The Office, "Body Language": Kiss me, stupid

A review of last night's "The Office" - and this week's bit of potentially huge "Office" news - coming up just as soon as I reanimate a bull...

The internet briefly freaked out earlier this week when a radio clip turned up of Steve Carell saying he intends to leave "The Office" when his contract ends. Everyone calmed down quickly once they realized two things: Carell's contract runs through next season, so we still have a while to go; and chances are high that over the next year, NBC will find a way to keep Carell around, whether that requires more money, a more flexible schedule that would have Michael largely absent from some episodes, or what have you.

Now, I think most of us are in agreement that this hasn't been a particularly strong season for "The Office," and that's led many of you to declare that the show needs to end soon. Even with the Carell situation, that ain't happening. "The Office" is one of NBC's few success stories, and its only real comedy hit (the other three Thursday sitcoms are largely being buoyed by its wake), and while a network's fortunes can change in a year, I have to believe the show is too valuable to let go. And I do think, as I've said before, that whatever problems there have been this year, the show can rebound, because I've seen it happen to great sitcoms that have had off years.

And in watching an underwhelming, Michael Scott-centric episode like "Body Language," I almost wonder if an arrangement where Carell isn't around as much might be beneficial.

Look, I love Steve Carell. Funny man, talented man, kind man, and the show would not exist without him. He's been at the center of most of the funniest moments and episodes of this show's history, as you'd expect from the leading man. But despite being at the center of the show, Michael has always been the character the writers have had the most trouble getting a handle on. Some weeks, he's the 8-year-old who never grew up. Some, he's got Asperger's. Some, he's just a normal guy who isn't as funny as he thinks he is.

The inconsistency, and the writers' tendency to fall into the trap of highlighting Michael's worst qualities (writers on "The Simpsons" fall prey to the same thing with Homer), can make me really dread Michael-centric episodes sometimes. "Body Language" wasn't nearly as bad as this season's "Mafia" - nor was Michael as idiotic in this one as he was there - but it was still a fairly uncomfortable, airless outing, one where nearly all the laughs could be found in the Dwight/Daryl/Kelly subplot.

Given the choice between more episodes like this or occasional episodes where Michael's on the road and Dunder-Mifflin has to get by without him, I think I might take the latter. That way, perhaps the Michael-heavy episodes might be more focused.

I know there can be a danger in trying to elevate supporting characters above the lead, but "The Office" has always been structured in an odd way, where Michael is the main character in terms of screen time and his importance to the plot, but where he's otherwise written like a supporting character while Jim and/or Pam are written as more traditional leads. So I think an "Office" with Carell's reduced participation might actually work, and perhaps work better than what we've gotten this season.

But again, that's a year away, at a minimum, and hopefully the series can rediscover some of its juice before then.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "Secretary's Day": C is for suspension

A review of last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I send out a snail mail blast...

There were a lot of good things in "Secretary's Day," including maybe the best showcase yet for super cast addition Ellie Kemper, and a fine subplot about Oscar's joke video about Kevin. But several pieces never quite fit together well.

The Cookie Monster video has irrevocably changed the way I will hear Kevin's voice from now on in the same way that I can no longer watch the "Parks and Recreation" credits without singing "Jabba the Hutt!" That whole subplot was a very funny portrayal of an office joke run amok, and had a nice payoff with Kevin taking control of the joke by turning everyone's impressions onto Gabe. And, for that matter, it was good to see Gabe doing something other than playing middleman between Michael and Jo Bennett. The idea of him as the corporate bogeyman whom no one actually fears because they can see he has no power is very promising, and I look forward to more of that.

But when Kevin went to Gabe to complain about the video, all I could think was, "Why isn't he going to Toby?" Had they done this as an episode where Toby wasn't at work that day, it would have been fine, but once we saw him at the fax machine, it became a distraction. Toby eventually figured into the story (by giving Jim and Pam the ammo to get two extra paid vacation days), but overall it felt like they shoehorned Gabe into what should have been a Toby story because they needed to give the new guy something to do (and/or because, as one of the showrunners, Paul Lieberstein has less time to appear on camera these days). It's something that could have been easily fixed either with Toby absent all show, or even with a brief scene of Toby sending Kevin to see Gabe because he didn't want to deal with the problem, but we got neither in the final cut.

As for the Erin story, it worked if you were able to completely forget every previous Michael/Erin scene. Until now, the idea has been that these two have a mutual admiration society - that Erin not only worships Michael, but that Michael in turn is grateful to finally have the fawning sidekick and partner in crime he always hoped Pam would be. Here, though, Mindy Kaling's script tried to portray the relationship as entirely one-sided, with Michael barely tolerating Erin's presence as a favor to Andy. As much fun as some of Erin's non-stop chatter was ("then it became a full Taco Bell and I couldn't keep up"), and as well as she played the freak-out at the restaurant (pictured above, with Erin trying to turn her hair into her room), it wasn't until the final scene on the bench that any part of the episode resembled the previously-established dynamic between those two.

Still, it was good to have the Angela cat finally come out of the bag, and funny to see Erin throw a cake in Andy's face, and also to hear the phrase "a novelization of the movie 'Precious, Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire,'" but as with the Kevin subplot, this needed some tinkering.

A few other thoughts:

• I was afraid to go back and freeze-frame, but did we actually see Meredith's exposed breast in the scene where she was using Pam's breast pump? Also, should I even ask why she would be using it, or just block the whole moment from my memory?

• TV-savviness: Dwight thinks of "Sesame Street" as "that program where all the puppets live in the barrio," while Gabe suggests everyone leave the impressions to "the pros at 'Mad TV.'"

