the show on a whim rather than investing in it and acclimating to the humor

Seasons 2 and 3 are among the greatest seasons of any show in history.

Season 4 was great as well, but had so lesser episodes and wasn't quite up to the previous 2.

Season 5 had a darker tone to it for most of the season. Still solid show, but more serious moments and less comedy.

Season 6 and 7 Had some great episodes, and some real duds. Still one of the best shows on tv but not as great as it had been.

Season 8 was a complete disaster. They obviously went into the summer with no plan on replacing Carell, and in a desperate act brought in Spader. Also they wanted to expand Ed Helms role since he had just hit big The Hangover which gave way to much Andy, with little to no direction.

Season 9 was only saved by the fact that they made it the last season.

I've gone through the first seven seasons on Netflix a few times now and have come to a few conclusions:
1. Carell was an absolute master throughout his run. Can't think of single episode where he was a buzzkill.
2. Jim was an ass. He allowed himself considerable, unchecked latitude when dealing with Dwight and the others but was always up on his cross moralizing to them. I loved the episodes that put him in his place (Charles Minor eps, Koi pond ep, and snowball fight with Dwight ep).
3. Pam probably had some flaws but I couldn't see them since she was so smoking hot. Yep, I'm a sap.
4. Andy was a great addition until the writers started putting him into ridiculous situations just to highlight Ed's musical talent. Helms has great comedic talent yet he's always singing and hamming it up in, of all places, an office. 'Andy's Play' being a perfect example of this. I didn't watch seasons eight or nine but can imagine his character only devolved further.
5. Angela...(see item 3)
6. I think Rainn portrayed Dwight true to the original concept the longest of the main players even though the writers eventually started turning his character into a farce. I wish they would have included Rolf more as his sidekick. That dude was perfect for Dwight.
7. Creed was my outright favorite. He was such an enigma. Indisputable King of the non sequitur.

As I said earlier, I haven't seen S8 or S9 the exception being the series finale. I tuned in when it was first broadcast and the one thing that stood out the most to me was how the entire cast seemed to be just phoning it in. The entire episode seemed like a table read to me. Like the cast were just ready to call it a day and get on to something else.

The show was greatest S1 - S5 with S6 and 7 mostly good but starting to show cracks in the overall series arc.