The Office, "Company Picnic": The perfect moment

Spoilers for "The Office" fifth season finale coming up just as soon as I get a pair of chair pants...

"So what do you have planned for us today?" -Holly

What a great end to what may have been my favorite season of "The Office" to date. The show has had overall funnier years (notably season two), but I don't know that it's ever been this consistently satisfying, because the characters have become so richly-drawn, and because the writers (led by showrunners Paul Lieberstein and Jennifer Celotta, who teamed up to write "Company Picnic") have really learned to trust their actors to convey so much emotion in really quiet moments. As we've been saying for a while now, the show has become as much of a kitchen-sink drama as it is a comedy, but it's a great drama when it wants to be.

"Company Picnic" featured a couple of sublime moments. The first is the one we were all expecting in some way as soon as we heard that the briliant Amy Ryan would be coming back as Holly, Michael's perfect woman: Michael and Holly, post-morteming their disastrous sketch show at the company picnic(*), with Michael waiting for the right moment to deliver his list of reasons why Holly should dump her boyfriend AJ and get back with him. What was so wonderful about the scene as written, and as played by Ryan and Steve Carell, was that Holly knew what Michael wanted to do, and Michael knew she knew -- when Holly's around, Michael's self-awareness, charm and ability to read social cues all skyrocket, which, as much as her own dorky sense of humor, is why the two are perfect for each other -- and in the end, he was able to recognize that they were experiencing a perfect moment right then, one that could only be ruined by him trying to win her back. The old Michael, the pre-Holly Michael, would have barreled on forward with the plan, and made an ass of himself, and mortified the woman he wanted, and basically killed any chance of the future. This Michael -- the Michael who has grown through his love of Holly, and his experience with The Michael Scott Paper Company -- has the maturity and patience to wait for the real moment, when Holly is unattached, or they live closer together, or in some other way the cosmic forces are better aligned to make this match happen.(**)

(*) I have to say, by the way, what happened with the Buffalo branch closing news was David Wallace's own damn fault. If he hasn't figured out by now not to share sensitive corporate information with Michael Scott, he needs to learn.

(**) That, or Michael's been paying a lot of attention to Jim and Pam's story, and he assumes he and Holly are destined to end up like those two.

And speaking of PB&J, the episode's other sublime moment revolved around that crazy couple silently (as we were observing from another room, and as they apparently weren't wearing their usual documentary radio mics) discovering that Pam is pregnant. The moment was set up a few minutes earlier, when the nurse asked Pam if she might be pregnant, as a precaution before X-ray'ing her injured foot, and once we were primed, we didn't need any dialogue, as the joy on Jenna Fischer and John Krasinski's faces told us the rest. Fischer is usually the master at these kinds of moments, but I want to give an extra salute to Krasinski for the scene in the hall, where a dazed Jim tells Dwight to go on with the vollyeball game without him, then pauses to compose himself after this unexpected but obviously thrilling piece of news. Maybe Krasinski's single best moment on the series to date.

I'll leave it to you guys to speculate on what Pam's pregnancy, coming just as she got promoted to saleswoman, and before she and Jim have even gotten married, means for the series. All I'll say is that the nature of "The Office," with its focus on work over home life, makes it better qualified than most sitcoms to handle the introduction of a baby. (Plus, depending on how they work the timeline, we might not even see the kid until the end of next season, if that.) And after the brilliant year they just had, I think I trust these guys with anything.

Some other thoughts on "Company Picnic":

• The return of Charles Miner should once and for all clear up some of the confusion from "Broke" about whether Michael was able to get Charles fired as part of his negotiation. No, Charles still works for Dunder-Mifflin; he just (as even Jim notes) no longer has authority over the Scranton branch.

• Perfect casting of James Urbaniak as Dwight's spiritually compatible best friend Rolf. I just hope he hasn't been introduced as some kind of substitute Mose. I don't care that "Parks and Recreation" was much improved in its finale (which I'll review in a bit); dammit, we need Mose!

• Rolf's scenes also set up an apparent Dwight/Angela reconciliation, based on the look on Angela's face after Dwight told Rolf to stop calling her a whore. And perhaps this will let Dwight allow Andy to pursue Erin, to whom he's obviously still attracted.

• Though it was designed as such, I have to say that Michael and Holly's "SlumDunder Mifflinaire" sketch was just brutal to sit through, like an "SNL" sketch where somebody thought of a great title or catchphrase, couldn't come up with any jokes beyond that, but still stretched it out to eight minutes.

• Hilarious Fischer/Krasinski comedy team moment: after Pam explains that you don't grab her breasts for balance, Jim shrugs and Pam glares at him.

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

The Office, "Cafe Disco": On the groove line

Quick spoilers for tonight's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I respect the lei...

"Cafe Disco" the episode, like Cafe Disco the disco-cafe, started off seeming like a dumb and pointless idea before gradually revealing itself to be a fun, and even welcome, diversion. It wasn't as funny, nor as thrilling, as some other episodes this season. But there are times, just as we saw with the Valentine's Day episode, when it's just nice to spend some time with these characters when they're having fun together.

So we got to see Ed Helms and Mindy Kaling (soon to star in her own NBC sitcom) kick ass in their own faux-dance competition, got to see Kevin aggressively making out with his girlfriend (whom he met in the Valentine's Day show), got to see Dwight and Phyllis bond (as they did earlier this season in "Crime Aid") even as he treated her like a racehorse, we got to see Oscar's marvelous reaction at realizing Erin likes this place enough to invite a friend, we got to see Angela walk under the limbo stick without bending, and of course we got to see Jim and Pam realize during their time at Cafe Disco that they like these people -- and the other people in their lives -- enough to want to have a proper wedding party with them.

Today was one of those kinda days at the (real) office, and this episode was a nice antidote to that. I really, really like these people sometimes.

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

The Office, "Casual Friday": Playing favorites

Spoilers for last night's "The Office coming up just as soon as I drop out of the seminary...

"Maybe you shouldn't fake fire people anymore." -Pam

The Michael Scott Paper Company arc was so glorious, so clearly one of the best things "The Office" has ever done, that there's been some very understandable concern that bringing things back to the status quo would suck a lot of life out of the series. Instead, "Casual Friday" showed just how much things have changed -- not just since the formation of the MSPC, but since the beginning of the series.

The very first episode of American "Office" was a straight translation of the pilot for the British "Office," and it didn't work -- at all. Where Ricky Gervais was able to play the fake firing of Dawn with the right amount of cheekiness, Steve Carell seemed oddly menacing and cruel in the comparable scene with Pam. Greg Daniels and company wisely never attempted to just copy another British script, and Michael's sense of humor quickly diverged from David Brent's. But now, five seasons in, the writers have such a firm handle on Michael, and the relationship between Michael and Pam has evolved so much, that they could do another version of that scene and make it funny, and poignant, and generally as awesome as some of the better moments from the MSPC era. You can see that Michael means no harm, and you can see that Pam understands his mindset enough to let it wash off her back once she recognizes what he's doing. A great scene for Carell and Jenna Fischer, who have turned into an outstanding duo this season.

Beyond that, the transition of the MSPC staff back to the D-M Scranton branch appropriately didn't go smoothly. Michael, Pam and Ryan acted like soldiers who fought a war together and now can't relate to the civilians they left behind, the remaining D-M sales staff predictably rebelled against the idea of Pam and Ryan keeping all the appropriated clients(*), and Jim tried to stay out of it all by spending a dream-like day with Creed.

(*) Other than Pam's promotion, the best post-MSPC element of the show looks like the end of Dwight's hero worship of Michael. I think the two of them work much better as adversaries than as partners in buffoonery.