• I should also say that I liked how Kaling's script and Steve Carell's direction gave us a slightly more grown-up, recognizably human Michael, after we've seen a few episodes this season (including the Kaling-scripted "Manager and Salesman") that set him at a more cartoonish angle.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "Happy Hour": Be gay with him, but be straight with me

A review of last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I whack some moles...

After a couple of episodes that finally recaptured the tone of the series but didn't bring a lot of laughs, the B.J. Novak-scripted "Happy Hour" was more of a mixed bag: very funny and/or on-model in parts, and then incredibly stupid in others.

Take, for instance, the use of Kevin. Kevin standing behind the windows making sex gestures and giggling while Andy and Erin talk about wanting to keep their obvious relationship a secret? Very very funny, and something Kevin would absolutely do. But Kevin repeatedly crying like a baby to make Pam lactate? Gross and weird and something where Jim and/or Pam would have slugged him the second time for sure, if not the first.

For that matter, I rolled my eyes at an awful lot of the Andy and Erin material. There comes a point where writing this relationship as Jim & Pam 2: The Dumbening stops being sweet and starts being, well, stupid, and I think we reached it here. Just because PB&J tried, and ultimately failed, to keep their romance a secret doesn't mean that these two have to automatically try the same gambit. Go somewhere else with it, please.

And yet the larger atmosphere of the Happy Hour night - and the idea that Oscar's attempt to ask out Matt the warehouse guy would lead to a really fun night for most of the office and warehouse staff - was really well-done and had a lot of nice moments for most of the ensemble. Darryl's new office is already paying dividends, as the "you can be gay with Matt but be straight with me" scene was a very dry, funny exchange between Darryl and Oscar. We finally got to see why Pam's friend Isabel might actually be into Dwight (she's a lot like him, just prettier), and we got some nice small moments like Phyllis's explanation of why she wears low-cut tops on nights out and Ryan and Kelly trying to concentrate on Dance Dance Revolution. And, of course, Oscar acknowledging Darryl's point that Matt isn't the right guy for him and then immediately running off to pathetically shoot hoops with Matt was a pathetic but believably funny moment.

As for Michael Scott as Date Mike? Another mixed bag. I get the joke - that when Michael's not trying to be charming and funny, he actually is charming and funny, and that his belief in himself as a performer always sabotages him - but Date Mike, like Prison Mike and some other alter egos before him, was just so over-the-top that it was painful to watch. And given that Michael was having some success with Pam's friend, and that Jim and Pam wanted to make this fix-up work, and that Michael has on occasion in the past been willing to listen to Jim's advice, I just didn't buy that Jim wouldn't have pulled him aside and been a lot blunter and more forceful about how badly Michael was screwing up what had been going so well only moments earlier. All the Date Mike shenanigans were a build-up to Michael forging a better connection with the bar manager (played by Amy Pietz), but I find less is always much, much more with Michael at his zaniest.

Overall, though, I'd say the good outweighed the bad in this one, but just barely.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "New Leads": A-B-D: A, Always. B, Be. D, Dumping!

A review of "The Office" coming up just as soon as I incentivize murder...

Like last week's "St. Patrick's Day," "New Leads" wasn't an incredibly funny episode, but it felt like the show getting back on course in terms of tone and in terms of having some kind of bigger story to tell.

This was the first time we really felt the impact of the new ownership, as Sabre's "sales is king" corporate culture starts creating big rifts in the office, with Jim and the rest(*) treating the non-sales staff like serfs until Michael brings things to a head when he refuses to give them the new leads(**).

(*) I know there's been some complaining this season that Jim and/or Pam have become smug and unlikable, and I briefly worried that this episode would make things worse in that regard. But then we saw Jim's behavior being equaled (or surpassed) by Dwight and Stanley and Phyllis, and we also saw Jim as the one to convince the others to make a peace offering. So his soul's not gone just yet.

(**) Any mention of new sales leads means I automatically have to link to Alec Baldwin in "Glengarry Glen Ross." Have to. Don't have a choice in the matter.

Tension in the office, particularly tension that's not all based around Michael (even if Michael assumes it is, because every day is Michael's birthday), tends to lead to good episodes. It was fun to see Phyllis become so haughty, and then to see the sales staff have to bend and scrape to the others to get the leads (Stanley enduring a Ryan/Kelly argument about the Kardashians, Phyllis having to fill out meaningless paperwork for Angela, Andy getting too hot-and-bothered over Erin's Hot/Cold game), and then to see the non-salespeople unwittingly throw away some money at the sight of the cookies. (As Stanley, Leslie David Baker has a wonderfully expressive face that the show wisely lets him change only on occasion so it has more effect; the growing smile as Stanley realized what had happened with the cookies almost made the episode on its own.)

Michael and Dwight having a garbage fight at the dump didn't particularly work, in part because it was so goofy (as was Andy and Daryl's wrestling match for the pencil), in part because the green-screen effects had a very distracting quality to them. But I was glad to see the two have a heart-to-heart about how sour their friendship has gotten. (It's a situation that dates back to the Michael Scott Paper Company, though the Sabre corporate structure has only made things worse.) Michael and Dwight are the broadest of the show's lead characters, particularly in their interactions with each other, so it's important that they get to display their humanity together on occasion - even if it has to come in the same episode where they're throwing trash at each other.

Also, for those of you who missed Andy and Erin's first kiss (at the dump) because the tag spilled over into the "30 Rock" timeslot, do what I did last night and set your DVR to record the entire NBC Thursday schedule as a 2-hours-and-2-minutes bloc (because "30 Rock" then tends to spill over into "Marriage Ref"). It's incredibly annoying the way NBC lets the shows overlap timeslots, but they ain't changing, so you have to find a way to work around their annoying habits.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "St. Patrick's Day": Get me Mega-Desk!

