The Office Season 8: It Kinda Seems Like the Left Side is the Side to Be On

I know we've had several other threads for this show, but poring through search for whatever most recent one was used for discussion is kind of annoying, plus it seemed like a good time for a new thread for the post-Michael Scott era.

Last night's premeire was hit-and-miss, but encouraging enough overall to keep me around for awhile. I think the decision to make Andy the manager was a great one, I'm glad they didn't give it to Jim. The planking stuff wasn't really funny, but I hate that stupid meme so I was glad to see it being poked fun of anyway. Stanley's glee at coming up with a new "thing" was great. Not looking forward to more pregnancy/baby stuff with Pam & Jim, but I guess there wasn't really any other way to handle her irl pregnancy.

Andy as manager is fantastic and I thought they did an excellent job of showing both how he is going to be a totally different often terrible boss from Michael and why he may not be entirely hopeless at it.

I thought Dwight was pretty great in this episode.

God, i love the receptionist.

Left side... ATTACK! slayed me.

Ryan's pretty much a one-joke character at this point, but its still a funny one.

haha yes, that was definitely a shining moment

also Andy still carrying a Gabe grudge

"Little baby Michael Scott!" joke almost made me go see what the slash fic writers had come up with for that one.

I think the decision to make Andy the manager was a great one, I'm glad they didn't give it to Jim.

Definitely an inspired choice. I didn't give him a second thought because of his anger management past, but there are so many reasons he's the right choice (I won't list them here (okay I will:

- he wasn't really doing anything of value in the show (and he wasn't even a pivotal character, having been brought in from that other office and sort of neglected ever since)
- adding focus and determination to his character works really, really well (we're only 22 minutes in and already he's stood up for his people)
- the Andy/Erin thing is poised to grow his character even further
- Ed Helms is capable of so much more than he's been able to deliver (and he probably gets 12 offers a week these days)

))

Above all, I really like that they told us early and just got on with it. It was built up enough last year – any more fuss and it would have been nagl for the show. There was no way they could have replaced Michael Scott in the minds of the viewers; this brilliant new dynamic between Andy and Robert California (loooooool) addresses that pretty well.

Jim wouldn't have worked simply because he's too important a part of the dynamic to be elevated.

Jim and Pam are my least favorite people on the show.

especially last night

Yeah, unfortunately Pam used to be among the more interesting, but she's been super boring since the wedding. I guess they don't have much choice given Jenna's pregnancy, but I am not looking forward to more of the baby stuff with them.

Maybe that's why they restored the Andy and Erin thing last year.

Speaking of babies, what's up with Angela getting both married and preggers during the break?

Yeah, unfortunately Pam used to be among the more interesting, but she's been super boring since the wedding. I guess they don't have much choice given Jenna's pregnancy, but I am not looking forward to more of the baby stuff with them.

― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Friday, September 23, 2011 4:54 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Oh god, please not that again. She is really, really boring. Another, more minor character who's gotten the shaft is Kevin. He used to be pretty funny, now they just make him look like an overgrown child.

Exciting

i'm sorry, i couldnt even watch the entire episode. it was so disappointing.
all of the SUBTLE humor that once made the show great in the first couple of seasons has completely vanished.

I mean really. In what real office do people plank every second? or form two lines and attack each other on a whim?
the beauty of the show used to be that it so closely mirrored real life; you could relate to the little awkward moments. now it might as well be a cartoon.

opening the season with a planking joke is everything that has been wrong with this show for 5 years in a nutshell.

That joke sucked but I bet it was appealing to a large demographic (and I don't mean fat people. snicker)

Andy was great. The CEO is pretty goodM I'm just glad that he isn't going to be around forever. I have a hard time caring about anyone or anything other than a good joke nowadays. I'm always okay with Kevin and Darryl though

this show has gone downhill

yeah but still kinda enjoyable.

i admit i loved that last Spader line - "there's something about an underdog that really inspires the unexceptional."

I love the fact that the nickname Tuna seemed so lame once upon a time, but now it's just what Andy calls Jim.

^^^ otm, thats one of the touches of realism that I appreciate wrt this show. I mean, lots of irl nicknames are the same way - they start out so stupid, but stick.

I still get some lols and some warm fuzzies from The Office now in the post-Michael Scott era, but it's just like comfort food now. Casseroles are rarely exciting, but delicious.

Ed Helms low billing? Andy not coping in the role? I reckon he's being written out.

