The Office vs. The Office

I don't think I could have ever chosen. I think the UK show is better in an objective sense of being more creative and more realistic and just having the character of David Brent, and at its peaks it's probably funnier than the US office. But the US Office is just more fun to watch, and there's more of it, and has better side characters and side plots since it's had more time to develop them.

-- n/a, Thursday, October 18, 2007 1:20 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

David Brent is outstanding, and the UK version definitely makes me squirmier, but yeah, the US version is consistently funnier overall.

I would have, and used to say, that the US equivalent of the Territorial Army is the National Guard and Army Reserves, but in the past few years any distinction may have been erased.

They wouldn't put Dwight in the Guard, because then they'd be making fun of America too much.

I think the Nat'l Guard became something different from the territorial army around the same time everyone found out that GWB dodged nam via it

"better in an objective sense"=better

-- M.V., Thursday, October 18, 2007 10:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

Not necessarily, ponch.

not sure I follow you Will. Before the war, how was the National Guard much different then the TA? I don't know anything about the TA, but I assumed they served similar purposes.

I mean when I saw the Office UK I didn't understand the TA jokes untill somebody said "it's like the National Guard". I don't think anybody's opinion of it changed drastically after the GWB stuff.

the national guard might be analagous to the territorial army in practice but i don't sense much disrespect for the guard in this country, it just wouldn't have worked. the 'volunteer deputy' jokes seem to nail the same tone as the TA ones, not saying i fully understand the TA connotations.

I thought the territorial army was a place where, like, the nerdy skinny gun nerds went, whereas the nat'l guard is where you go when there's a draft and yr dad's rich.

no the national guard people are all in iraq now, actually.

but i'm not from the US or the UK, so what do i know?

xpost ouuuuch.

i find the american version better when it's farther away from the british version. i don't think it's any surprise that those early episodes based on some of the british ones are the least funny. the US one isn't as bleak and doesn't really explore class issues like the UK one did, which is probably for the better.

The Territorial Army are in Iraq too, and getting killed too, sadly.

Sorry to hear that, didn't know. Figured with smaller forces they wouldn't have resorted to that like we did.

Anybody seen the Canadian version or the French version?

Iranian version, Saudi version, Chinese version, Darfur version, Caveman version, Meerkat version, Down's syndrome version...

the other Office thread inspired me to look this up.

I think the first series of the UK Office was hilarious through and through. I thought the second was uncomfortable and too over the top even for itself. David Brent was beyond annoying by series end.

I do prefer it to the US one though

I'm kind of torn on this one now. I have not been watching the US one over the years so maybe that clouds my mind, but I used to be a UK version stan. and I still love it, but I really disliked the second series -- David Brent was way too over the top, and got his rightful (spoiler) FIRING in the end.

think the USA blends in drama better, even if some of its more comedic moments are sometimes more irritating.

never seen the Xmas special until now and I am having a hard time not doubling over at the David Brent 'single'.

love how little work they do in the true version (US)

The US version had longer stretches of complex brilliance, and long, loooooong stretches of inconceivably unwatchable dreck. Maybe the first show to be utterly destroyed by the idea of "fan service".

this scene still kills me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-wfO6_eq-A

feel like series one of UK The Office was brilliant, series two was meh

The US version would be remembered so much more fondly if they had just quit while they were ahead. Stupid TV producers always want to milk that shit dry.

^ That's US televsion for you.

UK office bleak as fuk

The US version would be remembered so much more fondly if they had just quit while they were ahead. Stupid TV producers always want to milk that shit dry.

I totally gave up on it around the middle of its run, but came back toward the end and it had certainly rebounded. I think it went out strong.

A weird case where naming some of the cast executive producers with story responsibility late in the game fixed rather than caused a lot of the show's problem (although Jenna Fischer's husband was the worst director in the show's history).

UK office bleak as fuk

yeah was gonna say there's nothing in the US series as devastating and true as the Christmas party episode. whether that makes either one "better" i don't really care.

not the Christmas party, i meant the quiz night

Yeah the series is best when gervais’s essential unpleasantness and misanthropy shines through, when it goes for “humanity” it lands as schmaltz. Obv he becomes tiresome in both modes somewhere in s2 because he’s extremely limited & also cause some gammony wanker’s revulsion at plebs having fun in a shit high st club is only interesting/tolerable for so long

basically Martin Freeman became the irksome Martin Freeman p quickly and Gervais didn't have the spine to stick to the darkness, either.

i'm not sure who's more irksome out of Freeman and Krasinski

two versions of the same irksome

normie everymen for the masses

krasinski significantly worse imho

this may be an Atlantic divide, cos I've never seen Krasinski outside of the Office, so this is quite clearly Freeman

tbf i haven't seen Krasinski in a series of brutally smug mobile phone adverts

I like how the british office is more realistic yet aomehow even more unprofessional than the zany US office. There was one scene where Martin Freeman was just openly making out with the girl he is dating (not Dawn). Do they not have stairwells and storage rooms in the UK?

binge watched the US version's first three seasons and it's interesting to see them in quick succession, as opposed to watching it on broadcast...but there is a pretty clear break from season 2 to 3, where it quickly moves to a wacky boss sitcom. I honestly don't think the US version (esp season 1) is all that less bleak or uncomfortable than the UK version, but obviously that isn't something you could keep up

UK office bleak as fuk

Welcome to British comedy. The bleakest part is it launched Ricky Gervais' career and we've never been able to get rid of the fucker since.

I mean there wasn't much early evidence (that I saw) of just how odious he'd become

Gervais?

What odious stuff has he done?

I was kinda familiar with the bleakness of uk comedy from watching peep show etc but even then....there are some harrowing moments in this uk office. David Brent is just a horroshow of a human—selfish, vain, manipulative, dishonest

Right, but the series suggests (to me, anyway) a level of self-awareness and maybe even humility.

His recent-ish decline is chronicled here:

https://thebaffler.com/latest/what-happened-to-ricky-gervais-james

my kid got hooked on this at the end of last year and I wound up wathing the last few seasons which I hadn't seen while broadcast and I agree this series went out pretty strong even though it certainly wavered at times.

His stand-up comedy is excruciating, his movies are instantly forgettable, and his smug, dorm-room atheism makes any self-respecting unbeliever want to convert to Wahhabi Islam just as a personal fuck you.

lol

Agree with people about US Office getting worse and then better again. Robert California and Catherine Tate’s character were later season highlights, but it really peaked around the fourth season.

The bleakness of the UK version was too uncomfortably real and the sentimentality was difficult to stomach. Gervais is definitely someone to culturally forget outside of this role. I preferred the US Office for its hysterical melodrama. That episode where Michael and Jan throw a dinner party is one of my favourite moments of 00s TV.

Little fat man who sold his soul
Little fat man who sold his dream

Pathetic little fat man
No one's bloody laughing
The clown that no one laughs at
They all just wish he'd die

He's so depressed at being hated
Fatso takes his own life
He blows his stupid brains out
But the twat would probably miss

A weird case where naming some of the cast executive producers with story responsibility late in the game fixed rather than caused a lot of the show's problem

There were writers in the cast from the first episode - I don't think any of the non-writing actors got added to the writing staff late on?

the Baffler piece doesn't even go near odious things like Gervais relentlessly physically bullying his employees, or hiring a one-man PR firm to create a fansite and twitter account for him and then retweeting that site's tweets daily with notes about how they're thoughtful appreciations of his art

No, I mean the stars who weren't writers got added as producers, and Jenna Fischer (for one) was reportedly extremely hands-on in wanting to get away from silly sit-commy stuff and get back into the character-driven tension.