A review of "The Office" coming up just as soon as the baby experiences a strong male presence...

In many ways, "St. Patrick's Day" felt like a throwback episode. Not only did Dave Koechner make his first appearance in three seasons as Michael's odious buddy Todd Packer, but we had a fairly vintage Dwight/Jim prank war, a story about Michael struggling to bond with his new boss, and a very low-key vibe that felt very reminiscent of the early seasons.

"St. Patrick's Day" wasn't all that funny, with most of the comedy coming out of Dwight's quest for Mega-Desk(*), but I'll take an episode light on laughs if it feels like the show I know (which hasn't always been the case this season). I liked watching the progression of Michael's relationship with Jo, to the point where he was finally able to set aside his usual neediness and social idiocy so he could stand up for his staff - and that, in turn, finally won Jo's respect.

(*) Where a lot of Dwight's activity lately (like every scene of him at Jim and Pam's house last week) has been too over-the-top, the Mega-Desk story worked for a couple of reasons. First, it was entirely based around the office, and the best Dwight and Jim conflicts have revolved around small things like desk encroachment, Dwight's annoying exercise ball, etc. Second, now that Jim's no longer co-manager (or in any position of authority over Dwight, which he technically was ever since he came back from Stamford), the two are on equal footing and it removes some of the weird power dynamic we got from either end the last few years. Third, Jim knew exactly what Dwight was up to, yet was at times powerless to resist; again, these little fights don't work if they're one-sided. Fourth, Jim's creation of the mis-named Quad Desk, and Dwight having to crawl under it to answer his phone, was a nice reminder of another great desk-related prank, where Jim put Dwight's desk in the men's room back in season two.

So far, Dunder-Mifflin/Sabre doesn't feel that different from Dunder-Mifflin regular, but I'm very pleased with the idea of Daryl moving out of his warehouse office. Michael/Daryl is one of the show's more underrated dynamics, and I have to assume this means Craig Robinson's going to be around more for the rest of this season than he has been to date.

After the big leap forward last week, Andy and Erin are back to taking baby steps again, with her cold getting in the way of their first date. Andy's panic over this (and concern over her overly-physical interaction with her foster brother) felt a little overdone, but I'm amused every time we get a new piece of Erin's tragic backstory, here with the news about her being hospitalized from ages three to six. (She should totally bond with Lux from "Life Unexpected," shouldn't she?)

So, not a great episode, but one that felt "Office"-y enough.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "The Delivery": She's having a baby

I said a fair amount about tonight's "The Office" in today's column, but I'll have a few additional thoughts on the arrival of Baby Halpert coming up just as soon as I cradle a gourd...

Whether you view "The Delivery" as a one-hour episode or as a two-parter that wound up airing together, there's no doubt that the first half was far stronger and funnier than the second. Nearly everything was clicking for the first 30 minutes. The pre-credits scene, with Dwight becoming jealous of Jim and Pam's impending arrival on both a personal and professional level, was the funniest the show has had in a while. And Pam's obsession with not going to the hospital before midnight was a believable kind of insanity that opened the door to lots of funny business, including Jim's growing panic about his wife not listening to reason, Michael's sheer joy at hearing the sentence "Distractions are good" (possibly the greatest collection of words Michael Scott has ever heard), Kelly compulsively reading up on pregnancy issues, and the various distractions concocted by the staff(*). And the random funniness just kept on coming: Meredith having a shirt with nipple holes in her car, or Oscar reacting to Michael's need for a dictionary with, "The hospital provides dictionaries! Bring a thesaurus!," or Stanley holding up the elevator because he's going to be damned if he has to leave work even a minute too late.

(*) Phyllis's offer to apply lipstick like Molly Ringwald in "The Breakfast Club" was a reminder, however, of how much "Community" has come to own the films of John Hughes among NBC's Thursday comedies.

Jim and Pam still got their sweet moment in the car when she told him that they were having a girl, and it was a very smart touch to keep the documentary cameras out of the delivery room. (Steve Carell also nailed the expression on Michael's face after he saw too much, even if the joke itself has been done many times before, notably in "Knocked Up.")

After little Cecilia Marie Halpert arrived, though, the pace and the laughs cooled down quite a bit. Having spent a few days and sleepless nights in the hospital with a newborn not that long ago, I could relate to a lot of what Jim and Pam were going through with their nursing panic(**), and the montage of Jim diapering everything in sight (including Angela's cat Bandit) was a nice touch.

(**) Not to open up a Nursing vs. Bottle-Feeding debate - which I feel would become so heated that I would need to invoke the No Politics rule somehow - but I will say that the nursing side has by far the better PR people. My wife and I took a parenting class before our daughter was born, which mainly involved a nurse showing us movies about things like diapering and baby-proofing. One week, she showed a pair of films about feeding. The one about nursing was bright and lively and full of testimonials from really excited, happy women who couldn't possibly convey all the joy they felt at being able to bond with their babies in this way. The bottle feeding one was maybe one-third the length, seemed to have been filmed on a very gray day, and had only one testimonial, from a very pale, sad woman who said, in a very resigned tone of voice, something like, "Well, I really tried hard to nurse, but it didn't work out, so I wound up using the bottle, and... it was... okay... I guess." I can only imagine Pam saw a very similar juxtaposition of videos, and was thus extra-freaked about getting the baby to nurse.

But overall, the second half was much flatter than the first, and the stuff with Dwight ripping up Jim and Pam's kitchen was just ridiculous, even for Dwight. Fienberg argued in this week's podcast that Dwight needed Angela to stay grounded, so I was pleased when it looked like they might be getting back together to produce a mutually-beneficial baby. But then Dwight got the hots for Pam's bridesmaid again (and she seems to not care that he both blew her off the next day and kicked her in the face during the ceremony) and seemed to recognize that it wasn't right to have a baby with a woman he no longer loves, so it looks like we won't be returning to that relationship.

