The Office
TV show review time! I’m a bit behind on this one, but thanks to the powers of the Internet, people next year doing a search for reviews of this show will find my review and probably not notice the date. Good times.
What show you ask? I’m glad you asked. I finally got around to watching the entire run of (the American version of) “The Office.” I’ve not done much poking around on the fan sites dedicated to the show, so I lack any knowledge of behind the scene shenanigans. This will be a totally “front end” review from the PoV of a lone viewer. I also have yet to watch the British show this series was based on, so I can’t speak to the originality of all ideas.
I thought the premise of a film crew following the misadventures of a group of office workers (for the Dunder Mifflin paper company) was brilliant and allowed for some lively breaking of the 4th wall from the get go. I particularly enjoyed how this set up allowed a revelation of the ego of some of the characters, in particular the branch manager “Michael Scott”, as played by Steve Carell. Michael can’t help but engage the cameras in his endless quest for self-validation. I felt a bit of disappointment that they didn’t do too much more than the occasional nod and wry expression to the cameras (outside of the “confessional” reality TV style scenes where the characters knowingly engaged the camera and often let the TMI fly). I was excited when they finally did dig more deeply into this idea in season 9. (More on that later.)
The show capitalized a great deal on awkward comedy. The kind where you want to crawl out of your skin from embarrassment and discomfort while you are unable to look away from the train wreck playing out on screen. Timing is everything in this sort of comedy, and this is where the show (and Steve Carell in particular) really shined.
The writing fished around a bit for the first few episodes, but by half way, through season one the writers really caught their stride. In my opinion, seasons one through four had some of the best writing seen on the small screen. Things got a little staid in seasons five through seven as the writers didn’t get into much original territory, and instead let the characters we had come to know steer things along. Those seasons were good enough to get through without feeling like it was a chore, but this had a lot to do with ongoing character development. (More on that in a second.) Steve Carell left the show near the end of season seven. Season seven wraps with a search for a new manager of the office, including guest appearances by Ray Romano, James Spader, Ricky Gervais (go figure since he had already appeared once, and was the star of the original British version, and also happens to be a producer for this version), Jim Carrey, and oh yeah, Warren Buffet. Kathy Bates also joined the cast as a regular for several episodes.
James Spader ends up being the big boss for Season 8 (as the CEO of the company that bought out Dunder Mifflin, Sabre which is a printer company originally run by Kathy Bates.) As much as I love James Spader (and I really, really do), this is where things started to fall apart. The writers basically tried to put the words that would have come from Steve Carell’s mouth (along with the types of gags and awkward pregnant silences) into James Spader’s. The main (and perhaps only substantive) difference in their portrayals is that Spader’s character, “Robert California”, has none of Michael Scott’s lust for engaging with the camera.
At the end of season seven, and through the first several episodes of season eight, I honestly thought that Michael (Steve Carell) would return to the show in some tragically semi-triumphant fashion. As the episodes stacked up I realized I was wrong. By the end of season eight, I had accepted my disappointment and reassured myself that I only had one more season to get through.
Season nine surpassed all my expectations. Despite Steve Carrel not returning (until a brief cameo for the second to last episode), the show’s writing and comedy took a serious upturn. Season nine, in my opinion, is as good as any of the first four seasons. There are several reasons for this. One is that they stopped relying on a Michael Scott clone and instead had one of the show regulars take the manager position (for a little while) with no change in character quirks. They also started breaking the 3rd-and-a-half wall by having the crew filming the characters inside of the show start to become characters in their own right. This included a short-lived love-triangle arc with one of the sound men of the crew filing the in-show reality TV show.
Another reason for seasons nine’s rise in quality has to do with one of the key strengths of the show. I don’t know what show started the trend, but I am very grateful for the move away from the old sitcom wisdom of returning the characters at the end of any given episode to, more or less, the same state they were in at the start of an episode. This has to do with the value of reruns and syndication. Shows that could be run out of order had more re-sale value. In the era of full season drops, on demand services, and binge watching, shows no longer need concern themselves with shying away from continuity. The Office is one of the shows that bridged the gap of this transition. The arcs for each of the characters is fully realized, and there is always some story to follow when the main arc goes off the rails. It seemed plain to me that the writers knew going into season nine that it was their last. They took full advantage of that. All of the arcs were wrapped up quite satisfactorily, with the viewer left well sated.
This brings me back to an earlier point. As I said, I love Jame Spader. I absolutely loved watching him in this show. However, Steve Carell was the true power behind the series. He did not dominate the show. He did not make up for other actors lacks (I couldn’t find any). It’s just that he was the most unique and fresh portrayal in the series, in my humble opinion. I have long admired Steve Carell’s incredible comedic timing. Watching the full run of The Office has convinced me that he is nothing short of a comedy genius. The show simply could not recover from his departure. I want to again state how much I enjoyed all of the actors and the writers. I loved all the stories and am glad they are in my life. That being said, a circus tent cannot stand without its center pole. That’s just they way it is.
It took me several weeks to get through the show. If you haven’t yet (and you like comedy set pieces), I give The Office my highest recommendation.
