I just happened to catch an episode on some high-numbered cable channel last night, one where George was on trial and the judge banned the AD cameras from the courtroom. It surprised me – I forgot they used that conceit at all.
I didn’t remember that either. It makes the George Michael/Maeby relationship even more uncomfortable.
I really liked the episode, funniest of the season in my opinion. Most of the halloween stuff was good, Dwight/Andy and Micheal/Daryl were both very funny. Did Dwight successfully bite into the raw beet after Andy failed to?
One thing that might have future repercussions is Jim blowing off work when he was ‘in charge.’
Oh yes. Dwight has the teeth of a pack mule.
Well, was Michael using vacation time? Maybe Jim was too. Dwight is next in charge after Jim; maybe Jim just told Dwight to take over. But you’re right – Michael expected Jim to be there.
Michael took a personal day and Jim walked him out of the building. (Jim: “I’ll walk you out.” Michael: “Thank you! What a gentleman!”) So I’m guessing his absence wasn’t unexpected.
Did anyone catch what Darryl said into his cellphone while Holly & Michael’s relationship was finally imploding around the 4th repitition of “Life is a Highway?” I couldn’t make out who he called but he was saying something about a babysitter?
I thought Jim was next in line. If you look at last year’s org chart(created by Dwight), Jim is the Assistant Regional Manager. Dwight clearly thinks being the Original ARM is higher.
Jim works in an office like mine. My boss left the company creating a gap in the org chart. If I leave early, who is going to report me and to who would they report me to?
Besides, it’s been pretty well established that when Michale isn’t there, he doesn’t really care about attendance. In a previous episode, Dwight tried to report everyone leaving early and Michale was like “so what? we aren’t there, why should they be?”
Also, I would wonder why a 90s hit like “Life is a Highway” would be playing over and over on the radio, but I’ve driven through Eastern PA enough times to know that their radio stations tend to be a decade behind the times.
But when they are outside, Micheal tells Jim that he’s in charge, and can let people leave a couple of minutes early. To me, that says Micheal expects Jim to be in the office to be in charge and to maybe let people out early. And he probably didn’t use a vacation day since it’s unlikely that employees can take vacation days without the boss knowing.
It was a CD that Michael burned.
Yes, he had taken a personal day.
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Michael does tend to be distracted easily. Jim might have told him.
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Jim was in charge. Maybe he granted himself permission to take a day off. Perhaps he’ll let Michael know later. It’s not as if Michael will care very much.
You mean his absence wasn’t expected.
I’m guessing it was Kelly; he said, “Hey, just thought I’d try you. I was thinking about that story where you ran into that girl you used to babysit. Please call me back. Please.”
Watching this episode I did think that the crew must be pretty big, because they would have had to split into three groups to shoot the three subplots – one team on the road with Michael, Holly, and Darryl, one team at the restaurant in New York with Pam, and one team back at the office as usual.
But like you, this doesn’t bother me. For most scenes the documentary premise doesn’t really matter, the show sometimes get some good humor out of the implied presence of the crew, and I think they do try to make it somewhat plausible that the crew is able to shoot as much as they do. For instance, several romantic Pam/Jim and Angela/Dwight scenes have been shot through windows or from a distance with the characters unaware that the crew was there.
I also felt that last season made it clear that Michael is happy to give the crew access to his private life, something I’d consider consistent with his character, but that Jim and Pam are much less comfortable with this. The crew has followed Michael on several dates, but when Jim and Pam first began dating they apparently went to some trouble to hide it from the crew (as well as the rest of their office). We’ve still never really seen them out on a date – this episode’s lunch wasn’t a romantic occasion.