On the plus side, Michael used the baby's arrival as an excuse to play matchmaker around the office, and Andy in turn used that as an excuse to finally ask Erin out. And about time, too; much as I like those two characters together, it was getting incredibly stupid that neither one would just up and say, "I like you; wanna go out?" This wasn't like Jim and Pam in the early days, where there were other people in the way most of the time. It was on the verge of getting stupid, and now we get to see what these two goofballs are like when they're together instead of just pining.

So, not an instant classic like the wedding episode, but still very funny and sweet for a while, and the show had problems with its hourlongs even in stronger seasons than this one. I can only hope that this is the start of a comeback and not a one-time anomaly.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

'The Office' has a baby: Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I review tonight's hour-long "The Office" baby episode:

On tonight’s episode of "The Office," Jim and Pam are going to have a baby. "The Office" is in the midst of a disappointing season.

However tempting it may be to connect those two dots, it’s a coincidence, not a cause-and-effect situation.

You can read the full column here.

The episode itself is actually quite good, the first half particularly. I'll have a separate post discussing it in more detail going up tonight at 10. Click here to read the full post

The Office, "Manager and Salesman": The ol' switcheroo

A review of last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as you let me handle the Tolkien references...

Okay, at what point do I need to start worrying about the state of the series? I've enjoyed a number of episodes this season - not just Jim and Pam's weddding, but "The Lover" and "Murder" and several others - but there have also been some really dire ones ("Mafia" may have been the worst episode since the pilot).

More troubling, though, has been the execution (or lack thereof) of the story arcs, and the way a number of characters have been written. Jim and Michael as co-managers never amounted to anything and has now been dropped. Dwight and Ryan's plan to sabotage Jim was both over-the-top and a lobotomizing of Ryan. (He's a lazy d-bag, but he's not remotely as stupid as he came across last night.) I love the Andy/Erin non-relationship, but now it feels like it's being dragged out simply because Jim and Pam took forever to hook up, and not because it's still funny that neither one can just tell the other that they like them.

And two episodes into the Dunder-Mifflin Sabre(*) storyline, I'm not feeling like there's a real sense of purpose to it in the way that Ryan's promotion, or Charles Miner's arrival had. Kathy Bates gets to come in and play her character from "Primary Colors" again, and Jim goes back to being a salesman - and much too quickly, as I think there was at least another episode or three's worth of mileage out of Michael being a regular employee again and Jim having to manage him - but like so much of this season, it seems like a rehash of things the show has done before, and better.

(*) So when Andy and Erin did their "Dunder Mifflin and Sob-Ray" song last week, I had somehow managed to avoid having ever heard the song it was based on, Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA." Then the next night I took my daughter to a father-daughter dance at her school, and they played it, and now I can not get that damn chorus out of my head, and Andy and Erin's version kept playing on a loop whenever anyone last night mentioned "Sabre."

On the plus side, I laughed a lot at the punchline to the teaser, and I enjoyed Jim dealing with Erin having spent too long as an assistant to Michael Scott. And Jim dunking Dwight's tie at episode's end was a nice reminder that it's funnier to see the two of them go after each other when they're equals, as opposed to when Jim is Dwight's superior (as he's technically been since the season 3 branch merger).

But after loving most of last season, I'm starting to get really frustrated with where this season is going (or not going).

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "Sabre": Where's Wallace?

A review of "The Office" coming up just as soon as I taste a rainbow...

I've seen a lot of you complain a lot this season that "The Office" feels played-out, and/or that Jim and Pam (Pam especially) have become really smug and annoying. Though I haven't found season six to be as strong or consistent as season five was, "Sabre" was the first episode to really make me see the validity of either of those complaints. It was an episode that felt too reminiscent of a previous one (with Michael reacting to Sabre's new policies with only slightly more maturity than he took to Charles Miner), where most of the laughs came from relatively minor characters (David Wallace, Andy, Erin) and where I really disliked Jim and Pam for the first time, maybe, ever.

I was hoping when they announced that Dunder-Mifflin had been sold based on the strength of the branches, and of this branch in particular, that we might get a story arc where Michael was more or less left alone to wield his peculiar brand of managerial strategy. Instead, Sabre(*) comes in and starts dictating policy changes. I recognize that mergers and consolidations are a big part of corporate culture now, and lots of real-life Michaels and Creeds are being forced to learn a new set of rules after having years to get used to the old ones. But at the same time, the show has gone to this particular well an awful lot, notably with Ryan's brief corporate reign and then the Miner/Michael Scott Paper Company arc, and I'd rather see them try something different at this point.

(*) By the way, is there not a single hockey fan at Dunder-Mifflin Scranton? Perhaps one who's ever paid a visit to the company's Buffalo branch, where they have an NHL team whose name would have told them that it's not pronounced "SOB-ray"?

Still, there was some funny material in the main story, most of it taking place at the home of an unemployed David Wallace, now so lacking in direction and drive that he's happy for the first time in his life to see Michael Scott show up unannounced. Andy Buckley has mainly had to play the exasperated straight man to Michael since he first turned up in season two, and it was fun to watch him cut loose and play this pathetic creature shuffling around his house, coming up with terrible business ideas(**), jamming with his son on a "Suck-It" theme song, etc.

(**) When David proposed the idea for the Suck-It, my wife turned to me and said, "Every parent thinks that one up at some point or another. Then we realize it's stupid."

