The Office running thread

To be fair, I've never really thought Pam or by extension Jenna Fischer is the world's greatest actress. Pam has three emotions - sad, melancholy and happy but crying or about to cry.

 

Definitely agree on Pam. She kind of is a loser now, as the last episode suggested about numerous people. She just sits there and whines and cries.

 

I think they wrote themselves into a corner on Pam when they chose for her not to pursue her art passion.

 

It's funny to me that Robert California or whatever is the perfect opposite of Michael. We've gone from incompetent to hypercompetent.

My favorite part of the first episode was just Jim talking about how he became CEO.

 

Valid point. She ditched her one true passion in life for a man, and I would say that in reality the female would not do that for her man. (At least from experience.)

 

I think that given their relationship and how they portrayed it, it made sense. It wasn't like this was some fling - they longed for each other for years. And Pam did get humiliated multiple times when actually doing the art thing. However, I don't like that they just had her abandon it, even if she did decide to have a baby and what not.

 

I'll always count the rest-stop proposal as one of the sweetest scenes in the history of TV.

 

Yes, she did. That was how the writers wrote themselves into a corner, eventually. Go watch the early episodes. It is clear that they wanted to use her artistic ambitions as part of her character development from mousy fiancee to a jerk to self-sufficient, talented woman of the 2000s. But they couldn't figure out how to do it.

 

I think they handled the romance/courtship/heartbreak of their relationship better than any tv show, maybe ever.

But, like most shows, as much as you want them to get together, it loses something once they do.

 

More problematically, they never found an adequate replacement. Michael-Holly was OK, but she wasn't a regular cast member. Andy-Erin bombed. "Friends" made a really smooth transition from Ross-Rachel, the engine of the early seasons, to Chandler-Monica. And they tweaked it: There was no, "Will they or won't they?" drama. Instead, the drama was about whether they could keep it a secret and for how long. "The Office" just keeps trying to turn everyone into the new Jim and Pam.

 

Andy-Erin should NOT have bombed, and there's still a chance. That will play out again this season.

 

I meant bombed as a storyline that anybody cares about. Nobody cares about them. They did a terrible job with that. They aren't a particularly good match, and the whole thing was contrived. Then, they made it even worse by drawing it out with all kinds of contrivances meant to keep them apart. Nobody watching cares if Andy and Erin get together. It was an arc that was miserably mishandled by the writers, who keep trying to re-strike Jim/Pam gold.