The Office running thread

Always and forever.

 

Provably and demonstrably. And that's coming from a huge fan of "The League."

As an aside on "The League," one of my wife's friends is cousins with Leslie Bibb, who played Pete's estranged wife at the beginning of the show. Most people probably know her as Ricky Bobby's wife. Anyway, my wife's friend (who looks a lot like Bibb) was going through a divorce when the show debuted and that storyline was happening. It was weird to watch that with the real-life parallels.

 

You have to give Parks and Rec a try .. it's the same format (faux documentary) but the writing is much better.

 

I've given it a few tries, most recently when Aziz Ansari started that business, and just can't get into it. I feel like I should like it, but just don't.

Mike and Molly just annoys me.

I did forget to mention that It's Always Sunny is on my DVR. I love that show.

 

Threadjack

 

BTW, if we're talking about top sitcoms, "Suburgatory" should get mention.

 

I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but Happy Endings (on after Modern Family on Wednesday nights on ABC) has gotten really good. Got some nice-looking ladies on it, too.

 

They're very good at what they do, and they manage to avoid a good percentage of the blatant crudeness that makes the other Chuck Lorre shows embarrassing. I thought "Two Broke Girls" had some promise until it became apparent the sarcastic girl has zero range and they stretched a joke on the word "come" into something that was excruciatingly terrible. It was morning zoo-caliber humor.

 

Absolutely. To continue to threadjack, it's hard to compare the FX shows (Always Sunny, Archer, The League) to anything on network TV because they're 1) basically allowed to do whatever they want in terms of incredibly dark plots and language and 2) only produce 10 to 14 episodes a season. In a vacuum, the FX shows are better, but they're only producing half as many episodes a year and have a much wider topic area.

When it comes to network TV, I think The Office does OK for a show that's almost on its last legs. It's been on the air for 6+ years now, which normally means you're either fading fast or about to burn out anyway. While it's not as good as it used to be, and I think Modern Family and Happy Endings and Community and Parks and Rec are better than it now, it's still only a 22-minute investment each week, so I'll keep watching. It's not offensively bad as compared to earlier seasons, like the last season of Heroes was, one of the few shows that made me tap out before its cancellation.

Back to current Office episodes - I wish they had kept with Erin rejecting Andy. Actually, I kind of hope Andy just burns in a fire, because his character is horrible right now. Nelly isn't any better as the "new" manager of Scranton - I wish they'd just put Jim in that role finally.

 

I seriously am not going to be able to take that new woman as manager. Nightmare. Hopefully, just a one-episode aberration.

 

Couple things:

(1) Why the hell did they do a gross green screen talking head with Erin? They don't have the cash to spring for a lawn with grass? Really?

(2) I absolutely can't tolerate the annoying British woman. I'm sure that I'm unsophisticated and that plenty of people out there would tell me how cutting and witty and dark her British humor is, but I think she's unbearable.

 

That woman has fucking got to go.