And if there was a downside to the MSPC storyline, it was the marginalization of the D-M supporting characters. After sitting on the sidelines for the last few episodes, everybody got a moment to shine, whether it was Meredith obliviously (and repeatedly) flashing the office, Phyllis turning sweetly vicious to Pam ("Close your mouth, sweetie. You look like a trout."), Toby taking charge to shut down Casual Friday (and Meredith being turned on by his assertiveness) or, hysterically, the teaser scene with Kevin's homemade chili. (What made that so brilliant was that they kept playing the audio of Kevin excitedly describing the chili even as we saw him in the present desperately trying to get it back in the pot before anyone else came in to notice.) These actors are all too funny -- and, when needed, good actors (like Phyllis getting to Michael with her rant about how they're supposed to be a family) -- to be marginalized for too long.

Some other thoughts:

• Dwight brought a "pony sandwich" to work? Ugh.

• Michael knows "The Wire" but not "The Shield." Interesting. Also, remember that he's "not to be truffled with."

• I liked seeing a Ryan who's now 100% loyal to Michael, but I wonder if that's a one-and-done thing now that he's been demoted again.

• Dwight doesn't know Stanley's last name, but he does know where to find Ryan's mug when he needs to mix up some more of his "invisible ink."

• Meredith: "I don't know. I saw a crowd; I thought there might be a dog fight or something." She is so hilariously creepy.

• Looks like Erin's around for a while, at least. Always good to have someone who isn't quite used to these people yet.

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

The Office, "Broke": Our balls are in your court

Spoilers for last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I call my apiarist...

"I have no shortage of company names." -Michael
"Michael..." -David Wallace
"That's one of them." -Michael

I have one quasi-complaint and only one complaint about "Broke," and it has nothing to do with the episode itself, which was superb. I just wish the writers could have found a way to make the Michael Scott Paper Company arc last longer. It was as big of a creative shot in the arm to the series as the arrival of Holly -- probably moreso, in that it affected not only Michael, but the entire core cast. With Pam now a Dunder-Mifflin saleswoman and Ryan returned to the Scranton branch full-time, there should be significant changes to the office dynamic, but I wonder if the show can be quite as daring and unpredictable with Michael back in his old job.

Still, if we knew that Dunder-Mifflin buying out the Michael Scott Paper Company was inevitable, the execution of it -- written by Charlie Grandy and directed (I believe it's his directorial debut) by Steve Carell himself -- was just about perfect.

Charles' dislike of Jim and unreasonable faith in Dwight paid off wonderfully, from the moment David Wallace arrived and said a friendly hello to Jim, through Charles' look of increasing horror at Dwight's bees suggestion, to Jim brilliantly using Charles' hatred of him to keep Dwight from taking away Michael's bargaining position. He never managed to show Charles of his own brilliance, but instead was able to save Pam and Michael (and, though it wasn't his goal, Ryan) by dragging Dwight down to his distrusted level in Charles' eyes -- and managed to set up a Mose reference while he did it. A big day for Big Tuna.

Michael's side of the story, meanwhile, was packed with wonderfully dry gags, like all the Korean women trying to get into the delivery van (can any of our Korean-speaking readers translate what the van inscription actually said?), or Ty the accountant indulging Michael's request to crunch the numbers by doing a keystroke and whispering "Crunch." But it also featured one of those wonderfully honest and dark "Office" moments where the MSPC sales team sat on the floor of their pathetic office and swapped humiliating stories (Pam couldn't get a callback from Old Navy, Target or Wal-Mart, and Ryan only went to Ft. Lauderdale instead of Thailand). Again, the characters on the show have become so rich that the show can do a scene like that that's relatively light on humor and it doesn't feel out of place.

And then... then, my God, the elevator sequence with Michael panicking over whether he could keep his mouth shut about the true state of the MSPC perfectly put me in the same head space as Pam and Ryan. I know Michael about as well as they do after the last five seasons, and I was terrified he wouldn't be able to pull it off. And instead, he kicked ass. He called out David on his precarious position with the shareholders, he got Pam and Ryan (Ryan!) regular sales jobs, and when David tried to call his bluff again, Michael used his own reputation for childish single-mindedness as a weapon, pointing out how easily he could keep hurting Dunder-Mifflin's business in the area if he set his mind to that.

He won. Michael Scott won. And he deserved to. Who would have thought when the series started and Michael was so loathsome, that he could have a moment like this that would be so thrilling?

Great, great episode.

Some other thoughts:

• So it turns out that Michael did try to take advantage of Ryan's business school training. And, just as his plans for Dunder-Mifflin Infinity were a disaster, it turns out that Ryan's command of the fundamentals of economics wasn't as strong as he thought, as he never factored in the need for variable pricing. (Stringer Bell definitely wouldn't have missed that detail.)

• The one advantage of returning to Dunder-Mifflin full-time is that it'll give the supporting cast -- who got a bit lost in the shuffle when we had to spend time in two offices -- more to do. They had a few nice moments here, like Phyllis pointing out that David could have prevented all of this by simply returning Michael's calls, and Kelly doing her impression of what the conference room sounded like through her glass.

• I liked Pam's look of quiet awe when she realized that Michael was able to be that peppy and alert at the crack of dawn despite not drinking any coffee. I myself do not drink coffee, and I wish I could be a self-starter like that.

• Jim puts Dwight saying "Idiot" as his ringtone, and is immediately rewarded by Dwight actually calling him an idiot on the phone. ("This is Dwight, by the way.") Not quite up to the level of Tim on British "Office" constantly calling Gareth a (male chicken) repeatedly on his cell phone, but still amusing.

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

The Office, "Heavy Competition": Nothing up my sleeves!

Spoilers for tonight's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I change shirts in the parking lot...

"You respect dibs, don't you?" -Michael
"I'm not a barbarian." -Dwight

This was just an awful lot of fun. I tend to find Michael and Dwight episodes too uncomfortable at times, because putting the show's two broadest major characters together tends to make them each more cartoonish than usual. But by putting Michael and Dwight at odds, it forced both characters to be just human enough for the story and the jokes to breathe.

It also made the occasional broader moments (Dwight stripping down to show he wasn't wearing a wire, Dwight screaming, incredulous, "ARE YOU SAYING YOU INVENTED PAPER?!?!?!?!?" into his cell phone) work better, because they came in contrast to the quieter jokes (like the long pause before Michael accepted that Dwight was talking about him, or the miserable look on Michael's face as he bit into the terrible meatball parm sandwich Dwight set him up to eat), and in an episode where both characters were mostly at the top of their game as salesmen and competitors. I was glad to hear Dwight make a good counter-argument to Mr. Schofield when he barged in, and even gladder to hear Michael quickly turn that around on him, and even gladder to hear Michael's explanation of his hilarious color-coding scheme, which mostly meant that he should shut up about the personal details.

I've been enjoying this season in pretty much all of its phases (Holly, post-Holly), but the Michael Scott Paper Company arc has really kicked things up a notch. The only way it could get any better would be if Michael found a way to hire Holly as his HR rep.

Some other thoughts:

• Aside from the nice moment at the end when Jim assured Andy he'd find someone else eventually, I wasn't crazy about that subplot. I know I complained last week that I was tiring of seeing Jim's unceasing humiliations during the reign of Stringer Bell, but at the same time I spent most of this one wondering what the heck Jim was doing waging an elaborate prank on Andy in the middle of his big professional crisis, and I kept waiting for Charles to step out of his office at exactly the wrong moment.

• Speaking of which, would Charles really -- especially in an episode where he just found out Michael was trying to acquire inside info on Dunder-Mifflin -- let Pam just hang around in the office? And would Jim want to be seen with her in front of Charles?

• The opening montage of the Michael Scott Paper Company staff tossing cheese puffs into each other's mouths -- which either required a lot of practice from Steve Carell, Jenna Fischer and B.J. Novak, or else is something the cast was already doing between takes -- was amusing enough (particularly the final gag with Pam getting bombarded after yawning) that I'll forgive the show for ditching the MSPC version of the opening credits after only one episode.

• Mike Schur may be busy running "Parks and Recreation," but dammit, we need to see Mose again. References to him falling down wells just aren't enough.

