Leave it to the Brits to ask the questions we here in the States just won't ask. Despite all the interviews Steve Carell and Tina Fey did before the premiere of the movie 'Date Night,' not one interviewer that I saw here in the US thought to ask Carell how much longer he was going to play Michael Scott on 'The Office.'

However, OfficeTally.com says that someone from the BBC thought enough to ask, and got a surprising response: Carell said he thinks he's done with the show after his contract is up at the end of the seventh season. It could be a negotiating ploy, but it might be a sincere wish on Carell's part to do something else.

Could 'The Office' go on without Carell? Maybe. Though I'm not sure I'd want it to.

Yes, 'The Office' is very much an ensemble show. But as we all know, certain members of that ensemble are more important than others -- you don't see Rainn Wilson doing promotion for the 'Office' board game. Carell's at the top of that heap; more often than not, the bumbling, needy, childlike personality of Michael Scott is what drives the story. Everyone else in the ensemble is too soberly normal -- Pam, Jim, Oscar, Stanley -- or over-the-top cartoonish -- Dwight, Andy, Angela, Kelly, Ryan -- to carry a show on his or her own.

Yes, I included Pam and Jim on that list, even though the Dunder Mifflin supercouple would be the first choice anyone would make to center the show around if Carell left. Here's the problem, though: despite the many comedic talents of John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer, Pam and Jim as married parents have proven to be pretty dull so far.

Most of the plots PB&J have been given since they got married have consisted of incidents that would even make viewers of 'Accidentally On Purpose' cringe: Jim accidentally walks in on the headmaster of their top private preschool while he's in the bathroom, Pam groggily breastfeeds the wrong baby while in the hospital. While plots like this might ring true to new parents everywhere, they don't exactly match the tone of 'scathing comedy about the mundane cubicle world' that we've been used to for six seasons.

The comedy is another reason why Carell's departure should spell the end of the series. When the American version of 'The Office' debuted in 2005, not many people gave it a chance to get a second season, much less last this long. And it's fantastic that a show that was based on Ricky Gervais' original twelve-episode vision has lasted for six years.

But the strain is starting to show; this has been the program's most inconsistent season, with comedic highs like 'Niagara' followed up with clunkers like 'Mafia.' Even the writers don't quite know what to do with the dynamic at DM anymore; Andy and Erin feel like 'Pam and Jim II: The Sequel,' Pam and Jim are too busy being parents to care about what's going on at work, Ryan's evil is contained to making Kelly miserable, and the new overlords at Sabre are so far keeping their hands off.

It feels like the show is running out of things to say. So if Carell decided to leave at the end of next season, it might be one of the best things to ever happen to the show. Wouldn't you rather see them go out while still relatively on top, or after they've become a shell of their former selves?

[Follow @joelkeller on Twitter.]