Ed Helms and Ellie Kemper continue to be adorable and funny as the oblivious, Bizarro World version of Jim and Pam. However, their overlapping confessions to the camera crew was one of two instances in this episode where I began to wonder about the consistency of that device. We saw in seasons past that the camera guys befriended Pam and weren't above interfering in the action a little (as they did by tipping Pam off to the Dwight/Angela secret romance), and I would have to think these guys would take pity on these two and clue them in in some way.

(The other documentary issue: if we assume that the film is something Dunder-Mifflin signed off on years ago, shouldn't it be an issue for new management? Even if it's a case where Gabe or Kathy Bates or someone does a double take and says something like, "Oh, yeah, that's part of the deal, too.")

As for Jim and Pam's daycare center interview, that's a kind of story I rarely like on any sitcom (even though I've faced childcare availability issues myself over the years), and this one struck a particularly flat note. When I find myself sympathizing with Joey Slotnick from "The Single Guy" over Pamela Morgan Beasley Halpert, something has gone seriously awry with the heart of the series, even if John Krasinski (who directed this one) can do a good Christian Slater impression.

Ah, well. At least it wasn't a clip show. And we do get one more new episode next week before yet another hiatus (this one due to the Olympics).

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "The Banker": Clip joint

It's a recycled photo for a recycled episode of "The Office" - specifically, for a clip show that was advertised only using scenes from the framing device. On the one hand, I was happy to see many of these clips again (the Creed montage alone was worth the price of admission). On the other hand, this kind of bait-and-switch can always be frustrating. I actually knew that there was an "Office" clip show coming, but I let myself get fooled by the commercials into deciding that it wouldn't be airing for another week or two.

So, on balance, what did you think? Happy to be reminded of "Office Olympics," great moments in PB&J and "Save Bandit!," or irked that you expected a wholly original episode? And was the framing device with Dave Costabile worthwhile in any way for the ongoing Dunder-Mifflin saga? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "Secret Santa": A Scranton Christmas miracle

A review of "The Office" coming up just as soon as I write a ransom-style note...

"You guys are the only thing about this company that works. So congratulations." -David Wallace

"Secret Santa" wasn't up to the standards of the previous "Office" Christmas episodes, mainly because it leaned too much on Michael as a pouting little boy, a note that works better in small doses. But it did plausibly resolve the bankruptcy storyline and how our characters might all keep working together, and it did a splendid job of giving everyone in the cast a good moment, and of showing that most of these people do like each other to some degree, in addition to being happy that they still get a paycheck.

So we got to see everyone's delight at Phyllis finally being cast as Santa, and Phyllis threatening to invoke the wrath of Bob Vance (Vance Refrigeration) on Jim if he didn't get Michael out of the other Santa suit. We got to see Michael get an inspired Christmas present for Dwight, and Andy get a present for Erin that was a little too inspired (leading to the first angry moment Ellie Kemper has had to play on the show), only to have the 12 Drummers Drumming save things. We got Meredith acknowledging Michael's point about her uselessness compared to David Wallace, Creed's fear of having been a really naughty ("more evil") boy for Santa, Kevin's surprise and delight at getting to sit in someone's lap, Dwight admitting he's too tired in December to continue his evil plot, Pam trying to help Oscar with Gay Warehouse Matt (and Oscar turning out to be just fine at landing the guy himself), Kelly's delight at the "Twilight" poster Jim got for her, etc., etc., etc. And we got another glimpse of the always-wonderful concept of Jim and Dwight as reluctant, incompetent heads of the Party Planning Committee.

And while the dueling Santas sequence went on a little too long (and was trumped by the later kissing Santas scene with Phyllis and Bob), Michael as a bitter, heckling Jesus was inspired. "His last name is Christ. He has the power of flight. He can heal leopards" still has me chuckling this morning.

I'll be curious to see how the new corporate overlords fit into things when we get new episodes in January. The show has already gone to the well a few times of a new boss coming in and being alarmed by Michael's management style, only to be trumped by the bottom line that Scranton produces. So I don't want to see that again, but I'm also not sure how else they can integrate the new owners. We'll see.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "Scott's Tots": I am become Scott, shatterer of dreams

A review of last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I use baby talk...

"I have made some empty promises in my life, but hands-down, that was the most generous." -Michael

Because of the nature of Michael Scott's personality, "The Office" sometimes walks this fine line between comedy and tragedy. I thought that Michael making an ass of himself at Phyllis' wedding was the worst we would ever get in terms of Michael spending an episode obliviously hurting other people's lives.

I was wrong.

What Michael did to those 15 kids - whose lives (and parents' spending/saving habits) over the last 10 years have been driven by the belief that he would come through for them - was by far the worst thing he's ever done. It's maybe the worst thing any sitcom character has ever done. If I hadn't just gotten done watching a season of "Sons of Anarchy," I might start wondering if it was the worst thing a TV character, period, had done.

Erin put something of a good face on this big lie by pointing out that Scott's Tots probably worked harder in school because of him (and we did hear from the one kid who stayed out of trouble because of him), but I'm sorry - most of this was unbearable to sit through. If it wasn't for the infectious joy and sweetness that Ellie Kemper has brought to the show as Erin, I might have just shut the episode off after five or 10 minutes.

As for the Dwight/Jim story, I'm with Rick Porter that the writers had to remove Jim's brain to get this to work. Beyond that, it feels like turning Dwight into pure evil, and then teaming him up with the pre-existing evil of Ryan, is a bit much. Rainn Wilson's impressions of his co-stars were very good (his Kevin in particular was spot-on), but Jim needs to nip this stuff in the bud, now. We have to suspend disbelief on this show enough as it is(*) without wondering why Dwight, even with his sales figures, still has a job when Michael hates him, when he's undermining his other boss, and when you figure in all his previous transgressions (notably the fire safety drill).

