When I say something is as good as The Office, people should not take that lightly. I am the obnoxious girl you've heard people on Twitter complain about. Read me a line - I could probably tell you what episode it's from, give you context, and possibly recite the rest of the scene too.

That's why, when I tell you this new show on YouTube is going to be the next Office, I am being 100% serious.

Meet PBC. It's a show about accountants doing accountant things - and while that may sound boring to the outsider, those of us who have seen the inner world of accountants know that it's a pressure cooker full of some of the most stressed-out dorks and geniuses you've ever seen, all of which is a recipe for pure insanity and ridicoulousness.

But it's not so much the situation that makes this new workplace comedy so golden - it's the characters themselves. Even in the first episode, each one is so real:

  • There's Sarah, the brand new senior accountant who just got out of the world of public audit - those are the people who are in charge of fact-checking the accountants of other companies (a soul-crushing job)
  • Hunter, the too-cool baller who doesn't want to admit he cares about anything (heavily reminiscent of beloved characters like Andy Bernard and Tom Haverford from Parks and Rec, but with more swag)
  • Makayla, the intense and exacting hyperfeminist(?) who seems to terrify everyone (and with good reason - at first she comes of as a badly written charicature of a woman who doesn't quite get what feminism is, but then she admits to being a pyromanic and you realize, oh no, she's just fully insane and the writers did amazing)
  • Dave Goodman, he bumbling but well-meaning corporate controller (the big boss, one step down from the CFO) who desperately wants to be the whole office's cool dad (and who really, really does not want to be cancelled, please)
  • Tracy, the crazy-eyed manager who shows up to smile and pile work on, only to disappear (I have a feeling we'll get to learn why she's making the same face as the crazy girlfriend meme all the time in another episode)
  • Jason and Tim, two good-for-nothing IT guys who make it clear that they're trying to do as little work as possible (by playing with a VR headset in the empty parking lot)
  • Ricky, the nosy janitor (played by Machete's Danny Trejo, which is probably a better insight into his persona than any description we could give)
  • And last but not least, Jessica, the CFO, who really just seems to like making her employees squirm. (In the first episode she catches them in a lie and then proceeds to make them play tag outside for an hour. Just to watch.)

The icing on the cake? This last one is the character played by Kate Flannery, better known as Meredith from The Office. (It actually honestly kind of reminded me of a less sexual version of Meredith pretending to be the boss in the Season 7 episode "The Sting." Just without the really bad Spanish.)

Also, while I haven't seen more than the first episode (yet - I immediately had to tell everyone it existed), apparently later episodes also feature The Office's Creed Bratton.

PBC - which, by the way, is an acronym that stands for Provided By Client, the most annoying list that most accountants deal with - was created by inactive CPA (certified public accountant) Mike Whitmire, and it shows, because the accounting subreddit r/Accounting is going absolutely nuts over the accuracy of this show.

The other writers include Josh Sims, who also directed, and Michael Gallagher of Totally Sketch, who has been putting out hilarious YouTube content for well over a decade - including that of Jenna Marbles, one of the original YouTube celebrities.

PBC is produced by FloQast, who brand themselves as "the place where accounting and entertainment collide. It's not accounting content - it's accountant content." It appears to be their first venture into entertainment; up until this point they seem to have mostly dealt in productivity software for accountants.

It is not, however, co-producing studio Cinemand Films' first rodeo: They have several titles under their belt, including the cult YouTube hit Real Bros of Simi Valley and The Thinning.

The first season of PBC, just six twenty-something minute episodes, premiered on YouTube on January 13, and their channel also features some bonus content for the first season. Give it a watch now; It's gonna be big.

Tags: Kate Flannery Creed Bratton Danny Trejo Mike Whitmire Josh Sims Michael Gallagher