The Office Season 5
Episodes 1 - 5
d. Various, 2008-2009

9 September 2009

We are not holding our breath for the American version of The Office to innovate. They've got their formula down. It works well enough for us that we viewed Season 5 as it aired on Hulu, and are now re-screening it on DVD. (The deleted scenes for the first episode nearly comprise a separate episode. That's generous!)

What The Office has going for it is its character-driven ensemble comedy, honed by its performer-writers to the point where the show can get a substantial laugh out of a well-timed glance from any of its characters. That's impressive. That's the thing that makes The Old Dark Arthouse screen these twice.

What they have done with the show's core concept, though, has essentially made it a fantasy show. Acerbic as the show can be, it is not grounded in reality. David in the British original was frighteningly like people we've known in real life. David is a lout who who has managed to hold on to his job for years despite being bereft of business or social skills. Michael Scott - David's counterpart in the American version - is a cartoonish clown who would not actually be able to hold his job in a real office. Because we've known actual offices as dysfunctional as David's office, that show had an uncomfortably realistic edge which made the comedy that much more painfully funny.

Jim and Pam are another example. Their counterparts on the British version were essentially losers; likeable losers, but losers nonetheless. We thought Season 4 worked best when the writers were giving Jim some grief, showing him to be not quite up to his job. And if you look closely, it's clear that Pam hasn't got much talent for graphic design. However, these wrinkles are backgrounded in favor of emphasizing Pam and Jim's roles as relatively normal witnesses and commentators on the madness of their coworkers.

Possibly, the makers of the American version believed that cringe humor can't carry a show past a couple of seasons without exhausting the audience. We'd say both Curb Your Enthusiasm and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia have proved them wrong, but it ultimately doesn't matter. They made the show they made. We're not going to fault the American version for not being the British version; they are two separate entities, and they each work in their own way.