The Office – “Dinner Party”

“Dinner Party”

April 10th, 2008

Although I don’t particularly want to watch last night’s episode of 30 Rock again before writing a review, I’m going to have to in order to find at least one good thing to say about it. In the meantime, however, the more positive note of the evening (outside of the Montreal Canadiens’ 4-1 victory – woot) is the return of The Office with a difficult task: how does one live up to what was finally the first home run of the season, the pre-strike finale featuring Michael and Jan’s boardroom standoff?

You could tell that they were returning from the Strike – there wasn’t a great sense of time, and the events of the boardroom were only vaguely mentioned. That is the real struggle of the strike, a loss of momentum amongst the storylines that often tie the series together. There was one area where they picked up the slack, though, which I’ll get to after the jump.

The story is a rather simple situation, and one that The Office has used more as its budget has grown. Just as Pam and Jim traveled to Dwight’s farm earlier this season, now they travel along with Andy and Angela to Michael and Jan’s condo where we discover, if not the direct continuation of that previous conflict, the residual struggles represented by their home furnishing decisions.

At first, we seem to be spending too much time on these elements: the video camera being left-out is funny, but after awhile the problems kept rolling on and became a bit much. I felt that, especially, Michael’s fake relationship with Pam felt unnecessary – I’d rather Jan be portrayed as a controlling nutjob than a jealous one, at least the first gives her a bit of credit.

However, as my brother noted, they stuck the landing: what seemed as just part of the atmosphere (Michael’s “Plasma” TV, the neon sign v. Dundies question, Hunter’s CD) all came together at the end for a strong conclusion. The song was just bad/good enough, and so clearly written about Jan without being directly acknowledged by the parties involved, that its reprise at the end of the episode proved memorable. I’ve never been a huge proponent of The Office’s insistence on awkward humour, but here it worked because it all had an end point, a connection to the characters.

And really, in this episode, Jim and Pam were reactionary and little more: they were there for their facial expressions, their awkwardness, and as our eyes into the madness. In reality, I was much more interested in Angela and Andy (And Dwight, later), as it is an intriguing relationship we didn’t get to see as much of. Of course, perhaps the funniest moment of the episode was Andy’s contamination of her ice cream, and her quick and speedy retort.

If there was ever an argument for a spinoff, perhaps it is that episodes like this are good for these characters…but not when half of them are missing. It was probably a good episode to start the rest of the season with, since it used less actors, sets and the like outside of the cold open, but it doesn’t do the entire cast justice. I’m still weary on the idea, but I’m more open to it after the show’s return than I was before.

Cultural Observations

• Anyone who wants to tell me who the actress playing Dwight’s “carnal” Babysitter is more than welcome to direct me to her IMDB page – it’s driving me a little crazy, to be honest.
• I have to wonder where Michael and Jan go from here: even though she’s patching up the Dundie at episode’s end, I still don’t like her characterization and feel like they need to find something new for her character. And no, her starting a poorly-scented candle company is not what I had in mind.
• The Cold Open fell a little flat, which is always a sign that the episode was rushed.
• Will be back with 30 Rock in the morning, and maybe some thoughts on Scrubs…but I’m going through old seasons on DVD and might be scrubbed out.