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

yeah, that was great. it was nice how wassname told erin he wanted her to be happy, and that's what made her see sense. really lovely writing.

curious to know how catherine tate feels about being an extra.

New Michael!

I mean ok maybe it's because I'm watching drunk and alone on Valentines Day but this show seems extra depressing tonite

yup it was, but it felt more coherently depressing than usual? if that makes sense

Probably because they're trying to make every relationship on the show look hopeless, then pair that with valentines day.

They should bring back Holly and Michael just to ruin their relationship too.

Really loving Bob in this. The new Michael!

He was really good, but it had the meta-effect of reminding me that the Michael Scott schtick is kind of tired at this point (much like Pam's eventual feelings)

Every week increases my hatred of Jim.

Every time they try to "expose" a Jim quirk he just comes of douchey.

Andy is so dreadful, they must be setting him up for some spectacular comeuppance, or else there's no justice in the world.

Jim is awful too but I guess it's consistent characterization. Remember when he bought a house without asking Pam? I was so annoyed by that, particularly when Pam ended up being like "squee you got me a house!" instead of "these are the kind of decisions we ought to be making as a couple."

she's learning, i suppose

I don't think he's being a jerk about this in particular. She coulda expressed some reticence or put the breaks on a bit. I don't think it's ridiculous for him to feel that staying a paper salesman when he has a chance to do something cool and interesting is untenable. I hope the show does not end with him coming around to realizing how at home he is at the office.

^^^ dis

it seems like the show is angling to make them reality celebs since they've now hinted the documentary is about to air. well, at least kevin and oscar.

Man I am surprised Andy didnt get fired/demoted at the end of the episode...

So I take it the Dwight storyline was probably all cannibalized footage from his unaired spinoff pilot.

iirc this episode was originally intended as the backdoor pilot to the spinoff, they just recut it and changed some storylines around to keep it in the office series' flow after the dwight series wasn't picked up.

Ah. I can see why the Dwight show didn't happen.

I almost didn't hate that episode, and then the Decemberists vomited cotton candy all over it.

i thought it was OK actually, since they toned down Dwight back to his still-kinda-human days

The earliest Dwight was the funniest to me and always had me thinking "I know that guy! What a tool" but once the alpha amish farmer Dwight was fully realized he was too cartoony for me to find funny. Not that I'm a boring enough person to only find things funny by "how true!" they are but that angle was the appeal of the concept of The Office.

Did anyone like this new ep?

I liked last week better. OTOH, there's this:

http://24.media.tumblr.com/4899ea5c4dd077cc70984146651c0692/tumblr_ml48xebhwK1rdh9g0o1_500.gif

and: “It wasn’t until I married Angela that I realized how charmless the female body was.”

i didn't think it was terrible. wrapping a tranquilized stanley in bubblewrap and sliding him down the stairs was ott but funny. i also liked the dog, cat, mouse guy, who was a bit surreal. idk. it was far from the worst episode this season.

lol stanley's evel knievel helmet.

and: “It wasn’t until I married Angela that I realized how charmless the female body was.”

meredith's response to that line was one of the saddest character-glimpse moments in this show ever

I don't remember what she said.

"always hurts to hear that one"

flashback to the wedding = cheap awwwwww moment but effective

competitive erin is good stuff.

the pam and jim marriage dissolution seems forced, like they want to inject dramatic interest into a show that has been all light farce for several years now, and end on a note closer to the early seasons.

yeah i agree w this to a certain extent. i know a few ppl who are legit worried that they were gonna end with the two splitting up though, so they must be doing something right

erin is fantastic, she will do better things after this show, i hope

guess my theory

http://www.northernstars.ca/News/2010/glen_gould_still.jpg

Chris Morris on The Day Today?

Michael Scott isn't coming...back.

Tonight's episode was v good.

Satisfying, even.

agreed, they're playing all the cards now

best episode in several years. where did they suddenly pull that from? so many amazing moments i don't know where to start.

There was a huge cast party in Scranton last night, proceeds to local charity, and Steve Carrell showed up.

Except for the stupid Jim/Pam discord, I think the last season and a half has actually been pretty high quality. I don't think pulling off one episode of this caliber came from nowhere.

yes but it's head and shoulders above everything, especially in some really well done character dilemma moments

(by that i mean which way a character will behave under a particularly unusual circumstance)

okay now that the iron is off i can elaborate without burning down the place. the three moments that really jumped out at me were:

1. having andy jump the firing gun by volunteering to resign, and then having to respond to basically the whole office telling him to stay, while he knew he actually didn't have that choice. obv that was resolved fairly quickly by him being offered the sales position, but a couple of scenes (where various office members were telling him how dumb he was being) were absolutely thrilling to watch.

2. dwight wanting to tell the office he was the new manager, but david asking to be the one to announce it then being distracted by a phone call, and dwight genuinely struggling about whether he should wait or just blurt it.

3. oscar offering angela a temporary place to stay. with all their recent history completely understood, and angela's constitution being so fragile at that moment, she could have reacted in so many ways (the reaction she chose made me tear up fwiw)

there was other great stuff too (jim & pam genuinely hugging dwight in congratulation; angela opening up about dwight; erin hoping (and failing) to go on a double date with jim & pam; pretty much every line kevin had), but the three points above really gave those characters a chance to shine.

also, this episode didn't feel like a double at all—so very tightly written and edited that 'er indoors and i didn't even notice how long it was.

the only thing that spoiled this episode was andy actually crapping on david's car. silly.

but a couple of scenes (where various office members were telling him how dumb he was being) were absolutely thrilling to watch.

I can see this, but I felt like the ep almost lost me bcz it went into that mode where everybody had to reiterate over and over again how unsuited Andy was for show business, which was done to such a degree that it began to feel a bit forced. Which is why I ended up liking the emotional climax centering around him covering Sarah McLachlan, something that would normally make me cringe: because it threw all of that into sharp relief.

I think now that the Andy character has been resolved, it can be said that the writers did a real good job with his character. He was a tremendous flake, but the show was full of tremendous flakes, and it probably wasn't an easy task to differentiate him from Michael Scott. But I think the writers did a good job of doing that and keeping his character internally consistent, and using his flakiness to kind of play with some of the show's other plot formulae (ie setting up Andy/Erin along the same lines as Jim/Pam or Michael/Holly, then having Andy completely fuck it up...)

I half agree with that, but I found it weird when during the second half of this season they completely switched away from the audience sympathizing with him when the actor had to disappear for several episodes, mistreating Erin, etc. His annoying qualities had been toned down or given a more sympathetic "late-Michael Scott" sheen over the past two seasons (remember when he was supposed to unite the office as an "underdog"?). My guess is that they turned away from the Andy/Erin subplot when it was clear that there wasn't really enough chemistry between the two of them, hence them setting up the Erin/New Jim romance...

But then again I did kind of enjoy the scenes of people constantly telling him he was making a terrible horrible decision and Andy going back and forth until finally taking a dump on the hood of his boss' car

i agree with Nhex. Andy, as a character, has been a mess; the writers never seem sure about how they want to write him. i think this is an issue that goes back a ways in the show.