Last night’s was the reason I didn’t watch the Office last season. I hate that episode.
(BTW, I like the British, and I love the parallel (though not identical) episode from that series.)
This season has been different enough from that episode that I’ve actually bought the show on iTunes on those days when I missed it and forgot to tape it.
To be fair the author of the OP was forced to watch it by someone (me) who appreciates the dark , dry humor of the show. He was pretty much a captive audience.
The Office’s style of humor is not for everyone. My wife couldn’t get into it.
That was the first episode the show I saw and I didn’t like it much.
The show grew on me over time.
I watched the US version, and didn’t like it. So I tried the British, and found it very similar. Like Seinfield, both versions are filled with characters I don’t like, and nothing very bad seems to happen to them, so there isn’t even the satifaction to be taken in that.
I thought parts of it were funny, but yeah I didn’t care much for season one, having been raised on the British original. The Office has, however, miraculously evolved into the funniest show on television IMHO since then. Love Dwight and Angela!
I agree, and I feel like in season 2 they’ve been able to demonstrate some reasons why he hasn’t gotten canned. They’ve put him in situations where he can be a serious professional with some sales skills. The episode earlier this season with the branch manager meeting where even after his horribly cheesy movie on the Scranton branch he was able to pull it together and present his sales reports brought the show back to reality for me.
Season 1 is much more cringe-based than season 2, IMHO.
I found the first season very cringe-y, too - the episode where Michael buys ice cream bars for everyone as their big surprise, then has to eat most of them just…so sad. So pathetic. I don’t know why patheticness (patheticity?) is so hard to watch, but it really is. I’m glad they went away from that a little bit this year, and showed a few more sides to Michael’s character, other than the clueless, pathetic, lonely, needy jerk.
Amazingrace, I think the episode a few weeks earlier where Michael pulls off a really big sale at Chili’s shows us that he is a victim of the Peter Principle - he was an excellent salesman, so they promoted him to management where he is completely incompetent and making everyone else’s life miserable, too.
pathos
I knew someone would post that. I didn’t use pathos because it sounds too high-brow and arty for the emotion we see on tv that makes us cringe. Which I guess I could have said in my post, since we still haven’t developed long-distance telepathy. 