Category Archives: The Office

October 23, 2008 · 10:20 pm

The Office – “Crime Aid”

“Crime Aid”

October 23rd, 2008

In what is quite definitively the weakest entry yet this season, we discover The Office falling into one of its many potential potholes (having Michael do things that are almost too on-the-nose in the obnoxiousness column) even while we get a decent glimpse at the rest of the supporting cast. There’s some funny gags in “Crime Aid,” including that the event itself is a ridiculous acronym, but it feels as if the actual plot is just a thin construct that sees the show in a holding pattern.

It’s not an awful holding pattern, but it feels as if everyone is in a rut except for Michael and Holly, who become less fun as the episode goes on and it focuses less on them and more on their stereotypical roles in the office. The result is an episode that’s going to be largely forgettable in the big scheme of things, even if we got a couple of strong little moments.

Not quite a total loss of momentum by any means, but definitely a bit of a step back from the great start to the season.

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October 9, 2008 · 10:40 pm

The Office – “Business Ethics”

“Business Ethics”

October 9th, 2008

Any show in a fifth season needs to be able to do two things: to best utilize its long-standing character relationships, and to integrate new elements into the storyline. What we have in “Business Ethics” is fantastic examples of these two principles, using both our (and Jim’s) extensive knowledge of Dwight’s personality gives us a great opportunity to indulge in one of the show’s best dynamics, and Holly continues to serve as a fantastic introduction to this “family”…or, workplace if you will.

It’s an episode that is all about the small little moments, the pieces of scenes as opposed to any broad setups. What these half-hour episodes do that the hour-longs which started last season didn’t was to really focus on a single event and its impact on the Office. We get a lot of the Office standards (including a seminar in the conference room), but it feels like the right combination of events following the episode’s ethical dilemma – and its a combination of events that make for an extremely memorable episode.

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September 25, 2008 · 10:03 pm

Season Premiere: The Office – “Weight Loss”

“Weight Loss”

September 25th, 2008

There’s something very ironic about the desire to slim things down that pervades this evening’s much-anticipated season premire of NBC’s The Office. The show’s biggest problem in an uneven fourth season was its hour-long episodes, those which felt too bloated and out of control; it was at its best in shorter segments which left no room to breathe between their humour and their awkwardness (“Dinner Party” as the best example). But here we are with another hour long segment, an awkward concept wherein two half hour parts (which will be split for the purpose of syndication) must come together to introduce us to the season ahead.

But, in the vein of “Goodbye, Toby,” this episode feels more an investigation into this office and its character than last season’s opening episodes which felt much more mundane, much more perfunctory. Choosing to, for a change, show us an entire summer at Dunder Mifflin as opposed to dropping us into the fall, it allows The Office to follow up directly on the great elements of last season’s finale: from the wondrous Amy Ryan continuing to impress, to Ryan’s fall from grace, and both Andy and Jim’s ill-advised engagement strategies.

As the episode unfolds, and the ramifications of last season’s finale echo amidst the weight loss storyline, this never feels like an overstuffed episode: it feels like a welcome return to a familiar environment, an episode where characters get to be characters, histories get to be histories, and more importantly almost every joke lands. Not overwhelmed by any one storyline, and ending with a satisfying note on which to jump start our season, “Weight Loss” is everything I wanted in a premiere.

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May 16, 2008 · 2:18 pm

Season Finale – The Office – “Goodbye, Toby”

“Goodbye, Toby”

May 15th, 2008

So, you may be wondering: “Myles, it’s the biggest comedy finale of the year, where’s the blog post?” Now, there are two reasons for my delay in getting this post out the door: one is known as “Rock Band” and the other is the episode itself. There is something about this particular episode that had me extremely perplexed – I knew I laughed a lot, I knew I really enjoyed guest star Amy Ryan, but I also knew that the end was certainly a note of tragedy for the series. Everything we wanted to happen didn’t, and everyone fell into a depressive downward spiral.

So it wasn’t a question of whether I liked it, or whether it was good, or whether it was anything – it was just that I didn’t really know how to react to this episode. I would like to think that it’s not just that I don’t know how to talk about something I almost uniformly enjoyed, but part of me can’t help but wonder. Regardless, it’s a sign that hour-long Office episodes aren’t so bad when they’re actually, you know, good.

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May 8, 2008 · 10:03 pm

The Office – “Job Fair”

“Job Fair”

May 8th, 2008

Earlier today, a feature I worked on with David Chen at Always Watching went live about how Michael Scott can often be a schizophrenic character, but that in many ways these many facets develop into an integral part of the series. When Michael is able to be a little bit of everything, who doesn’t fall into a single stereotype that overwhelms the episode.

Theere was no overwhelming The Office on this night, however – the show has been firing on all cylinders since returning from the strike, and it all came together for the second fantastic episode in a row. The show shows great touch in balancing three storylines, each with connections to recurring storylines but also with some solid forward momentum.

When you combine Ed Helms’ physical comedy, Rainn Wilson’s tattletale psychology, and Michael Scott in an environment where there are impressionable youths, the inevitable result is a great half hour of television, and perhaps the best of the show’s season.

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May 8, 2008 · 3:11 pm

Introducing “Cultural Conundrums” @ AlwaysWatching.org!