• I liked Ryan 3.0 recognizing the genius of the "old man" with the Rolodex. Assuming all three MSPC staffers will eventually rejoin Dunder-Mifflin Scranton, I wonder if he might not be a complete and total douche by the time he's in his old office again.

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

The Office, "Dream Team" & "The Michael Scott Paper Company": Close quarters

Spoilers for last night's "The Office" double-feature coming up just as soon as I write some song parodies...

"I do my best work when people don't believe in me." -Michael

I am really enjoying what "The Office" is doing right now with this Michael Scott Paper Company storyline. It's not the funniest stretch of the series, by any means. But five seasons in, "The Office" is as much light drama as it is comedy, and so it's pleasure to watch characters like Pam and Michael struggle with the implications of an impulsive decision, even if the laughs are a little light. The scene at the end of "Dream Team," where Michael has to talk a panicked Pam out of the car, was both a nice payoff to the earlier talking head where Pam explained about staying calm when your partner freaks out, and yet another reminder that Michael does know what he's doing some of the time, which means Pam wasn't a complete idiot for following him out the door. Very nicely played by Carell and Fischer.

"Dream Team" was the more overtly serious of our two episodes last night, though I also thought it was the funnier one. "The Michael Scott Paper Company" was going more for humor throughout, but the jokes about the cramped space of their closet-turned-office were less effective than the ones sprinkled through "Dream Team," like Pam trying to motivate Michael by peppering the checklist with attainable goals (big breakfast, song parody titles), or Vikram's horror at realizing that "Nana" was Michael's grandmother.

That said, "Michael Scott Paper Company" did have the hilarious Dwight/Andy competitive duet on "Take Me Home, Country Roads," Kelly's plan to make Charles want her, and Michael stewing as he listened to Toby talk in the bathroom about "Damages." There were definitely funny things there; I just preferred the funny things in "Dream Team."

I'm surprised but amused to see this latest incarnation of Ryan, who's basically a combination of all the worst qualities of Ryan 1.0 (bitter temp) and 2.0 (d-bag executive) without any of the good qualities of either. I figured that Ryan would be eager to, like Michael, shove it in Dunder-Mifflin's face by coming up with a great business model for the MSPC, but it turns out he's just a lazy tool who's 100% become That Guy. (Note that, after Pam closes the company's first sale, Ryan says, "We did it!")

The one element I'm tiring of is Jim's constant humiliations from Charles, which are getting repetitive. It would help if the writers ever gave Idris Elba something funny to do (even his hilarious talking head two weeks ago about the effect he has on women was largely funny because of the context), when instead Stringer Bell is turning out to be the more blatantly comic character.

Some other thoughts:

• I'm a huge fan of fake new opening credit sequences -- see also the intro to the otherwise-lame "The One That Could Have Been" episode of "Friends" -- and so I, of course, loved the revamped title sequence for the second episode, which managed to cleverly work in both Dwight (going to the bathroom) and Jim (photo on Pam's "desk"). Think they'll stick with that for as long as this arc lasts?

• The opening of "Dream Team" with Kevin's struggles to man the phone was great, particularly the payoff with the call being about the death of Andy's maid.

• Kevin's replacement, New Kelly (or Erin, or whatever), meanwhile, did the only sensible thing she could after witnessing the "Country Roads" duet: she ran.

• Note Charles seeing "productivity czar" Stanley reading his crossword book during the staff meeting.

• Creed, as always, makes the most out of his brief appearances, first with his absolute certainty that Charles goes to the bathroom, then with his refusal to steal the paper-shaped pancakes.

• Damn Ryan for putting the Montgomery Flea Market rap back in my head, just when I thought I had flushed it out.

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

The Office, "Two Weeks": Company woman

Spoilers for last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I mix up a scotch and Splenda...

"You know what? I had a great time at prom, and no one said yes to that, either." -Michael

There are many different flavors of "Office" episodes, and not surprisingly, fans have their favorite flavors, as well as the ones they can't stand. You've got your supporters of the squirm-inducing, British-flavored episodes like last week's squirmy outing or "Phyllis' Wedding," and those who would rather be stabbed in the eye with a fork than to see another of those. You have your broadly comic ones where Michael and Dwight are wearing fake mustaches and Dwight is peeing into a soda can, and some people think those are so silly as to be worthless. Then you have your low-key, relatively realistic episodes where Michael's verging on bankruptcy or trying to get a date on Valentine's Day, and some complain that they're not funny enough. And you have your swoony romantic episodes where Jim and/or Pam makes some grand romantic gesture, and the people who aren't into the PB&J thing roll their eyes the same way Meredith did when "Little Miss Thing" Pam(*) tried to get everyone's attention.

(*) And I'm surprised it took the show this long to establish that Meredith, the aging office tramp, would resent the hell out of someone like Pam.

"Two Weeks" was a mix of the silly and the realistic flavors, starting off with a bunch of gags about how much worse Michael behaves when he's not even trying to be a boss, but then heading to that moment near the end where he convinces Pam -- who has spent all day mastering the new copy machine and realizes just how empty her career is -- to join him in his Jerry Maguire quest to build a new paper company to rival Dunder-Mifflin. The jokes were great (I particularly loved Jim hearing monster noises from Michael's computer and yelling that Monster.com is singular), but what elevated the episode into something really special was the Pam and Michael stuff at the end: Michael and Pam's pure joy at telling Jim they're in the middle of a company meeting, followed by end-of-"The Graduate" shot of them walking away, as you see their giddiness replaced by the realization that they've both walked away from secure jobs in a bad economy to start up a business that has very little chance of succeeding. Steve Carell and Jenna Fischer are always brilliant in those moments when they have to show multiple emotions at once, so it was nice to finally see them get to do it side-by-side.

But will the Michael Scott Paper Company really fail? Before we get into discussing the rest of "Two Weeks," I want to speculate a little -- and I'll remind you early not to go discussing the previews, or anything you've read on other sites, or anything that's even vaguely spoiler-y -- about the different paths this story can travel.

The episode's end plants the seeds of Charles Minor inadvertently destroying the Scranton branch because he doesn't know the employees as well as Michael does. Michael, for all his social obliviousness, does know how to read people professionally, especially these people, and he would know better than to put inarticulate Kevin on the phones or make lazy Stanley the "productivity czar." So we could certainly see a situation where the once-profitable Scranton branch goes in the tank under the leadership of Charles (or whatever outside guy he brings in to run things), and David Wallace has to go begging for Michael to return, regardless of how Michael's new venture is going.

But do you think the show would be brave and/or foolish enough to have Michael succeed? He does know paper, he does know the area, and he does know the customers better than anyone else. He is at times a miracle worker with sales, and with the right people around him running the business side of things, maybe he makes a go of it. I doubt it -- Oscar made very salient points about how hard this will be for him -- but you never know. But while the show has gotten away with keeping certain characters apart for a batch of episodes (Jim in Stamford with Andy and Karen, Ryan at corporate, Pam at art school), would a permanent split really work? I doubt it. It's too much fun to see Pam and Jim working as a team, or to see Stanley have to deal with Michael, etc., to take those elements away forever. But as an interim thing (again, ala Jim in Stamford), it could work, especially if it puts Pam on a different professional track when she returns.

But back to "Two Weeks" itself. A drunk Michael wandering through the office and being more disruptive than usual was hilarious, as was one of the best collections of talking heads I can recall from a single episode: Oscar's dreams about quitting; Charles recognizing the effect he has on women; Toby comparing Michael to a movie on a plane; Kevin wondering if he should compliment Michael directly, then being too lazy to do so; etc. And there were great throwaway jokes about the office dynamics: not just Meredith's disdain for Pam, but the staff all having thought out what line they would use if they quit (and Michael not quite recognizing that they dream of using it on him); Andy trying desperately to not respond to Michael's job offer; Michael and Dwight both hoping the other one wouldn't want to keep working together; Michael putting a "sterile" note in Oscar's food; and more.