(*) And why did no one from the Scott's Tots school ever once try to get Michael to offer up some more concrete details about how the college funds were going? Even if Michael kept ducking them forever, wouldn't that have been a trouble sign in and of itself?

Outside of the Michael/Andy teaser, not good times at Dunder-Mifflin Scranton this week, I'm afraid.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "Shareholders Meeting": Now we're up in the big leagues

Spoilers for last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I feel lachrymose...

Michael Scott believes he is a performer at heart, and "Shareholders Meeting" put him - and the show - on the biggest stage to date. It's one thing for Michael to make a fool of himself in front of the branch staff, or even at a company picnic, but the scale of the shareholders meeting was much larger, both in terms of the number of people present and the potential impact of Michael's blunder.

So while I cringed as he kept talking and talking and talking about all the money the company had spent on him that day, I got an enormous kick out of seeing Michael turn the crowd in his favor by throwing out the kind of meaningless promises and gestures that he assumes you're supposed to use on a crowd this size(*). The DM Scranton people all told him not to do the twirl, but those people in the ballroom ate up that damn twirl.

(*) Michael's performance on stage reminded me very much of David Brent's turn as a motivational speaker on the British show. In both cases, we have men who understand human interaction largely through their consumption of pop culture, and who assume that if they just do it like they've seen in the movies, their audience will love them. The outcomes are different, as befits the two series' worldviews - the bleak British show has David perform to stony silence, while Michael is cheered - but neither gives their crowd anything of value.

Michael's speech also typified his blind faith in Dunder Mifflin - the only real family he has - in that he assumed these people had to either have a plan or have the ability to come up with a plan once they were sufficiently inspired by him. But they had nothing, and for a brief moment it looked like Oscar was really going to help save the day. But it felt funnier, and truer to life, that Oscar would be terrified of offending the corporate elite, leaving Michael there to face angry comments from the top brass(**). And then all that's left for Michael to salvage the day is to get back to the limo before anyone can cancel it on him.

(**) Once again, I blame David Wallace, who is clearly not remotely as smart as he and the other characters want to think he is. Not only has he (as chief financial officer) allowed the company to get into this mess, but time and again, the man places Michael Scott in situations where Michael Scott simply does not belong, and he should know better by now. Michael has a very valuable skill set, but it's a limited one, and every time David tries to stretch Michael beyond it, he gets burned.

With Michael, Andy, Dwight and Oscar dealing with the angry horde in New York, Jim got placed into a more Scranton-sized subplot, as Ryan's d-baggery finally came to a head and required dealing with. Interesting that Jim's solution to the problem - move him to an undesirable new location in the building - was similar to what Michael did to Ryan at the end of "Business School," but even rougher, because Ryan had clearly grown to enjoy and take advantage of being Kelly's cubicle-mate. Ryan's continued employment at the branch - assuming the company stays in business - should be a good source of tension between Michael (who has an unrelenting crush on him) and Jim (who hasn't liked the guy since Ryan's corporate wunderkind phase).

The one part of it that felt odd was Pam suggesting that Jim's incapable of yelling. We saw him yell at Michael in "The Lover," and I have to assume if he can lose his temper there, he's done it at some point in Pam's presence in all the years they've known each other. Jim's laid-back, but he's not that laid-back.

Still, a very strong episode, and I'm curious to see how the company - and/or the show - gets out of this mess.

Some other thoughts:

• Because the show so often does teasers that have nothing to do with the main story, Recyclops was a painless and funny way for the writers to meet the demands of NBC's Green Week stunt.

• Is it me, or was Andy's fake PA announcer voice supposed to be Ed Helms doing an impression of Ray Clay, the guy who introduced the Michael Jordan championship Bulls teams?

• Loved Erin's line about the limo: "It's like what high school kids take to prom on TV shows."

• Of course Dwight has a shirt guy in the Garment District. Of course he does.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "Murder": The game of distraction

Thoughts on tonight's "The Office" coming up just as soon as the Yakuza visits the Lackawanna Trolley Museum...

We've seen variations on this basic story outline - Michael does something that Jim thinks is stupid, but which turns out to represent the height of Michael's peculiar managerial genius - before, particularly since the co-managers idea was set up earlier this year. But it was executed fairly well, and John Krasinski again got to nail a great dramatic moment, as Jim reacted to the terrifying phone call from David Wallace, then composed himself for the good of the staff.

And what I'm really curious about is how the show handles the fiscal crisis at Dunder-Mifflin. That's also in many ways a variation on something they've done before - the company has been through multiple financial crises since the series began, most notably with the branch closing/merger in the middle of season three - and while it would be silly for this down-to-earth show to ignore what's going on in our economy, I hope the writers have something unique in mind for how this new problem is going to play out.

One thing that gives me hope about that is how the Andy and Erin story is going so far. In many ways it's like a funhouse mirror version of the PB&J romance: goofy salesman pining after cute receptionist, only both parties are far weirder and more oblivious than the original models. The combination of these two characters, and of Ed Helms and Ellie Kemper, allows the writers to push a similar scenario in a more overtly comic direction, while still getting some pathos out of it. It's goofy that the two of them can't figure out whether they're asking each other out as characters in the game or as themselves, but at the same time I do feel bad for both of them about the miscommunication.

And in the end, the murder game provided an opportunity for some silly fun for both the characters and the actors. You could tell how much Helms, Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson and even Jenna Fischer were enjoying that Mexican stand-off at the end, and how much the three guys got a kick out of being kids again to do those exaggerated death scenes. Moments like that are infectious, and are part of why I love "The Office."

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "Double Date": Punch out

Quick spoilers for last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I test your politeness...

