"The Office" certainly can remain open for business without Steve Carell's Michael Scott. But the question is: Should it remain open?

Carell announced last week that the seventh season of the show would be his last, which seems a good opportunity for a show that was showing the first signs of wear to wind down toward a conclusion.

If any comedy on TV could drag along for another few seasons, it would be "The Office" with its deep roster of gifted writers and producers doing double and triple time as cast members in the deepest TV comedy ensemble since "M*A*S*H." Carell was the breakout star from the show, but just as often the laughs have come from secondary characters such as Creed, Stanley and Kelly, a wonderfully developed periphery that was pulled toward the middle.

Still, much of the show's humor is based on the other characters' interplay with Michael in his haven of ineptitude in Scranton, Pa. To substitute another boob (Charlie Sheen is, mercifully, occupied) is to ignore the delicate nature of character chemistry. Further, a good boob is hard to find.

When "The Office" was a wobbly-kneed freshman comedy, Carell signed on for seven seasons, which seemed optimistic at the time. There was early backlash by fans of the British "The Office," a show that had the good sense to run for a short time -- less than the span of one U.S. TV season.

Humor isn't known for a great shelf life. If topical, it becomes dated. If racy, it becomes chaste. If relegated to a single set, it can become tiresome. Especially in an office. Especially when work has become such a tenuous or absent thing for so many people.

That "The Office" has endured six seasons without being sunk by the time-honored torpedoes of office romance and a wedding is a testament to the deft and self-aware touch of its creators.

Spinoffs are conceivable, especially given the depth of the cast. But in a way, the walk-on quality applied to some of the noncentral characters is the show's magic. Like the perfect "Arrested Development" or the seemingly doomed "Party Down" -- two underwatched but well-developed series -- "The Office" might be better served by following the clichés: not overstaying its welcome and calling it a night.

Even if that's not what "she said."