I also loved Michael listening to the tearful farewell message from the head of Prince Family Paper and realizing that he let Dwight talk him into putting out of business the one place that might hire him.

Yup, the creative team (in this case led by writer Aaron Shure and directed by Paul Lieberstein) was firing on all cylinders with this one. I look forwarded to the two episodes we're getting in two weeks (next Thursday is all-"ER"), and can't wait to see where this arc goes next.

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

The Office, "New Boss": Charles in charge of Michael's wrongs and his rights

Spoilers for last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I go to a two-way petting zoo...

"I am thrilled that the new boss has taken such an active interest in all the responsibilities that I'm supposed to have. Thrilled." -Michael

"New Boss" didn't make me laugh a whole lot (other than Jim's tux-clad antics), but it was extremely satisfying anyway, and not just because I'm a drooling fanboy for "The Wire" who was psyched to see Idris Elba (aka Stringer Bell) on another of my favorite shows.

Every now and then the series deals with the question of how Michael stays employed. Half the time that's been because his immediate superior (first Jan, then Ryan) was such a flake that they let Michael run roughshod over them, the other half because he's such a great earner. As he tells David Wallace, "I thrive under a lack of accountability." But what happens when you place Michael under a boss who isn't crazy, whose buttons aren't easily pushed, who has no patience for Michael's eccentricities, and who just wants people to follow the rules and work hard? How does Michael deal with someone who can bluntly tell him that "This is a workplace. It isn't designed for your vanity."?

Not surprisingly, Michael dealt with it by retreating back to his inner eight-year-old. And then, in a pleasantly surprising way, he dealt with it by giving David a very mature argument about his long and productive service to the company. And when David recognized that, and thought he could placate Michael by giving him back his anniversary party -- giving the baby his bottle and hoping the tantrum would stop -- Michael had a rare moment of wisdom and saw David's move for the empty, placating gesture that it was...

...and quit.

Now this will be very interesting, won't it? Obviously, Steve Carell isn't leaving the show, so eventually we're going to reach a point where Michael returns to Dunder-Mifflin -- possibly once David crunches the numbers and realizes how much business they're going to lose without the company's top salesman -- but I look forward to seeing things play out until that point. Will we see Charles have to take a hands-on approach to running Scranton? Might Dwight finally get the promotion he's always desired? (Because Jim sure isn't, based on that first impression.) And in this economy, even with his sales skills, what kind of jobs are going to be out there for Michael?

Some other thoughts:

• If I have one complaint about the episode, it was the scene where Charles refers to Jim's position as Michaels number two as "made up." It's not imaginary or ceremonial like Dwight's old title; it's an actual position that was created by Jan back in season 3's "Branch Closing" to keep the company from losing both Josh and Jim in the same day. Obviously, Jim was so thrown by having the worst day of his career in front of the guy to argue back, but I'm hoping the writers don't try to retcon away the idea that Jim does, in fact, have a place on the D-M corporate ladder that's higher than anyone else in Scranton.

• Lots of great talking heads in this one, from Pam making fun of Jim wearing the tux on the worst day possible, to Pam explaining how she reads Michael's moods based on the maturity of his jokes, to a soaking wet, mascara-smeared Angela making plain her desire to seduce Mr. Charles Minor.

• And speaking of the attractiveness of Mr. Minor, I loved Kelly literally running over the camera man to chase him down in the parking lot.

• Phyllis is still being sensitive about being kicked off the Party Planning Committee, isn't she?

• If you somehow haven't seen "The Wire" -- only the best drama in TV history -- then head over to YouTube to enjoy two of Idris Elba's finest managerial moments, as he discusses the merits of a 40-degree day and tries to introduce Robert's Rules of Order to a pack of drug dealers. (Warning: language is seriously NSFW.) Then go rent the DVDs. Quickly.

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

The Office, "Golden Ticket": The blame game

Brief spoilers for last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I get trapped in an oil painting...

"David, I will be honest with you. I do want the credit without any of the blame." -Michael

If last week's "Blood Drive" gave us Michael at his most human and sympathetic, then "Golden Ticket" showed how a human Michael could also be a monster. He wasn't out-of-character (he's always hated Dwight and would have no problem sacrificing him in a situation this dire), and he wasn't behaving too cartoonishly, but his behavior in the wake of the golden ticket fiasco-turned-miracle was so nakedly selfish and unfeeling that it made most of the episode really unpleasant to watch. In a way, I suppose it's interesting to show how Michael's childish need to be liked could be twisted from harmless and amusing to ruthless and destructive, but it made for an episode I'll be glad to never watch again.

Now, there were entertaining things dancing around the margins of Michael's damage control, like Daryl simply telling Michael "Start over" when Michael barged into the warehouse to yell at him. And the subplot with Kevin getting conflicting romantic advice from Andy, Pam and Jim was as funny and sweet as the scenes last week that first put Kevin and Lynn together. I love that Kevin saying everything that was on his mind could lead to a simple and welcome request for a date, but also a mention of "Boobs" -- and one that Lynn found flattering. Brian Baumgartner's just been aces the last two weeks, and if it hadn't been for this story, I might have found "Golden Ticket" unbearable.

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

The Office, "Blood Drive": Fairy tale romance

Quick spoilers for last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I explain my friend James' theory about how no one owns fries...

"I'm in love! I was hit by Cupid's sparrow." -Michael

"Blood Drive" only made me laugh out loud once -- during Jim's desperate double-thumbs-up, Fonzie-esque "AYYYYYY!" gambit to shut up Michael and make the phone salesman go away -- and yet I found it a much more satisfying half-hour than the slightly funnier "30 Rock" episode that followed it.

That's because "The Office" has, over the years, become as much of a kitchen-sink drama as it is a comedy, not just with the Jim and Pam romance, but with small human moments like Kevin needing a win with the Five Families, or Andy realizing how terribly Angela had played him, or Stanley pushing Michael to a confrontation point. The characters are so well-drawn by now, and for the most part so likable, that a sweet, low-key episode about Michael and the staff bonding over their singlehood worked even without a lot of memorable jokes. We get to see the office rally around Michael (whom they do like when he's not being an ass), and to see Kevin get past his own awkwardness to ask the "pretty girl" if she's on e-mail (Brian Baumgartner with a perfect delivery as he told the camera crew "Good Valentine's"), and even to see Michael accept his fate in a relatively adult way for once.

Jim and Pam's double-date with Phyllis and Bob Vance (Vance Refrigeration) was also fun, particularly PB&J's dismayed/angry reaction when the two lovebirds returned to the table (see above).

Not an all-timer, for either the series or even this season, but I had a good time watching it.

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

The Office, "Lecture Circuit, Part Two": She'll be back

Spoilers for tonight's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I come up with a theme for this post...

I was having a debate with a friend last week over whether a two-part "Office" should be considered as something different from an hour-long "Office" (my friend's take), or if it's just a matter of semantics (mine). Having seen the conclusion of "Lecture Circuit" -- which suffered the same pitfalls that have afflicted the latter half of many "Office" hour-longs -- I feel confident about the rightness of my argument.

What happened with so many of the hour-longs (especially during that run at the start of last season) is that there would be an idea that was solid enough to carry a standard episode, maybe something slightly longer, and then after that would come the padding. There were some nice moments here in part two, like Pam lamely trying to do Michael's schtick (complete with Gump impression), but other than Steve Carell's wonderful performance in the moment where Michael finds out Holly still has feelings for him(*), all of it felt like material I would have been fine seeing as deleted cenes.

(*) Dare I call it the greatest "Office" moment of its kind since Pam had this reaction to Jim asking her out? In fairness, very few "Office" scenes ask their actors to show as many emotions in so short a period of time as Carell did here, and as Jenna Fischer did a couple of years ago. But still... wow.

Even the Dwight/Jim Party Planning Committee story, so brilliant last week, ran out of steam quickly here, and the subplot about Angela's new cat was so superfluous (and, aside from Oscar's reaction to the hairball, not funny) that it could have been cut entirely.

