"Launch Party (The Office)", 10-11-2007

"The Office" might be one of the better comedies ever made, a commentary on office politics that anyone could love. It will probably be the type of comedy that they talk about 30 years from now, one that will be dissected in a way that a comedy like say, "Friends" never will.

However, the idea for "The Office" could never come from the United States. It could only come from Ricky Gervais and the English, where the very first version of "The Office" aired. And the UK version of "The Office" is a much tougher and nastier version of "The Office" than the American version. For those of you who've watched a version of "The Office" and winced at some of the actions of Michael Scott (portrayed by Steve Caroll), you deserve special caution when viewing the purer version of the clueless boss played by Ricky Gervais.

"The Office" is sort of a turnaround from the final episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" where she came to see her office co-workers as family.

Not so with "The Office". In "The Office", you would never want any of your co-workers to be your family. "The Office" is one of the few shows that make the bold claim that most work is frankly horrible, and soul-destroying. A truly awful job isn't one populated by the sterotypical J. Jonah Jameson type screaming boss. It's the kind of job at "The Office", where your dignity is just battered away while having to do meaningless stuff for a paycheck.

Karl Marx wrote about this. He stated that in the old days, you could take pride in your work because you were a creator, you created a final, tangible product that you could look at. Today, however, people work strictly for cash, doing small parts of a big job, small parts that seem completely and utterly meaningless. He called this "commodity fetishism".

Gervais might have been familiar with the idea of commodity fetishism, at least by osmosis from a culture a bit more familiar with the works of Marx and Engels. In America, however, work is almost worshiped at the level that it is worshiped in Japan. The idea is to make money, and the goal is not to do anything significant; the goal is to make money. The concept that a workplace can be completely degrading without actual whips being used still seems foreign to American culture.

The protagonist of "The Office" is Jim Halpert, a paper salesman at Dunder-Mifflin, a small paper-manufacturing and distributing company that has a branch office in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He never imagined himself being a paper salesman, and finds the job completely boring, but manages to hang in there because he loves the office receptionist, Pam Beesly. Together, they play pranks on office bootlick Dwight Schrute and manage to tolerate the self-proclaimed "World's Best Boss", Michael Scott, a man who has no clue as to how offensive and insulting he can really be.

"The Office" used to be thirty minutes long, but every episode this year has been expanded into one hour. One can almost view each half as a separate episode, with both episodes joined by a common theme.

In Act I, the Scranton branch is coming to grips with the new Dunder-Mifflin website. After not upgrading their website since 2002, Dunder-Mifflin has finally got on the internet train and allows customers to order on-line instead of by telephone.

However, this change in the old way of doing business has had some fallout. Ryan, the office temp in Season One, has now actually been promoted to Michael's boss. Ryan is the typical asshole young executive who talks in terms of paradigm shifts. The website was his idea (and it was a good one), but of course, Ryan wants to celebrate his accomplishment by holding a "party" of satellite hook-ups to all of the Scranton branches. Michael prepares for the main party in New York, while office judgmental prig Angela in accounting will arrange the "lesser" Scranton branch party.

Salesman Dwight however cannot adjust to a computer out performing in. He vows that he will personally sell more paper in one day than the website can sell from all the branches on its opening day. Office kiss-ass Andy joins him as Dwight competes, blowing an annoying airhorn whenever Dwight makes a significant sale.

Of course, Jim and Pam have their fun by tricking Dwight, sending text messages to Dwight from "DunderMifflin/sys" which purport to be from the now self-intelligent website computer -- which has made a vow to crush Dwight. Despite his status as the policeman for every annoying rule Michael Scott can come up with, Dwight falls for any of Jim's tricks and now believes he is locked in a death-duel with a self-intelligent machine.

Michael needs someone to go to New York with, so Jim ends up traveling with Michael to New York -- only to discover that the club that Michael thought was called "Chatroom" was just that...a computer chatroom. ("You need a password to get in!")

Disappointed and humiliated, Michael returns to Scranton. He decides that he will make the satellite party "the greatest ever" so that everyone can see it nationwide on the satellite hookup. This is Act II.

Unfortunately, Michael not only orders the pizza from the worst pizza joint in Scranton, but believes that his half-off coupon for pizza entitles him to half-off on the total order, and not on just two pizzas. As the sullen delivery boy demands his money, Michael decides to keep the delivery boy at the office -- by force -- until he learns how to treat people.

As the office staff do internet searches on what the legal penalties are for kidnapping, and Jim and Pam escape to the office roof to make sure that they are not taken in the inevitable police roundup, when the live webcam hookup links to Scranton, Michael points out that one salesman (Dwight) outsold the entire website's output. (The pizza boy, when unnoticed, makes a comment to the hookup that he is being held against his will.)

Michael pays for the pizzas and the pizza boy is released. Ryan is humiliated by Michael's outburst. In the end, Michael decides he wants the New York sushi he never got at the theoretical New York part, and he and Dwight drive to New York, visit a restaurant that happens to be the site of Ryan's central command, get their sushi, and get to listen to some of Ryan's coworkers, all happy to see Ryan taken down a peg by Michael's angry comments.

(* * *)

One of the great things about "The Office" is that the actors are so great all across the board (with the exception of one or two bit players) that the minute anyone opens their mouths, you know something funny is going to be said.

Furthermore, the stock in trade of "The Office" is embarassment humor. Looking for someone to tell an inappropriate ethnic joke, or an oblivious hurtful comment? That would be Michael Scott, who will not only say such things but believe he's being hilarious and/or comforting at the same time.

For the most part, none of the characters are stock characters, with the except of Dwight Schrute, played by Rainn Wilson. You might believe that the dedicated idiocy of Dwight Schrute is unique, but we've seen such a character before: Frank Burns of "M*A*S*H". You can expect Dwight Schrute/Frank Burns to abuse his authority, puff himself up, and in the end to be left exposed to the entire world through his own conceits.

My wife called "The Office" a "Peyton Place" in that time is spent on developing and fleshing out even minor characters. We know that Phyllis is married to Bob Vance. We know that Stanley has a teenage daughter of whom he is very protective. We know that Dwight Schrute lives on a beet farm. We know that Kelly Kapoor pretends to be Bridget Jones while answering the phone to break the tedium.

These little touches are used as springboards for jokes, but they are not abandoned. Rather, each fact has the potential to be reused in creating a continuum, an entire universe of generally unique and interesting characters.

The only complaint I have about "The Office" is that the expanded running time does not work. When trying to slam two thirty-minute episodes together and call them an hour, it turns out that one of the "episodes" is stronger than the other one, and it usually tends to be the starting premise -- leading to a dragging second half. As most of the producers of the show are actually cast members, maybe they can take some salary and put it into increasing the size of the writing staff, instead of making them do twice as much work.