‘The Office’ Gets an Extra 15 Minutes to Say Goodbye

NBC is having a hard time saying goodbye to its most successful comedy of the last decade, “The Office.” Its one-hour finale just got longer.

NBC announced on Tuesday that it had extended the finale another 15 minutes, meaning the last episode, which is scheduled for May 16, will run from 9 to 10:15 p.m.

Greg Daniels, the show’s executive producer and the creator of the American version of the show (it was originally created England by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant), had been lobbying NBC ardently for weeks to add more time because the finale was so packed with farewell scenes.

On the set last month, Mr. Daniels said he didn’t know how he was going to be able to edit the show down to just one hour (including commercials) because he had taken pains to give each member of the show’s enormous cast some suitable goodbye scene.

His campaign won out with NBC’s announcement on Tuesday of the additional 15 minutes, a move that harks back to the old NBC strategy of “supersizing” its comedy hits â€" letting them run a bit longer than their specific half-hour time periods. (NBC will accommodate the extra time by squeezing the drama that follows, “Hannibal,” to run from 10:15 to 11, with fewer commercials.)

The “Office” finale brings the cast together for one last round of interviews related to the nine-year documentary a crew shot at the Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company â€" as well as a wedding.

The news of the wedding has led to speculation about who winds up married. It has increased the speculation that the show’s longtime star, Steve Carell, will make a cameo appearance in the finale after all. (It was previously announced that he wouldn’t.)