But if you try to consider "Lecture Circuit" as a single entity, the first half was so wonderful, and assorted moments tonight (again, watching Pam try to be Michael was kind of brilliant) good enough that I'd consider it a success on the whole. I'd just rather have seen it all at once, rather than get the majority of the greatness one week, and the leftovers the next.

And they had damn well better find a way to get Amy Ryan back after all this set-up.

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

The Office, "Lecture Circuit, Part One": The closure

Spoilers for last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I pack my toboggan...

"Who is this?" -Dwight
"It's Mose." -Jim
"Mose doesn't even know how to use a phone, so the joke's on you." -Dwight

"Lecture Circuit" didn't feature anything quite as insanely funny as Angela throwing her cat through the ceiling or the rest of the teaser from the Super Bowl episode, but it was still terrific. (And the above exchange came close to "Save Bandit" levels, proving that Mose is such a great character that he makes me laugh even when he's not in the episode.)

Often, we'll see an episode split between one largely comic subplot and one that's more emotional, usually with Michael and Dwight in the former and Jim and Pam in the latter. Here, Mindy Kaling cleverly switched up those pairings, so we got Pam aiding Michael's quest for closure with Holly(*), while Jim and Dwight proved to be an incompetent -- and hilarious -- team as the reluctant new heads of the Party Planning Committee.

(*) I don't have high hopes of seeing her next week, unless team "Office" has gotten really good at secret-keeping. Then again, I hadn't heard about Rashida Jones coming back until I saw the ad for this one after "Stress Relief," so maybe they smuggled Amy Ryan onto the set without Ausiello or Kristin or anyone being the wiser.

Both of these combinations have been used to good effect before, like Michael saving the day for Pam at the end of "Business School," or Jim and Dwight teaming up earlier this year to figure out who sandbagged them in the customer surveys, and I think they work so well because it's not an every week thing.

If Jim and Dwight had to work together (as opposed to just trying to drive each other nuts) all the time, it would get old, but seeing their personalities clash while in pursuit of a common goal works as a change of pace now and then. It was particularly funny to see them both so clearly out of their element. Dwight's too literal-minded to be a party decorator -- he buys brown and gray balloons because "They match the carpet," and his banner is the factually-correct but nothing more "It is your birthday." -- and Jim's not as good at massaging all of the branch's egos as he thinks he is, and so of course they're both doomed to failure.

It's also wonderful to see how Pam and Michael's relationship has evolved over the years. I think she does actually like Michael -- or, at least, her pity for him overwhelms her potential hatred -- but she's also less willing than ever to put up with his more obnoxious behavior, and has gotten much better at shutting it down. Their time in the car wasn't as overtly farcical as previous Kaling road trip episodes like "The Injury" or "Branch Wars," but there were a lot of good smaller gags, like the battle over whether to use the radio (Michael can only prepare to "silence or Sam Kinison"), or Pam making it clear that the cameraman knows they're sleeping in separate rooms. The final scene in the car, where Pam indulges Michael's belief that he has to remind her who Holly was -- and where she doesn't even blink as she says, "Perfect boobs. Of course I remember Holly." -- was as sweet as it was funny, because it showed this weird equilibrium boss and receptionist have achieved.

The scenes at the Utica branch, meanwhile, gave Rashida Jones a welcome reprise before she starts duty on "Parks and Recreation." Like Pam, I was happy to get some closure with Karen, to see her and Pam make some level of peace (and to see Michael nearly ruin it by bringing up their "old hatreds"), and also to see that her level of contempt for Michael hasn't abated over time.

What made the lecture scene work was that, while the execution was off the mark, Michael's ideas were sound. He is a great salesman, he does know how to read people in a selling environment, and his mnemonic game, while offensive, did allow him to remember everybody's names. Michael's idiot savant qualities allow us to understand how he survives all those clueless moments, and while Karen was probably right to shut it down -- especially before he brought out the chainsaw -- there was definitely some wisdom to be gleaned in the middle of all the usual inanity.

Some other thoughts:

• I imagine that Andy's subplot will be the one bit of business that won't be continued next week, but it was funny as a C-story to round out this episode. I like how matter-of-factly Andy explained that they lost the account after his failed parking lot seduction.

• In a bit of a callback to "Business School," Michael's still using candy bars as lecture props. I loved how Pam just threw them at the Utica people with no enthusiasm, knowing she had to as Michael's lovely assistant but realizing how poorly it would go over.

• Either Stanley has very quickly given up on his attempt to live a stress-free lifestyle, or this episode was written and produced without anyone knowing if it would air before or after the Super Bowl episode.

• Was the Utica branch always located in nearby Mohawk?

• Creed Bratton, man on fire: first he gives Andy romantic advice that begins with the phrase "This is how I got Squeaky Fromme," then he conveniently has a three-dollar bill on his person (with a picture of Dubya, right?) to help Jim pay for Kelly's party.

• I loved the moment, right before Creed made the Squeaky Fromme comment, when Oscar beat a hasty retreat to avoid having to give Andy dating advice. I guess their bromance was a Canada-only thing.

• So if Angela and Phyllis are ineligible due to past bad deeds, and Jim and Dwight are incompetent, who should be in charge of the Party Planning Committee? Pam and Karen did throw together a rockin' Christmas party a few years ago, so I guess Ms. Beasley, but who else? Oscar? Toby? Kelly?

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

The Office, "Stress Relief": Boom, roasted!

Spoilers for tonight's super-special Super Bowl episode of "The Office" coming up just as soon as I save a cat...

"Stanley! Barack is president! YOU ARE BLACK, STANLEY!" -Michael Scott

I spent a long time deliberating on what quote I wanted to lead this review with. There were just too many to choose from -- from both a comic and thematic standpoint -- from this balls to the wall, gut-busting, amazing "Office" episode.

I thought about "Boom, roasted!," which I'm planning to work into everyday conversation now, and which neatly sums up Michael's unwavering belief in his own comic genius. I thought about "Turns out I'm the killer. You never expect to be the killer. Great twist, great twist," since it conveyed a rare moment of Michael self-awareness (sort of) in an episode that turned out to be largely about Michael being confronted with his own shortcomings, at his own request. I thought about quoting Creed's line about recognizing the CPR instructor from the parking lot, as it was the kind of hilarious non-sequitur that these one-hour episodes have room for. I thought about Stanley's monologue about working in his own casket, which seemed to sum up the national mood these days (for those of us lucky enough to still be employed, at least).

But in the end, I had to go with Michael's desperate plea for Stanley to not die, which was so explosively, absurdly funny that it had to come right before the opening credits, if only so the audience could catch its breath. I suppose I could have also chosen Angela's plea for Oscar to save her cat, which led to the incredible sight gag of Bandit going up into the ceiling -- and then immediately crashing back down -- but that one was all in the visuals.

By the way, time for the inevitable rant about NBC putting all of the best jokes into the ads, which featured both Bandit's brief flight and "Barack is president!" Everyone says they were funny in the promos, but I can't imagine them being as hilarious as they were in context, in the midst of that ever-escalating chaos of Dwight's fire drill. That was just a dazzling comic set piece, marvelously set up by writer Paul Lieberstein, fiendishly orchestrated by director Jeff Blitz, and played with the right mix of realism (from Jim and Pam and Phyllis) and over-the-top antics (from Andy and Kevin and, of course, Michael) to make it not only the best "Office" pre-credits sequence ever, but an all-time sitcom classic. I know there's a tendency for instant hagiography or demonization in the blogosphere -- to immediately put things in Comic Book Guy terms as the best or worst thing ever -- but I can easily see these five minutes going into a time capsule with the "Taxi" yellow light discussion, or Lucy doing a TV commercial, or the honkies shooting Jack Donaghy, or any of the other usual suspects. It was so meticulously set up, and so well paid-off, repeatedly (Andy thinking the fire was shooting at them, Kevin looting the vending machine), that I would have applauded it if I wasn't laughing so damn hard.

