I’m watching the first season of The Office (US) on Netflix. Can’t say I’m all that impressed. However, I know that a lot of long running series have a weak first season. Should I stick with it knowing that it gets better?
Yes. Stick with it, the first season is a bit hard to watch.
The early seasons were the best IMO (and that’s a good thing - the newer episodes are great, too).
I tried watching the first season and never liked it. It’s too much like the British version which I also didn’t like. The other seasons are better IMO.
The show doesn’t really get into it’s own thing until the middle of the second season. Until then it’s just a copy of the British version, and that doesn’t work as good.
Yeah. The 1st season (which is only 6 episodes) is pretty much all about Michael being stupid and I found it extremely irritating but I kept watching it anyway and eventually it was worth it as the other characters got fleshed out. Dwight is the character that kept me in it. He’s just as ludicrous a character as Michael but somehow more believable (and unlike Michael, he routinely gets comeuppance, or at least fucked with even though he never learns anything).
Really? Because (and I have to admit to having seen only a handful of episodes of the US version) it seemed like a very watered down version of the original. Whereas in the British version Ricky Gervais would say something of breathtaking rudeness and obliviousness, Steve Carroll would just say something that indicated that he was a couple logs short of a bonfire.
Stranger
Carell develops into a different character. Gervais is sour and mean, while Carell is a lunatic optimist who wants desperately to be liked by everyone (and some on the show do consider him a friend despite his many annoyances). Later seasons flesh him out as actually a surprisingly good salesman, explaining how he would up in his job.
Totally agreed. I sometimes feel like I am one of those rare people that actually like BOTH the US and UK Offices. But, to the OP, the first season was pretty lame. They were trying to rip off the UK Office faithfully, and it just didn’t translate. Once they get going though, it’s really amazingly good.
The second and third seasons are definitely the best, IMHO. This is especially true if you like the whole Jim/Pam thing.
Most fans I know believe that it hit its peak after the first season, somewhere from seasons 2-4
Not to disagree with your overall point, but I thin Gervais also want desperately to be liked. But yeah, more sour and mean compared to Carell.
I loved them both (up until last season’s U.S. version). The best of the U.S. episodes are as funny (or funnier) as the UK version. The UK version probably has a better batting average though, but that’s probably more due to the nature of UK TV versus US TV. Or maybe not, but I like both versions.
It has so many fans here that I tried it many times. I never did enjoy it. I can’t remember which season, but finally Michael Scott was such a sad horrible buffoon I just stopped watching.
It does. I asked the same question two years ago when I started watching, because I spent every moment of every episode of the first season trying to retroactively will the universe to allow Michael Scott to be killed. Each time he appeared on the screen, I envisioned the other characters pulling rocks and shovels from under their desks, bludgeoning him into a bloody pulp (slowly, so as to savor his agonized screams), tossing the dissembled husk of his corpse into the dumpster, and setting it ablaze while singing Hallelujah amidst the flames. I wondered how anyone could possibly stand this godawful pile of enraging mule shit, but I kept watching on the insistence of essentially everyone I know that it eventually got better.
Sure enough, in the second season, they toned him down a lot, and started letting the other characters have humorous moments that actually resembled jokes. I warmed up to it pretty quickly after that.
And when you watch re-runs and need a quick reference, check his hair. In the first season it was slicked back.
Yep, when I flip on the reruns and I see that hair, I know to switch the channel.