Greetings, Cultural Learnings readers! Things have been a lot busier on this front lately, with a lot of episodes to analyze/review for a lot of my favourite series, and perhaps you’ve noticed a recurrent stream through many of them: a lot of retrospective thoughts on the ways shows are shaping up in this strike-shortened season. While Cultural Learnings has been definitely relying mostly on episodic analysis, there’s a lot of broad ideas that I’ve wanted to investigate, and with the school year over I had a chance to do so.

I also had a chance, however, to work with some great folks over at Always Watching, a fantastic film/TV site which features some great, well, features on a regular basis. I’ve spent some time on their podcast in the past, and was honoured to be asked to contribute a series of articles to cover the television side of things. I certainly view these as complimentary to this blog experience, so don’t think that it will keep me from pontificating on television here at Cultural Learnings.

Cultural Conundrums is a good chance to have video retrospectives and definitive analysis of the season that was, or the shows that I watch. The first edition is The Many Faces of Michael Scott, an analysis of the ways in which Michael Scott’s character on “The Office” seems downright schizophrenic at points. The end result, of course, is a character that is all sorts of different things, and that diversity allows for the humour and genuine character development to be heightened at a moment’s notice.

The Many Faces of Michael Scott @ AlwaysWatching.org

Special thanks have to go out to Dave Chen, who went through the ludicrously exhaustive trouble of retrieving the Hulu videos – we Canadians can’t access them, so he really deserves a co-author credit on this one. (On a related note: sorry to my Canadian/International readers who won’t be able to view the videos – hilariously, I’m in the same boat, so know that even the author feels your pain!)

You can also Digg the article, to help get the word out about Dave, Devindra and Adam’s great site (And, perhaps this one too, if you want) by clicking the Digg Button conveniently located to my right. But, please, make sure you head over to Always Watching too, it’s a great read.

Will be back tonight with thoughts on tonight’s episode of The Office, the Season Finale of 30 Rock, AND the NBC Finale of Scrubs. I will probably hold off on Lost until tomorrow, just to give the requisite time to the finales.

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May 2, 2008 · 12:42 pm

The Office – “Did I Stutter?”

“Did I Stutter?”

May 1st, 2008

I’m in the process of preparing an article for Always Watching on what I consider to be one of the Office’s most definitive qualities, and I am always glad to see when something pops up to prove my point for me. In this instance, “Did I Stutter?” manages to portray a version of the Office where no one is an abject idiot, and things which were funny without being sensationalist or over-the-top. It was the best possible argument for a version of this series, and its characters, which resists caricature in favour of subtle, yet brilliant, development.

A lot of this is dependent on the version of Michael Scott that we see, and here he is at his most naive, desperate and yet also honest – this is a Michael Scott who of course doesn’t know how to handle an employee being insubordinate, but when tasked with addressing the problem searches for advice and inevitably comes across a decent, if eventually overused solution.

And if The Office can be both funny and logical while maintaining this characterization, I’m on board.

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April 28, 2008 · 10:54 am

The Office – “Night Out”

“Night Out”

April 24th, 2008

So, yes, I am extremely late blogging about the most recent episode of The Office. This isn’t because I didn’t like it, but rather that after a long, long day of packing and moving things I didn’t particularly feel like watching anything that I knew I would be viewing critically (It’s inevitable). As a result, I chose to watch the second season of Project Runway (Which, now that it won a Peabody, doesn’t qualify as a guilty pleasure), and only last night sat down to glimpse at the latest The Office had to offer.

I was admittedly quite satisfied with the episode, as it demonstrated the show’s willingness to step outside of the Office while maintaining the character interactions that make the series function. It was great to see a corporate falling out that actually makes sense (Why couldn’t we have had that for Jan?), and the office storyline was slight but certainly demonstrative of a side of Jim and Pam which we rarely see.

And there’s really not much more to say: it was funny, it was entertaining, and it showed some interesting sides of characters. But, let’s go into a bit more detail, shall we?

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April 17, 2008 · 9:59 pm

The Office – “The Chairmodel”

“The Chairmodel”

April 17th, 2008

On its surface, and in its synopsis, “The Chairmodel” was about Michael Scott overcoming an offscreen breakup with Jan by pining over a model he finds in a catalogue. On the surface, his immediate attempt to get the entire office to set him up seems like the typical office scenario: Michael makes a fool of himself multiple times, we all laugh, Dwight plays along, and then Michael comes to a false epiphany that is just so twisted it hurts. It’s a formula that works, and it was nice to return to this type of strong structure that is indicative of the latter fall episodes.

But, leaving the episode, is anyone really thinking about Michael? After Pam’s landlord was given reason to hate Pam forever, the real story kicked in: Pam pondered moving, Pam tested the waters for moving in with Jim and that she wouldn’t do it if she was engaged, and then Jim did it: he said it was coming. An engagement, he said, was going to happen – Pam played along, but her face right afterwards showed some trepidation. And then Jim, in a talking head, says he wasn’t kidding, pops out a ring, and then saying the most twisted thing of the entire episode:

“I bought it a week after we started dating”

Which may be the most compelling argument ever that Michael and Dwight might not be the dumbest people on this show after all.

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April 10, 2008 · 10:03 pm

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.

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