Lieberstein has said that "We wanted to do a stand-alone comedy episode that could bring people in" who had never seen the show before, and I think he more than accomplished that. Beyond the brilliant opening, the show featured a little bit of everything that makes "The Office" so wonderful, in a way that didn't really require previous knowledge to appreciate, but that also didn't spoonfeed things in a way that would annoy the veteran audience.

After the farce of the fire drill, we got to see Michael at an appropriate level of cluelessness -- Lieberstein, as always, seems to have mastered the right degree of obliviousness -- as he undercut David Wallace and the corporate lawyer, then failed to control the disastrous CPR class, and then conducting that ridiculous stress relief session. ("And none of them have shoes. And they give you a funny cigarette, and you feel even more relaxed.")

But the roast, and Michael's inevitable reaction to it, also showed the human side of Michael -- the unfortunate soul who never advanced past the kid in elementary school with no friends -- which led to the marvelous, simultaneously funny, awkward and heart-warming sequence where he returned to the office and insisted on "roasting" everyone. This could have been another unbearable moment for Michael (and the audience), but Stanley's uncontrollable laughter at "You crush your wife during sex and your heart sucks" -- less at the quality of the joke, I think, then at Stanley's amazement that this was the best Michael could do -- proved contagious, and gave Michael enough confidence to throw in an improvised "and you're gayer than Oscar" to Andy, which fully gets the crowd on his side (someone else even calls out "Boom, roasted!") and allows him to make peace with the staff. I'm sure he'll be back to annoying the hell out of them within two minutes of the next episode, but Michael does have his moments where the employees can stand him, maybe even like him a tiny bit, and those moments make the rest of the series work as well as it does.

In addition to Michael's story, and all the bits of physical comedy (including Dwight turning the CPR dummy's face into a skin mask, which led into the brilliant immediate cut to him and Michael back in David's office for another scolding), "Stress Relief" also provided yet another Jim and Pam moment that managed to be heartwarming without becoming overly saccharine. The bootleg movie they were watching with Andy wasn't really necessary -- except so NBC could have an excuse to promote the episode as featuring guest appearances by Jessica Alba (who was in it for all of 30 seconds) and Jack Black -- and I don't really want to see that much of Cloris Leachman again, but it was useful in that it provided a running gag to underscore the pathos of Pam's fear about her parents. Pam's speech about how the kids she has with Jim will really have soulmates for parents was a lovely moment, but what made it feel like more than blatant heartstring-tugging was Andy's presence in the background, mistaking Pam's confession for more commentary about the movie and again growing frustrated that he isn't that perceptive. (He is, of course, even less perceptive than he thinks, which only makes it funnier.)

Again, outside of maybe the Black/Leachman stuff (and even that had the funny bit with the malfunctioning chair lift), this was a home run. I don't know that it's going to create many new "Office" fans -- it's been a long time since any show got an appreciable, sustained ratings bump out of a post-Super Bowl airing -- but as a relatively standalone hour that showcased the many shadings, colors and comedy styles of "The Office," it was just splendid.

Some other thoughts on "Stress Relief":

• My friend Phil astutely pointed out that Jim's choice of the copy machine as his battering ram was also a clever payoff to "The Surplus," since it will finally give corporate an excuse to buy the Scranton branch a replacement for the hated old machine.

• One of the key things about Michael is the way that he's built much of his personality on how he thinks people are supposed to act from watching so many movies and TV shows, but it's always a surface imitation. He knows that he's supposed to go stand at the window and sigh before chewing out Dwight in David's office, but he has no idea what to say after that, and instead winds up undermining David. He thinks that a lonely person is supposed to make some kind of connection by at least throwing bread to animals in a park, only he goes to an all-concrete park where ducks aren't likely to congregate. (Phil, much closer to Pam than Andy in his breakdown of this episode, says that Michael has a lot in common with Pete Campbell from "Mad Men.")

• Were all of the clips in the Angry Stanley montage recognizable from previous episodes, or were some of them from deleted scenes?

• Looking back at what I've already written, I feel as if I've given short shrift to the CPR scene, so let me add Michael saying to Kevin, "No arms and no legs is basically how you exist now, Kevin. You don't do anything." That entire sequence, and not just Creed's brief moment of clarity, was a nice example of the breathing room that the one-hour episodes can provide. (And, yes, I spent a good chunk of last season bashing the one-hour shows, but I think they've gotten much better at them lately.)

• For that matter, the gag with Stanley's stress monitor beeping like mad whenever Michael came near him -- or, when Oscar strapped on the monitor, near Oscar -- was a very simple and very effective gag.

• Greg Daniels once told me that, as he and the other writers began expanding the roles of the supporting cast, they came to the decision that not everybody in the office hated Michael, and that people like Kevin and Meredith actually sort of liked him. Based on Kevin's giggle fit in response to the news of the roast, and Meredith's blunt soliloquy about why Michael drives her to drink (after, of course, he tried to drive her to rehab), I guess the Michael fanclub has basically dwindled down to Dwight and Andy. (Though Pam and Jim have been warmer towards him since they got together, I guess.)

• Love that Michael thinks he has to call up YouTube to get someone to record the roast. Anyone have a favorite roast snippet? Andy's song was nice, but I'm inclined to go with Daryl's simple request for Michael to name the random warehouse worker. Actually, no -- I go with Dwight's "You pathetic, short little man. You don't have any friends or any family or any land." "You don't have any land" may have to go in my insult lexicon along with "Boom, roasted!"

• Yet another advantage of the one-hour length: they got to use a longer version of the main title sequence that included shots of all the second bananas, plus a few extra action shots like Jim kissing Pam.

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

The Office, "Prince Family Paper": Hot... or not?

Brief thoughts on tonight's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I find out how many members of the Communist Party are working at the local IHOP...

Well, that's two episodes in a row where the Michael plot wasn't nearly as much fun as what was happening back at the office. The difference is that last week Michael got a brief B-story, while here he got the main plot.

Michael and Dwight planning hijinks on their own, without Jim around to heckle or offer up some common sense, tends to make me squirm. Michael's conflicted feelings about betraying the kindly Prince family came up too late in the episode, and was resolved too abruptly, to really work. And the foot chase through the office building wasn't nearly as well-constructed as the similar bit between Michael and Meredith in the rehab facility parking lot back in the Christmas episode. Other than a couple of throwaway bits, like Michael equating Ryan with Jan on the broken heart scale, it was a misfire.

The rest of the office getting together to debate the hotness of Hilary Swank, on the other hand? Genius with a capital G. We all get sucked into these silly and superficial arguments(*), and Swank for whatever reason comes up an awful lot in them. (I remember an early Bill Simmons mailbag discussing the issue, though I can't find the link right now.) As noted at the end, it was less about Swank -- and note that the writers went out of their way to have even the haters admit that she was pretty, and that Kevin would have sex with her, so as to avoid too much offense -- than about the way people in 21st century America tend to get entrenched on one side of a debate and refuse to even acknowledge the other position's merits. I hope there are deleted scenes for Creed and Meredith and all the others who didn't get to make their own oral arguments, because the ones we did get to see (particularly Stanley's plea for optimism and Oscar's symmetrical face argument) were so hysterical.

(*) Admittedly, I probably get sucked into more than most due to the nature of my job; many is the press tour lunch that's descended into this territory, and proud we all are of ourselves by the end.

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

The Office, "Duel" & 30 Rock, "Flu Shot": Silent but deadly

I realize I not only buried the lead in my earlier post, I left it out altogether by neglecting to mention that NBC renewed "The Office" and "30 Rock" (and, for that matter, "Biggest Loser") for next season. In the spirit of the joint renewal -- and because I'm in the late stages of press tour brain melt -- I'm going to review both of last night's episodes quickly in the same post, just as soon as I get my compound bow...

