Well, super-sizing most of their shows just felt unnecessary, but The Office really benefited from being able to expand the story. I'm glad they still see that the Office can use ocassional forays into extended time, but I actually think 40 minutes is the sweet spot for them, not 60. But I guess it allows them to still do the re-edit reruns again which struck me as a novel solution to the rerun fatigue issue. Maybe they could just do an Office spin-off like last summer's web series, with the focus on the background characters. If the Heroes experiment works, The Office is a pretty good way to extend the idea.

Personally, I'd love to see a network just admit that they only have 3 really good comedies, and put them all up at 40 minutes each. There always has been one not so great comedy in the NBC Thursday night block. Not since the Cosby Show/Family Ties/Cheers/Night Court block has there been 4 good ones.

i don't know what you guys are smoking but the supersized episodes were longer by about 8 - 9 minutes of extra show on top of the predicted extra commercials. and i wish i knew what these guys are thinking but i loved the supersized office episodes. more office = good thing.

But creating a Heroes spin-off series doesn't count as "super-sizing"?

Maybe they realized that instead of people TiVo-ing their shows, they didn't record the SS ones since they conflicted with the other shows that viewers actually cared about.

Yeah, how else could they sell these "super-sized" episodes for syndication if they weren't really normal length ones padded with 10 extra minutes of commercials?

If you timed the shows, they weren't much longer then normal - they just had a lot more advertising in them!