There were Thursdays last season when "30 Rock" was having an off night, when "My Name Is Earl" was presenting one of its lazier episodes, and when "Kath & Kim" was being... well, "Kath & Kim." And in that context, even a slightly above-average "The Office" stood out as something special. On a night like last night - when "Parks & Recreation" was as brilliant as it's been all season, when "Community" turned in a good showcase for Joel McHale, and when "30 Rock" finally remembered how to be funny most of the time - a relatively small "Office" episode like "Double Date" doesn't seem quite as impressive. (There's a reason it's the only one of the three I didn't attempt to write up before going to bed last night.)

Which isn't to say "Double Date" was bad, just that its ambitions were more modest, and that the episode didn't really know how to end.

Pam's discovery of Michael's relationship with her mom in "The Lover" led to a hilarious episode where Pam got to be loud and irrational while Michael was resembling a voice of reason. Everyone had calmed down by the time of "The Lover," and even Michael's decision to dump Helene on her birthday wasn't so much unfair (he had legitimate, well-articulated reasons, especially when you consider that he is, in fact, Michael Scott) as horribly-timed and uncomfortably-presented.

And then Pam's desire to punch Michael in front of the whole staff - and the staff's desire to see her do it - kind of fizzled. The problem, I think, is that once they set up what Pam wanted to do, there was nowhere for it to go - as Oscar noted to Kevin, there was really only one outcome (Pam hits Michael) - and even though they messed with the timing (Pam gives up, then hits him anyway after Michael tries to blame her mom) and the style (a slap instead of a punch), it was one of those things that the audience had built up in the same way the staff had, and there was no way the moment could live up to that build-up.

Dwight and Andy's subplot was a nice showcase for Ed Helms, and an illustration of how Dwight still doesn't really understand how society works, but it got repetitive after a while. I kept waiting for a twist on them trying to out-favor the other, but it was just a lot of variations on the same joke.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "Koi Pond": The face of the joke

Seems to be at least one Thursday a season where I'm too overwhelmed by a cold or flu to be able to tell if "The Office" was any good or not. I want to say that "Koi Pond" didn't really work, but that could just be the germs talking. (Though I will say that they have not rendered me incapable of laughing, as I got a big kick out of finally watching the "Subtle Sexuality" webisodes afterwards.)

So since I feel incapable of rendering judgment (and will therefore put off "30 Rock" until tomorrow morning, or whenever I start to feel human again), what did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "The Lover": The in-laws?

Spoilers for last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I give you the chills...

Out. Standing.

As soon as I realized Michael was going to have sex with Pam's mom in the wedding episode, I started anticipating what the fall-out episode would be like. We had to wait a week (and suffer through an episode I really disliked), but the end product absolutely lived up to, and in some ways surpassed, my expectations.

"The Office" is designed so that Jim and Pam tend to play straight man/woman to everyone else in the office. They get funny asides, but they're primarily there to add a human element to the proceedings, and to help ground broader characters like Michael, Dwight and Kevin. "The Lover," written by the veteran "Office" team of Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky (and directed by Eisenberg in what IMDb is saying was his directorial debut, not counting a few "Office" shorts for NBC.com), flipped that around. Jim and Pam were still human, but for once they were the ones having the huge reaction to events, where Michael was relatively buttoned-down. (And when he got more juvenile, it was only to match Pam's level; the threat to "start dating her harder," for instance, only came after Pam ripped into Michael and said she didn't give a s--t about his happiness.)

What a superb episode for both John Krasinski (particularly in his terrified, exasperated initial reaction to the news) and, particularly, Jenna Fischer. Because this isn't a note Fischer gets to play, you could tell she relished it, yet she managed to be loud and disruptive and immature while still seeming like Pamela Morgan Beasley Halpert.

And I loved the way Michael was written (and played by Steve Carell) in this one. As with Stanley's outburst in "Did I Stutter?," he wasn't going to tolerate that kind of overt insubordination from anyone in the office, even his beloved Pam, but he's also afraid of her enough that he had to go get Toby to fight the battle for him. (Poor, pathetic Toby; he actually wanted Michael to be his friend, and was crushed when Michael told him off after the plan didn't work.) And you could see that he was genuinely hurt by the vehemence of Pam's reaction - not only the disgust that it's Michael Scott sleeping with her mom, but the thought that Pam doesn't care about him being happy. Michael, as we know, has few friends in this world - and most tend to be moms - but he thought he could count on Pam and Jim as two of those, and it messed him up, in a funny way, to have them so furious with him.

Much as I loved many parts of "Niagara," this was easily my favorite episode of the season so far, and possibly an "Office" all-timer.

Some other thoughts:

• The Dwight/Jim subplot with the bugged mallard was the perfect contrast to the main plot, because, as Jim points out in the note he writes to the camera crew, Dwight absolutely picked the wrong day to try screwing with him. The opera music added a nice Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd feel to the proceedings, and the payoff - Dwight was actually clever enough to use the mallard as a decoy, but insane enough to want to listen to eight hours of Jim talking about paper stock - was great, in that it gave Dwight some edge back. If Jim can always beat him, and, on top of that, if Jim is now blatantly Dwight's superior, then that relationship is too one-sided to be as funny as it once was. So Dwight needs to "win" every now and then.

• Speaking of Dwight, I didn't like that he was so pumped-up to see Michael do his Blind Guy McSqueezy character (which all the women in Michael's improv class understandably hate). The Michael Scott Paper Company arc seemed to signal a sea change between these two characters, with Dwight no longer hero-worshipping and sucking up to Michael; his reaction in the teaser seemed very much like the Dwight of a few seasons ago.