Jen Celotta, who runs "The Office" these days with Paul Lieberstein, brings the Dwight/Angela/Andy triangle to an effective close with an episode that's part farce, part dark pathos. Despite Andy being a tool, Angela becoming pure evil and Dwight being Dwight, I really did feel for them all by the end. Okay, maybe not Angela, but the other two for sure. And along the way, we got some big laughs, most notably Oscar's horrified demand (complete with breaking voice) to know exactly where in the office Dwight and Angela had sex, followed by Dwight smugly telling him, "Seems ike you already know where."

If there was a disappointment, it's that the idea of David Wallace trying to learn from Michael seemed underdeveloped. That could have been an entire episode right there, or at least the A-story in an episode with a less important story for the supporting cast, and instead it didn't get enough time to really work. Michael's stream of consciousness "improversation" about his management philosophy was funny, but I wanted to see a lot more of David trying his darndest to take Michael seriously.

"30 Rock," on the other hand, was another disappointment. Even the long-awaited return of Dr. Spaceman wasn't as funny or ridiculous as it could have been, and the Jack/Salma Hayek story felt like something out of a bad '80s sitcom -- and not even the "30 Rock" take on a bad '80s sitcom episode.

"30 Rock" always has great throwaway moments -- my favorite here was Kenneth suggesting that Tracy get the soup himself, and Tracy retorting, "With what? My arms?" -- but there weren't enough to compensate for a couple of lame stories.

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

The Office, "Moroccan Christmas": Tra la la la la, ka-ching

Spoilers for last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I pour myself a One Of Everything...

"I think I know what I need to do at this point. I need to find ways to push Meredith to the bottom. I think I can do it. I did it with Jan." -Michael

"The Office" didn't do a Christmas episode in its brief first season, which debuted in the spring, and it didn't do one last year because of the strike. But man oh man oh man, the three times that they've been able to do a Christmas episode, they killed it.

"Moroccan Christmas" not only featured what seemed like the best Dunder-Mifflin party of all time -- at least until Meredith lit her hair on fire -- but featured consistent hilarity mixed in with some of the sharpest emotion we've ever gotten from a non Jim & Pam story.

This was a triumphant episode for Phyllis and Dwight, and a humbling one for Angela and Meredith and, unbeknown to himself, Andy.

Phyllis got to prove that she deserved the Party Planning Committee leadership even without blackmail, and got to make Angela her prag (to borrow a bit of "Oz" slang), deliberately snuffing out all the parts of the Christmas party that Angela enjoys (the tree, the nativity figurines), and even forcing her to wear a hairnet. And when Angela attempted to call Phyllis' bluff, Phyllis hesitated for maybe a second before blurting out the news to the whole office. And then her moment of victory turned into a moment of great shame as she realized how badly she had just hurt Andy (again, not that Andy knows -- yet) in a very human moment that "The Office" does so well. I continue to be amazed that Phyllis Smith had no real acting experience before this show, other than reading lines as a casting director. She's wonderful, and every bit the equal of all the trained actors and comics in the cast.

Dwight, after falling victim to one of Jim's best pranks ever (more on that below), got to make a very tidy profit with his doll-hoarding scheme, had the entire office (save Andy, Michael and Meredith) learn of his cocksmanship, and got two of his better talking heads in a while (zombie-killing and the Schrute family "five-fingered intervention," complete with punching). Rainn Wilson's smirk as the office digested the news of the affair was superb.

Phyllis spilling the beans on Andy's cuckolding -- Should we start a pool on who breaks it to him, and when? -- upstaged the Meredith intervention story, but I loved that one, too. This was Michael dialed in just right: you could see that he really did care about getting help for Meredith, but that he was clueless about how to properly do it, and yet not so loudly inept that anyone other than Toby would have tried to stop him. And the foot chase in the rehab center parking lot, with Meredith screaming "WAIT A MINUTE! WAIT A MINUTE! WAIT A MINUTE!" over and over and trying to evade Michael's grasp, was a great piece of slapstick.

Some other thoughts:

• Poor Toby. Not only does Michael throw a pen in his face, but he winds up having to double-pay for a doll that his daughter might not want. True story: I took my daughter to Toys R Us a few months ago to buy presents for a classmate I didn't know very well, with the only instructions being "She likes Barbies." My daughter makes a beeline for the Barbie aisle, tosses a white Ken-as-groom doll into the cart, and then grabs an African-American Barbie-as-bride. If they were for my daughter, or for someone I knew better, I would have headed right to the register, but instead I had a Toby-by-way-of-Liz-Lemon moment, wussed out and swapped in a Totally Caucasian Barbie. Everyone's a little bit racist, sometimes, right? Right?

• So how long do you suppose it took Jim -- possibly with Pam's help -- to create a paper-and-cardboard gift-wrapped simulacrum not only of Dwight's desk, but of all the things on it, like the bobble-head? And should we be glad that he's gone back to these elaborate pranks, or sad that he's backslid after swearing a couple of seasons ago that he was done with them?

• Pam was mostly reacting to what was happening, but I loved her talking head insistence that she knew all along about the new Angela/Dwight affair, and that she had to invoke the Christmas spirit to get Jim to play along.

• Better throwaway moment during the party: Creed smoking a hookah, or Michael thinking he had invented the Screwdriver?

• Kevin's love of nicknaming other people -- and his lack of creativity in same -- goes on as he attempts to dub Meredith "Fire Girl" (in the grand tradition of Ryan as "Fire Guy," and then "Fired Guy," and then "Hired Guy"), only to realize that it might be too soon.

• Even before Phyllis revealed his humiliation to the entire office, I felt pretty sorry for Andy as he went through that talking head about his college years, which involved sneaking into frat parties, doing body shots off himself, and the ever-changing list of nicknames (Puke, Ace, Buzz), which sounded so made up on the spot that I'm now starting to doubt all previous Andy nickname stories. Is it possible that Here Comes Treble doesn't include someone named Broccoli Rob? That would make me sad. But kudos to Ed Helms and the writers for making a character who was so overbearing so sympathetic (largely by emphasizing the "pathetic").

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

The Office, "The Surplus": It's on like Donkey Kong

Spoilers for last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I get a new Urklenomic chair...

"Motherf..." -Michael Scott

Has there ever been a funnier "Office" edit than the abrupt one from Michael swearing to Michael in the fur coat at the end of this episode? Just the perfect finishing touch for a terrific episode.

I always love "Office" stories that are largely about the minutiae of daily office life, like the war over the thermostat, or Kevin bringing the Five Families together to resolve the parking lot issue, or Stanley's overwhelming joy on Pretzel Day. The budget surplus was right in that wheelhouse, and provided opportunity for some human-scale Michael foolishness, as well as a wonderful look at what happens when Jim and Pam are on opposite sides of an issue.

We've seen Pam be ruthless before in getting what she wants (see her and Karen teaming up on the Committee to Plan Parties), but Jim is usually either on her side or an innocent, amused bystander. This was the first time in a while (if ever) where they were at odds on something like this, and it was hilarious to see them breaking out the big guns: Jim by buddying up to Michael, Pam by slapping on some lipstick and going all flirty about Michael's butt. It was nasty, it was disgusting, and it was brilliant.

Also wonderful were the demonstrations of just how badly the office needed replacements for both the copier and the chair. Michael gradually sinking while trying to give his inspirational speech to the troops was a particularly nice touch.

On the downside, I think I'm about ready for the Dwight/Andy/Angela triangle to end, even though it's clear from the developments here that it's not gonna. Outside of Andy randomly stepping in manure in the kitchen, I spent most of that subplot feeling uncomfortable.

Some other thoughts:

• Now, was Hank the security guard taking his sweet time because it was a tough choice, or because the Dunder-Mifflin office is so much warmer than his usual digs?

• The drop down from Oscar's 8-year-old explanation to the 5-year-old explanation was a good twist on an old joke.

• I grew up right near a Burlington Coat Factory store, and Michael is absolutely right when he says $600 in there would make you like a king. In fact, given the sad state of the economy and my need for some new shirts, I think I need to figure out where the closest Burlington is to me.

