The Office running thread

You had to pay better attention to find the jokes in AD and The Office.

There is always money in the banana stand (I chuckle as I type that) is a perfect example. That will always be 100 times funnier (to me) than Dwight throwing out a crossbow.

 

Since you care so much, would you agree that The Office would not have survived had it not broadened its appeal somewhat? For all its brilliance, Arrested Development barely scraped together three seasons, and at the end of the third, Fox was running FOUR EPISODES A NIGHT just to burn them off and be done with it.

Greg Daniels made a choice to try and still do the show he wanted, but also stay on the air. Getting hung up on Ryan's irrelevant character seems like an odd thing to focus your frustrations on when Dwight and Michael are far more ridiculous than they were at the beginning. There is also a lot of cocaine use in between the Temp who burned something in the toaster and the douche reading Tucker Max in the break room. I think the evolution for that character has been fine, considering the whole thing where Ryan -- post firing from Dunder Mifflin -- worked in the bowling alley and tried to be faux philosophical about his drug use, his crash and burn, and his womanizing. I agree that a much smarter Ryan was portrayed in "Business Ethics" where Michael spoke to his class in Season 2, but I also think that Ryan hadn't become a drug addict and a dipshit yet.

 

I agree that the storyline with Andy overthinking his courtship of Erin, and causing himself immeasurable unnecessary grief in the process, was well done and rang true. I've been there and I've seen others there. All he had to do the whole time was JUST ASK HER, but he didn't realize it. Very authentic scenario many of us can identify with, which is precisely what contrasts it with the "diabolical plot" and other recent sillier storylines.

 

I wonder what has made more money in the long run after you count DVD sales? Arrested Development or three seasons of Two and Half Men?

 

You're the one telling people who disagree with you that they should go back to watching Road Runner cartoons. That hardly advances any discussion, regardless of whether you were "just joking."

 

She is doing a hell of a job as well. Maybe a little too ditzy, but still a hell of a job.

 

I prefer the political subtext of Tom vs. Jerry.

 

Maybe so, but the difference is that Dwight and Michael were ALWAYS ridiculous, maybe they increased the volume, but they did not change who they were.

But Ryan was originally used as a straight man, and the Ryan-related humor in the early season largely focused on his rationale befuddlement at the irrational behavior of the clowns around him. The last couple seasons they transformed Ryan from a straight man into a clown character. That is a far broader jump than simply increasing the level of ridiculousness for your already-established clowns.

 

I'd be curious to see some kind of interview with him to that effect. They obviously went that route - like you said, really playing up the cartoonish elements of Dwight and Michael, especially. But I wonder if he's ever admitted that anywhere that it has been a conscious ratings grab. It bothers me that Americans prefer the over-the-top buffoons rather than the pitch-perfect representations that those characters were early on of people any one of us might have worked with.

 

As a cheat, I have a much bigger issue with the Ryan character's progression than Dwight or Michael's. I think Dwight and Michael are bad writing/giving the broader audience what it wants. I think it hurts the show, but I think what they've done with Ryan - and to a lesser extent Jan - is more brazen.

 

Part of me think Andy has changed as well. Part of me think we've just gotten a much longer look at him. Though, you never see the uber-confident, anything to get ahead, always sucking up guy that Jim first met.

In any case I like all sides of Andy. Great character.

 

I've had this "losing its fastball" discussion with a lot of people, including plenty on this site. My thought with this show now is that I've lowered my expectations greatly. Last season was such a disappointment at times that it frustrated me, and the whole, "well just stop watching then," didn't work for me because I have too much invested in the characters.

The Ryan thing doesn't bug me nearly as much as the Angela thing does. She is portrayed as a completely pious, religious woman who has no tolerance for anything that comes off remotely slutty. I can't buy her signing a contract to have a baby. It's a cheap gag, and it just didn't work for me at all. You can't completely remake a character on a long-running show on the fly to suit your needs.

That said, there were a lot of great, subtle funny moments this week. That wasn't a subtle dig at health care at all. It was a sledgehammer. And though the "wrong baby" thing was funny, I knew it the second Jim picked up the kid that it was the wrong one.

Andy's evolution has been fun to watch. He comes off as this try-to-hard pompous douchebag early on, but he realizes that's getting him nowhere, so he tones things down a bit. That's real. I'm fine with that. I just wonder if there's a new season, where can they go from there? It's starting to become more gag and slapstick driven because they're simply running out of storylines. Not much ground left to be broken.