• The best part of last week's episode turned out to be a deleted subplot (up, as usual, at NBC.com and Hulu) about Erin's struggle to ingratiate herself in an office where everybody loved the previous receptionist. I like that there continues to be this weird tension between her and Pam, and that Erin seems to take Michael more seriously as a boss than Pam ever did.

• Is Creed crying at the aria because he's a musician and can appreciate beautiful music, or because it reminds him of a time when he was locked in solitary for three weeks?

• The "Frankie and Beans" running gag from Jim and Pam's honeymoon was a nice touch. It starts off as one of those inside jokes that's sweet for the people who understand it and obnoxious for those who weren't there, then became Jim's lifeline after Pam found out he knew about Michael and her mom before she did, and finally became funny for them again after Pam had a chance to calm down a little.

• Ryan Howard: Douchiest character in TV history? I feel like the fedora - and, particularly, his refusal to tell anyone where he got it, so that he can continue to be Cool Hat Guy - pushed him over the top, but I'm willing to listen to counter-arguments.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "Mafia": Where were the heads of the Five Families?

Quick spoilers for last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I push Free Play to tomorrow...

Jim and Pam's wedding certainly didn't ruin "The Office," but their honeymoon led to a real dud of an episode.

Much like Oscar, "The Office" really, really needs the Coalition of Reason to be at full strength. Michael, Dwight and Andy are all very funny characters under the right circumstances, but they need to play off some of the saner, more realistic characters. An episode with Jim and Pam only appearing on speaker phone, and with Michael, Dwight and Andy operating largely on their own, led to a lot of forced, wacky antics.

And because the mafia storyline(*) was so unrelentingly goofy, I didn't even really enjoy Kevin's subplot, because it felt like more of the same, rather than a contrast to something a little more human-scale.

(*) Complete with Hey It's That Mafia Guy Mike Starr, whom I'll always love for having been part of "EZ Streets."

Looking forward to PB&J's return, but this was not a good one.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "Niagara": Fancy new Halpert

Spoilers for the big wedding episode of "The Office" coming up just as soon as you destroy my shoes...

"Four years ago, I was just a guy, who had a crush on a girl, who had a boyfriend. And I had to do the hardest thing I've ever had to do, which was just to wait." -Jim

Earlier today, I wrote about how Jim and Pam's relationship should disprove the theory that ending will-they-or-won't-they sexual tension equals creative death for a series. And "Niagara" very much bore that theory out. It wasn't perfect - like most hour-long "Office" episodes, it was at times trying to do too much, at other times feeling oddly padded - but it managed to showcase every character even as it gave Jim and Pam their moment, it was at times screamingly funny, and at others touching enough to move any real-life Andy Bernards to reach for the Kleenex. It somehow managed to open on mass vomit and close on that gorgeous image of Jim and Pam staring out at the Falls, and yet it all felt like part of "The Office."

Now, I found the Phyllis wedding episode to be unbearably mortifying, because there are some instances where I just don't want to see Michael being Michael. Yet here, I didn't mind it - and in fact found Michael's "different sensation" speech at the rehearsal dinner to be one of the funniest things in the episode. The difference, I think, is that Greg Daniels and Mindy Kaling's script was written with the understanding that Jim and Pam know how Michael operates - really, they know how all these people operate - and they were bracing for it and had backup plans in mind. Hence, Jim's line about buying the Maid of the Mist tickets the day he saw the wedding dance video on YouTube. So while it was all worst-case scenario, it was a worst-case scenario they were prepared for, and so I felt free to laugh. (Also, Michael talking about sex is usually gold, and in this case it helped that Jim had screwed up first, and Michael was only trying to fix things.)

The pre-credits sequence was both horrifying (I wouldn't be surprised if it inspired some sympathetic hurling from people with weak stomachs in the audience) and hilarious (note Creed casually eating noodles while everyone else pukes), and the cast's joy at doing their own version of the wedding dance was infectious. And that is exactly the sort of thing Michael would try to do, only here it mostly went well, and had lots of silly beats within (Ryan doing the Lawn Sprinkler, Dwight kicking Isabel in the face).

The episode didn't really start clicking until Jim's toast at the rehearsal dinner (a lovely summation of a story the audience knows so well), but from that point on, it was the kind of show where mostly what I want to do is list some (but by no means all) of the things I found funny, including:

• Dwight horrifying the kids table with tales of "Jim, the Bad Man";

• Meema's story of watching "Bruno" on the hotel TV and extrapolating from it that Jim and Pam are awful people;

• Oscar's mortification at anyone thinking Kevin was his boyfriend;

• Dwight's fascination with the male twins;

• The entire exchange between Kevin and the hotel manager about his shoes ("It became a safety issue, sir");

• Another Andy/Kelly dance-off, albeit not as long as the one from "Cafe Disco."

• Andy: "Who told you that?" Jim: "I may have told some people that."

• Michael's painting, and the news that he has a second, nude one that is for him to keep;

• Michael wishes he was a bridesmaid;

• Stanley once again buying a toaster as a wedding present;

• "I know way too much about Andy's scrotum."

• Toby's brief moment of excitement at the thought Pam might not actually marry Jim;

• My own dawning excitement and horror at the realization, midway through the apricot snack scene, that Michael was going to hook up with Pam's mom, and knowing how Pam will react to that news down the road.

Also happy to see Captain Kirk's real-life father as Jim's kilt-wearing dad, to see Dwight be a plausible playa, and, as always, to see just how sweet John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer are together.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

How 'The Office' learned to stop worrying and love the PB&J

Over at NJ.com, I explain why I didn't post this morning's Star-Ledger column about "Fringe," and then revisit one of my favorite topics: why keeping will-they-or-won't-they couples apart for too long is stupid, and why I'm therefore glad that Jim and Pam are getting married tonight on "The Office." Click here to read the full post