• What was grosser: Andy in the dung, or Michael pouring sugar into his soda can?

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

The Office, "Frame Toby": Caprese for everyone!

As with tonight's "30 Rock," I was so underwhelmed with the latest episode of "The Office" -- other than Michael's initial reaction to Toby's return and the revelation that Dwight is a fan of "The Shield" -- that I don't have the energy or enthusiasm to write anything more than the generic invitation for you all to comment.

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

The Office, "Business Trip": Take off, to the Great White North

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

"Business Trip" was a very melancholy episode, the sort the show does a few times a season, as we saw Michael, Andy, Jim and Pam and even Ryan struggle to come to terms with a lousy personal development: Michael grieving for the end of his relationship with Holly, Andy briefly (and drunkenly) realizing how bad he has it with Angela, Jim and Pam starting to lose patience and faith with their long forced absence, and Ryan realizing what a horrible mistake he made by getting back into a relationship with Kelly.

Now, the genius of "The Office" is that it can find laughs even in very depressing situations. "Business Trip" wasn't as gut-busting hilarious as some other episodes this season, but I was impressed by how often I was laughing during an episode that was so much about the characters' pain.

Before Michael had to take his pathetic walk of shame or got to unload on David Wallace for transferring Holly to Nashua, we got to see him get whacked in the knee by the business class drink cart (a problem I've often had, blindfold or no) and rave about how the hotel concierge (played by Wendy McLendon-Covey from "Reno 911," doing a delightful faux-Manitoba accent) was like the Winnipeg equivalent of a geisha. (I especially loved seeing how turned on he got at realizing she knew where to get dry cleaning done on New Year's Eve.)

And even though there was a very sad truth at the heart of Andy's story -- he's being cuckolded by an awful woman who will have sex with Dwight but not him -- it gave us the spectacle of Andy and Oscar doing some drunk out-of-office bonding. I'm not sure there's ever been a wronger sentence uttered in that Winnipeg bar than "Beer me dos Long Island iced teas," but it was very Andy, and the whole thing was a nice acknowledgment of the way that co-workers can sometimes discover they like each other a lot more when they're not working at adjacent desks.

Ryan and Kelly's story was the most blatantly comic from start to finish, with the funniest part being Daryl's silent jaunty walk to his truck, which said all we needed to know about how happy he was in that relationship. Almost as good was the dazed look on Ryan's face in the final talking head as he acknowledged, "I realized that, for whatever reason, I just couldn't do better than Kelly."

The one story I had a problem with was Pam's abrupt return to Scranton. I'm glad to have her back in the middle of the action again, and that the writers are apparently done trying to create false tension in the PB&J relationship. But it seems like a cheat to me to have Pam suddenly claim that she hated graphic design, especially when it was clear in earlier in episodes that she was having a great time on her New York adventure (other than the forced separation). If Pam is just back at the reception desk in the next episode and no longer pursuing her artistic dreams, I'm going to be really annoyed, because it'll be a violation of character in the service of maintaining the series' status quo.

And yet Jenna Fischer and Krasinski did a good job playing their long-distance misery and then their joy at seeing each other again in the parking lot. I really do like having those two together; I just wish the writers had just let Pam finish the class and then decide to come back to Scranton, going back to receptionist while exploring other options in the area.

Some other thoughts on "Business Trip":

• In the course of a brief web search, I have been unable to find a direct flight from Scranton to Winnipeg, let alone one that runs less than two hours. Michael got robbed of a meal, I say.

• Andy's personal DVD collection includes "Harry and the Hendersons"?

• Did Oscar and his "roommate" break up? Or was he just indulging Andy's wingman fantasies because he was bored on the trip? (And because he assumed Andy would fail miserably, which he did.)

• My favorite of Michael's cultural lessons from the opening sequence: in Italy, you have to wash your hands after going to the bathroom. My gosh, what a bizarre country that must be.

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

The Office, "Customer Survey": Say hello to my little phone

Spoilers for last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I mix up several gallons of guacamole...

"That's what she said! That's what she said! That's what she said!" -Pam

If I was worried about how the show would be in the immediate aftermath of Holly's departure, I'm not so much anymore. Though there were a few flat spots, there were also so many different funny and clever things going on that I feel confident it wasn't just Amy Ryan carrying the show these last six episodes.

The central gimmick of "Customer Survey," with Jim and Pam secretly communicating with each other via the world's smallest Bluetooths (Blueteeth?) not only allowed for the kind of PB&J interaction that's been in short supply this season, but it allowed for some hilarious running commentary from Pam during scenes she would have no business being in even were she still working at the receptionist's desk. Her exuberant triple-"That's what she said!" was the obvious highlight, but we also got her noting that "Right Dwight is loud," or demanding to know the exact hue of Dwight's shirt, or Pam reflexively humming "Centerfold" after Jim turned off Dwight's car stereo.

The Blueteeth gag also gave us lots of PB&J sweetness, and was another reminder that putting them together in no way damaged the show -- which is why my only concern about the episode was the final scene, with Harry Crane from "Mad Men" trying to talk Pam into staying in New York to pursue her artistic dreams. (And good on the writers for making the guy do it as a concerned friend and not as a wannabe boyfriend, which I think we all assumed/feared would happen at some point.) It was a good speech, but it seems to be setting up some kind of artificial crisis for the relationship. Jim and Pam both reacted as if Jim either wouldn't want to or couldn't move to New York to be with her. David Wallace loves him and could certainly find him a job at corporate, and it's not like Jim wants or needs to stay in Scranton for the rest of his life. The bit about him trying to buy his parent's house could suggest a financial/logistical challenge to him moving right away, but we're reaching the point where one or both of our romantic heroes are going to have to behave massively out of character, either in service of a break-up storyline or to get them both back in the Scranton branch.

But we'll worry about that down the road. Getting back to the content of "Customer Survey" itself, I loved watching how the bad customer surveys forced Jim and Dwight to team up. We've seen in the past (notably "Traveling Salesmen") that they actually work brilliantly together on those rare occasions where they have to set aside their disdain for each other, and the moment where Jim realized Dwight was correct about the sabotage -- and Dwight realizing that Jim was acknowledging his genius -- was wonderful.

And before that happened, we got the role play exercise, where Jim hilariously exploited Michael and Dwight's insistence on taking these sorts of things so seriously. No other people would sit there and indulge "Bill Buttlicker" while he pretended to be taking another call in which he mocked Dwight, nor would any other person seriously contemplate pretend-firing Dwight to get Buttlicker's pretend-commission, but Michael and Dwight are not like other people.

I should also say that, while the teaser briefly made me fear that Holly's absence would return Michael to the over-the-top caricature he's sometimes in danger of becoming, this episode had him dialed in just right. No, he's not on his best behavior anymore, but he was still recognizably human, particularly in his empathetic response to Kelly trying to sandbag Jim and Dwight for not going to her party.

Good stuff all around, and I haven't even mentioned poor Andy now being tricked into paying for his own cuckolding by holding the wedding at Schrute Farms. The writers have accomplished the impossible: they actually have me feeling sorry for Andy.

Some other thoughts:

• "Customer Survey" was directed by Brit "Office" co-creator Stephen Merchant, and like most of the show's Very Special Guest Directors (Joss Whedon, J.J. Abrams), he fit right in. Yet there were certain exchanges -- like Michael talking about Jim's "smudgeness" -- that wouldn't have been out of place on, say, "Extras."

• Is Dwight, like Michael, watching "The Wire," or is it just that the show's writers can't stop dropping references like "juked the stats"?

• Perhaps the most disturbing and yet character-appropriate line in the history of the series: Michael telling Kelly, "You can't say 'I was raped' and expect all your problems to go away. Not again. You can't keep doing that."

• Why can't Angela's Nana Mimi stay in canvas for very long? And how old would the east coast's best tentist be if he was involved with Rudy Giuliani's first wedding, back in 1968?

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