Do they ever tell us why they are videotaping the people in the office? I just finished Season 2 and I still have no idea why these people are being taped.
Also, I think The Office is pure genius.
I’m sure it’s for a Slough Borough Council buisness initiative training video.
The format derives from a genre of documentary series that was popular in the UK in the late 90s. Typically, these programmes took a job situation like working in an airport or being a traffic warden, filmed people doing these jobs and turned the footage into a little mini-drama. You’d have several established “characters”, each of whom had a crisis or two to deal with during the half-hour episode. The programme would cut back and forth between these characters, with a minimum of voiceover linking them. “Meanwhile, back at the arrivals desk, Jeremy has to deal with a party of Estonian performance artists.”
Since many of the regulars in these shows became (very) minor-celebrities, it’s left implicit in the series themselves that Brent sees this as a chance to launch himself into showbiz. This desire becomes horribly explicit in the Xmas special.
This trailer for the Christmas special (stilling waiting for it here…) shows bonzer’s point pretty well:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/clips/xmas/trail4.shtml
“We cannot have a wet t-shirt contest.”
“We can’t? We just need a bucket and t-shirts.”
Brilliant!
There’s a Christmas special? When the heck are they going to show it here in the States, on BBC America? Also, considering how Season Two ended, is that it for the show?
Yes - apart from the aformentioned Xmas special, which was in two parts and very neatly wraps up a lot of loose ends.
IMO, they made the right decision - a third series could easily have struggled to maintain the quality of the first two. Better to be left with good memories.
We haven’t seen the Christmas special in Australia yet. Anyone know when it’s coming this way?
Also, they hid the original screening of the series on an unpopular channel late at night. I reckon a repeat in a good time-slot would get top ratings.
It came on cable a few months ago on UK-TV. Thank got I was house sitting for someone that had it! So now I’ve got it on tape. Interested? … 
So, there was a Season 1, Season 2, and a Christmas special? I’m hoping to order the special on DVD, since I have the others.
What a great show. I wish there were more like it.
I have a question about The Office. I was considering starting a thread about it, but I’m too lazy. My question is, is there no such thing as sexual harassment in Great Britain? Now I understand that it’s a TV show and in no way represents real life, but SO MANY of the things that happened would have had harassment charges flying all over an American office (speaking of which, how much will that suck?). Like Gareth asking Tim’s girlfriend for a hand-job. I’m sure it’s a great exaggeration, but even American television wouldn’t quite go there.
I love the show and I’m so sad it ended (though I respect a timely ending rather than a drawn out one). Never have I been so deliciously, agonizingly embarassed by something fictional.
And Tim will be playing Arthur Dent! Gives me something to look forward to.
ZJ
Yes there is such a thing as harassment, and any of those things could, in real lide, result in someone being fired - however, it represents reality in that such things occur in the workplace every day, and that the most common way to deal with a loser like Gareth is just to ignore him (or laugh at him). Plus, would you want to take a serious complaint to David Brent and let him deal with it?
I don’t know how it is in the US but I would imagine that while many things on the show were technically illegal, I doubt that anybody would have bothered to file a complaint. It’s not like it was continued, malcious activity, just a shocking lack of social etiquette.
You’d be surprised how little it takes to get lawsuits filed in the US.
You’d also be surprised at how much businessmen get away with. I worked for a Baltimore company in the '80s, and the owner thought nothing of saying the most bizarre things at the female employees. It may have helped that a) he was an older man; b) the women would tell him to shut the fuck up and he’d be fine with that; and c) he was known as a bastard you didn’t want to tangle with when it came to things like severence pay.
While mowing the lawn after reading this thread, it finally occurred to me just how satisfying it would have been…
… if they’d left the Special exactly as it was, except that Dawn’s sloppy-eyeliner return to the party to kiss Tim was instead met with a rather cold rejection. “Actually, Dawn, you strung me along for about two years then went off to America. So, y’know… no thanks. If you hurry you might just catch Lee’s plane, love.”
Gareth: Yeah, bye Dawn.
Well, it would’ve made me laugh.
You’re right about Gareth, and Brent. And the sexual harassment certainly brings a fabulous horor to the show. Having never worked in an office myself, I don’t know how pervasive it is, but when I worked at a restaurant where one of the waitresses had a penchant for copping a feel, we ladies complained. Now that I remember, though, he only got a talking to, then went back to it after a few weeks. So I guess sometime it is useless to complain.
And it’s TV, so…
ZJ
I’ve worked as a waitor in hotels, and I fully agree that there’s hideous levels of harassment going on. Mainly, it seemd to me, a result of guys working there from the age of sixteen, and thus never maturing beyond that level. And foreign girls whose knowledge of English was good enough to serve soup, but unfortunately not enough to understand the phrase ‘disciplinary procedures’.