To me season 1 was fascinating. They tried to do a straight-over transfer of the UK show, and it was wrong, but they still made a go of it. Ricky Gervais is simply way too mean a character for an American audience to get invested in, and they tried a straight port of that character, but it wasn't that good. By the time they reached season 2, they had worked out how to reinvent a more or less totally separate show that was suited for an American audience, and it turned really good (and then yes they kept it going too long instead of wrapping up the party while everyone was still having fun, and made several unnecessary and kinda painful extra seasons.)

It's kind of interesting to contrast it with the American IT Crowd, where they simply put people who had no idea what was comedy in charge of a comedy sitcom and then expected it to work. IDK why that happens sometimes with UK->US translations but that's what they did. But for The Office they seemed like they had good people who were able to eventually make something happen with it.

Watch the UK version instead of season 1. It's the same script.