He's the show's biggest star (hangover etc), and just being written as michael-lite. That's their only way to new viewers is pushing helms. The low-billing is probably a contractual thing because he came into the show in season 3.

ep stunk on ice. straight terrible.

like the first few minutes w Spader were okay, but after that...whoa!

Yeah, this ep was awful.

Andy is not Michael-lite in any way, shape or form. He's ineffectual and effective in entirely different ways, plus he is not completely incapable of (or uninterested in) grasping basic social conventions.

I still get some lols and some warm fuzzies from The Office now in the post-Michael Scott era, but it's just like comfort food now. Casseroles are rarely exciting, but delicious.

― Johnny Fever, Friday, September 30, 2011 11:12 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

Exactly. I only watch bc I used to love, and occasionally I can get one of those good elements. But, 95% of the episode is terrible now.

The Daryl/Andy faceoff answered some questions.

...and was rehashed from "Did I Stutter?" Cold opening was the worst ever. I knew this season was going to be rough going when I noticed that everyone is smiling during the opening credits.

huh?

The opening credit sequence is different this season, and it shows shots of the whole gang smiling. Which is not exactly what a show about an office needs to be doing.

this week's was the lowest-rated episode in 6 and a half years. I would say "RIP" but it's still well above what other NBC comedies pull.

Every show but The Mentalist took a hit thursday night due to baseball (which I think was the highest rated playoff game ever?).

I imagine it was some product placement thing, but I have say, Erin as Wendy (of "Wendy's") was an inspired costume.

gabe and erin are the only characters i care about anymore. whenever gabe's creepy mug shows up on-screen i am filled with joy.

opening scenes with Andy as Michael Scott-lite were embarrassing, but I liked getting to see more of the cast this week and last ep (triumphant return of Mose!), and hope that this week's stuff was an indication of actual plots for Erin to come.

not looking forward to the other redhead though

gabe is so rubbish I thought it was the actor but his small part in damsels in distress wasn't bad and he was quite good in his big scene

he's fantastic in The Thick Of It

i am pro-gabe forever, his presence on this show is wonderfully incongruous. he's this spiteful, awkward, powerless grotesque that doesn't mesh well with anyone, particularly compared to how chummy and sitcommy the rest of the main cast has become. his "shut up about the sun!" in the last season finale is all-time for me.

also are we not talking about casting spoilers itt? because i'm also looking forward to the aforementioned casting spoiler. basically i want the office to only star people who weren't in the office seasons 1 thru 3.

tinyurl link to the spoiler? i can't find it...

he's fantastic in The Thick Of It

I mean In The Loop obv

I love Gabe. I think I was probably like Gabe in college. Ambient synthesizer music and narrative-free experimental video. I love when they rely on his pretensions for the laughs. Oscar's arrogance and pretentiousness is great too. Like that discussion he had with Daryl about Citizen Kane.

casting spoiler

oh yeah I saw that, I am massively excited about that

show is dying

this show is terrible now but andy rocking out on his legs was for some reason the funniest thing i've seen in a long time. hit a bit too close to home maybe.

I laughed heartily at Dwight's "you're fake salivating over a Soviet-era Russian" and "he has the broad face of a brewer."

Maybe he'll be redeemed in the "six months later" thing.

― i kant believe it's not buffon (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Saturday, 11 May 2013 01:06 (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'd stick money on that tbh

They should have just had Dwight run the office instead of Andy.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Saturday, 11 May 2013 01:18 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that works as a sort of lol we have one episode conceit, but for an unknown number of years it would probably have changed the dynamic of the show way too much

btw interesting how they just dropped the brian thing (presumably they got feedback early enough to be able to do something about it). incorporating the documentary crew the way they did this week (compiling footage for pam) was at least a billion times better

So dude came back, I hear.

Just for a bit part.

...That's what she said!

In all seriousness, I thought Erin's arch was a sweet leftfield surprise.

yeah, great that erin got a good ending in all this

michael's cameo was perfectly executed: get him in for something important; give him a couple of lines (obv carell is rusty as michael now); let the show wrap up its current stories without him

i thought it was annoying that erin's birth parents decided to spring that on her during the televised panel. would it have been that hard to discretely contact her before the fact?

they were weird

Yeah appearances of long lost parents like that in shows usually are built to make you suspicious of their true motives.

Though the episode overall was basically a clip show where nobody felt like acting.

And the scene where Andy ran into the huge crowd of fans waiting in the other room would have been way more effective if the camera followed him around the corner to reveal the crowd. Just a thought.

