The Official "Office" Thread!

[Muppet fan 123]

This season was by far the worst. It doesn't feel like a comedy anymore, it's so ghastly, that I forget that they're even trying to make me laugh (or are they?)

I guess the reason why Ed Helms was missing was to go off and film the next Hangover, that's probably why they wrote his off for three months.
The new cast wasn't so great either. ESPECIALLY Nellie, for some reason she drives me crazy.

But they have been doing some great-behind-the camera stuff, which I loved a lot, and the episode 'Promos' had a lot of that great nostalgic fan moments.
But y'know that big filming thing that they were building up all season? Yeah, it's exactly what everyone thought it would be! A documentary for PBS! There was absolutely no thought put it to why they were filming these past ten years!

They didn't even have to say there was a reason! I don't think anyone was wondering why there was a camera following them around all this time.
Part of the greatness of it was that you had no idea..It's like Gonzo in MFS. Once they said (no thought here either) that Gonzo is an alien, it takes away from the greatness of Gonzo. Now you KNOW what he is, he's not a 'whatever' anymore.

Tonight was the fourth-to-last episode, and it doesn't even feel like the show will ever end. I'm glad it's going to end. This show jumped the shark a long time ago.

 

[Drtooth]

To be fair, there was that powerful moment when Pam broke down and one of the guys filming interacted when he wasn't supposed to... and then in the next episode when he got really involved. There's some powerful Jim and Pam moments, but everything else is just bleh.

I have no problem with them being self aware that it's a documentary, or that the documentary was for anything. That's what I wanted to see the last season. The characters watching the documentary. But then again, they completely dropped the ball and didn't end it the way they should have, Dunder Mifflin crashing under the weight of poor management (Michael Scott was the only one to keep a branch afloat), and the company rapidly going under, leaving everyone else to scramble for work... then a time skip several months later to show how every character is doing. Unless they save that for the end, the "business as usual" stuff is dull.

The Farm was crap. Completely awful. Glad it wasn't picked up.

 

[Teheheman]

I'm sure the pilot version of 'The Farm' was better than the episode was. I thought the episode wasn't BAD, but I'm sure it coulda been better if edited as a pilot. Then again, what else does NBC have? The Office is the only thing keeping it afloat.
They're actually using the finale as a 'reunion' of sorts. They have said that the documentary has already aired and we get to see what the characters are doing now. I personally wanted to see it end when Michael Scott left, but it was interesting to see the cast without him, but I think they made Andy to be Michael Scott-light, and I don't think they should have done that. They should've done what MASH did and made a different character when the old one left.
I'm actually going to the Wrap Party they're having in Scranton next weekend. They SAY there might be a preview of the finale. I'll try not to post any spoilers if you don't want me to but I'm kind of excited.

Daniel

 

[Drtooth]

The problem with The Farm is simple. Any joke they could have used there, they probably already used in Parks and Rec. I can't say I'm the hugest fan of that series (I like Ron, though), but it had more potential to be a full on series than a Dwight spinoff would.

Think of it this way. When you take one of the best characters out of the show and give him his own, the show is usually awful because that character just played better off other characters and can't really star in his own series because he has new people to play off of, getting different results. Joey's a prime example, as is any Scooby-Doo series where it's just Shaggy and Scooby (maybe Scrappy) without the rest of the gang. Meanwhile, when Cheers got a spinoff, they picked the right character. A Cliff Clavin or Norm show would have flopped. But they took a popular enough character that was in between defined and wiggle room, and we got the long lasting Frasier that almost made you forget about Cheers.

A Dwight show wouldn't have worked. The character was already popular, had a very well defined personality, and he was on every episode in a pretty major role since the beginning. We got just enough of his side life of working in a beet farm and just enough of cousin Mose in the show already to add as a funny side bit. Any more of that, and it would be too much. Dwight isn't funny just because he's like an American born German version of Balki, he was funny because he was a jerk and was the office Starscream. He thought he'd be better than Michael, feigned loyalty and threw him under the bus a few times, only to pathetically crawl back. We'd lose that part, and only get the background bit with weird customs and farm boy jokes. That would wear thin after a brief period. I really don't think it could have held up as a series on its own.

In fact, the new plotline about the sports company Jim works at would have been a better series, unfortunately it would also be exactly like the show we've been watching for 10 years with competent people.

But I agree... NBC has nothing else... but the ratings of The Office were slipping hard the last 2 seasons. Some just said the heck with it and view Steve Carell's last episode as the true finale.

 

[Muppet fan 123]

The Office is actually NBC's LEAST popular show at the moment. I think Parks and Rec is strongly in the spotlight for them, (for comedies at least.)

 

[Teheheman]

By 'popular', I meant, 'NBC's highest rated scripted sitcom'. Not in 'people like it more than other shows'. I agree, Parks and Rec and even Community are WAY more popular than The Office at the moment.

Daniel