The Office Dinner Party: Am I going crazy or…
…did the return of The Office kind of suck?
There’s a certain bar of quality for The Office — so even an off episode is generally better than a solid episode of many other shows. But, that said, this was a really off episode. Certainly not the one we were hoping to run into after a long, painful hiatus.
This was probably the single most uncomfortable episode to date on a show that has derived many of its laughs from cringe humor. I guess part of it is the awkward nature of the dinner party — there’s so much that can go wrong at a dinner party and so many opportunities for faux pas. But all that was augmented by the fact that we have been taken out of our natural surroundings in the Dunder Mifflin HQ and into the Michael Scott condo (although they’ve made location shoots work well in the past — Jim and Karen at the cocktail party, the convention episode, etc.).
Here’s a deleted scene if you want to recapture some of the awkward.
I’ve probably gone on this rant before, but I really hate what they’ve done to the character of Jan. I liked it when she was the buttoned-down businesswoman with a streak for being wild and letting her destructive tendencies get the best of her. But now she’s just completely unhinged and abusive, which is only funny for a little bit before it gets old.
On the other hand, 30 Rock’s return was pretty solid. Not the best ever, but just a solid episode.
I mean, “I ate my twin.”
Come on — that’s good stuff.
6 comments April 14th, 2008