I'd like to think Erin's parents saw her on the doc, and then tried to reach her through PBS, and then the docs producers persuaded them to reintroduce themselves at the panel to spice up the eventual bonus feature.

i liked the kinda-cheesy casting of Ed Begley Jr. and Joan Cusack. they seem like such generic hippy rom-com parents

Best part of that scene was how everyone else in the panel and the audience realized what was happening before she did.

yeah, that erin's a dopey sweetheart

Also loved Pete's bit about he's still not famous or anything, but now all his friends call him "Plop" so that's great.

Though the episode overall was basically a clip show where nobody felt like acting.

― Evan, Friday, 17 May 2013 23:41 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes! in that respect it was hard to tell the difference between the talking heads in the retrospective clip show thing and the actual final episode

<3 erin, xpost. but yeah, overall this episode was lame and unsurprising. i felt happy for andy in the end, getting a job in the admissions office at cornell. i didn't even know i cared about that character but this was the only emotional response i had to this episode.

i didn't have much emotional attachment at all. it all happened, there were things, people did stuff, they all did their final speeches, the end. only time i actually felt nice about it all was in that group photo in the warehouse with greg daniels &c., but even that was awkward.

They added 15 minutes to it, but imo they could've cut out 15 minutes of Dwight and Angela's wedding and it would've been perfectly okay with me. I guess they needed that so Michael could have his cameo, Nellie could get her baby, and Ryan and Kelly could flee together.

the baby thing was depressing to me. isn't it traumatic for babies' primary caregivers to keep changing?

i mean functionally it all ~worked~, and everyone did the sorts of things you would expect them all to be doing, but the execution felt a bit by-the-numbers

xp yeah, the baby thing was in character for ryan, slightly dissonant for kelly, and just completely wtf for nellie (because we still don't know who she is; she might as well be an extra for all the difference it makes)

actually no i take that back, perfectly in character for kelly

losing the wedding also meant losing the string band version of "Sweet Child of Mine", so NO.

It was very Dwight that his first reaction to the limo stopping and seeing a man with a bazooka standing in a field was to assume that Jim had turned on him.

yeah that was good. the part with dwight and the stripper was stupid and forced though. i don't know what they could have done better with this episode... this season was a mess. the early seasons of the office still contain many of my favorite moments in television history though.

otoh, the fact that Angela's stripper was Meredith's son and the only person not weirded out by that being Meredith was p awesome.

yeah that was great. i think it could have been better executed because it was undermined/cut short by the ridiculous mose kidnapping plotline, but i shouldn't complain bc it was still funny

The wedding was good, come on. The hair metal and the entire Kelly/Ryan scene was A++++ for their characters. "It's a combination of Drew and Blake".

"She went out to get a battery for her E-Cigarette..."

And come on, the "you came" "that's what she said" was expected, but perfect.

Definitely, but Michael desperately needed just a few more actual lines. Or some more 1 on 1 sneak ups like he did with Dwight.

i suspect michael was only there to appease the audience. the show is in no way about him any more.

sort of like when hitchcock started doing his lol cameos right at the start of films so the audience would stop looking for him and just enjoy the movie

yeah, we found out all we needed to know about the rest of his life from Pam.

He's so happy that he's got a family plan!

We watched the finale tonight. I'm so glad I jumped ship when I did.

when did you? I think I stopped watching after the 2009 season

Maybe it was the beginning of this season? When it was revealed that James Spader was gone and Andy was the new boss?

I've got to hand it to Gervais/Merchant: One season, two seasons, a Christmas special and OUT.

james spader was fumbled and catherine tate was just utterly wasted

I liked the finale, but I also didn't watch the retrospective until afterwards, which helped.

Brautentführung is a real tradition.

I liked the finale!
I didn't like the previous episode where it was revealed the baby was Dwight's - I'd rather it wasn't and Angela hadn't lied to him the whole time.

Amusing "Where Are They Know" character pix from NBC site.

geez, "Where Are They Now?"

So I eventually made it to the end. I really liked the final season and the elegiac tone they found throughout.
The restraint of Michael Scott's appearance in the finale was a bit surprising. Also I found a bit sad that they would do a 180 and move the Halperts to Austin, when the whole season seemed to emphasise that one could be happy in a 9 to 5 paper job, that love, friends and community were was it's all about.

Just screened Obvious Child--didn't know that Plop played the baby daddy.

that is possibly the least important connection anyone has ever made

weirdly that makes me more motivated to see it

John Krasinski now JACKED for a role, ie no longer hot.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/25/john-krasinski-criticizes-politicians-for-exploiting-13-hours-i-think-it-s-pretty-disgusting.html

Also, kinda dumb