Only thing fully I liked about this episode was Darryl’s story. The rest was hit-and-miss. Dwight’s storry sort of sucked. The espresso story line was just awful. I HATED it! =(~
I mostly agree though I did really enjoy Erin’s storyline with the shipment of pens.
the only thing good about it was it was better than last week’s show. (although I did LOL at the huge underarm sweat scene)
I had forgotten the Dwight Jr and Jan storyline … I’m not even sure where they left things when last we saw them.
I loved the espresso thing. I didn’t understand how the pens part tied into it, but everything else about the espresso stuff I liked. Seeing Stanly happy (So this is what two o’clock looks like). Seeing Angela with energy and acting like one of the group. Oscar tearing up the carpet instead of saying “I don’t know guys, this seems like a really bad idea”.
I thought it was pretty funny.
Dwight and Clark seemed kinda stupid. Except for calling Dwight an undertaker. That was sorta funny.
The parts with Dwight and Dwight Jr. with the clients was so painful to watch I couldn’t stand it. Ended up fast forwarding thru a lot of it. A complete waste of Ed Lauter.
The subplot about the espresso machine was like an SNL sketch. Okay, I got it. Move on. I said move on. Egad, they’re still running with it?
I think the writers have finally realized that Catherine Tate isn’t worth having on the show anymore, but no one wants to officially send her away.
This is becoming more common: About 2-4 minutes of nice little touches and a bunch of filler. Erin is becoming the only character that brings new stuff to the show and you can’t do 24 minutes around her.
Not a great episode, but IMHO much, much better than last week.
I was a fan of Catherine Tate from her other work before she joined the cast of The Office, but I feel like the writers have never really made use of her talents. It would have been better to have her just be a guest star for a few episodes and then go away than to have her keep hanging around to deliver a couple of lines each week.
“That place doesn’t exist. It’s not a documented island. Cartograph much?”
Not a great episode, but solidly entertaining throughout.
The espresso plotline was silly, but they still got some good gags out of it.
I laughed a few times. Much better than last week but that was maybe the worse episode of the whole series. I liked Daryl’s interview a lot.
Is anyone else picking up on Pam’s growing malcontent? She’s trying really hard to be a supportive wife, but Jim is REALLY pushing the dick-o-meter off the scales. He invests in a business that they explicitly decided against together, he’s galavanting off to Philly sticking her with kids, then she hears from the receptionist that they are moving to Philly? Could they be genuinely trying to break these two up?
No, of course that. That is a ridiculous and stupid notion.
What they’re doing is showing that if Jim works for a business that excites and motivates him, he becomes ridiculously happy. Pam is shown as the flip side of that because she still has to take care of the children and also her biological kids. The contrast between these two worlds is supposed to be funny. But Jim and Pam are in it for the long haul. If for no other reason than that fans would riot if they were to break up.
Also, I really don’t understand the people who think Jim is being a dick. What have we seen him do? The tooth thing was weird, but Jim has been nothing but normal in every other scene. It’s like the people that can’t wrap their head around Jim’s new job because “Marketing” isn’t very conducive to a three-second explanation. But there are still hundreds (probably thousands) of marketing companies in the US and it’s not unreal for Jim’s startup to be doing well.
Not just that but WRT to him moving there, they probably asked him to come on full time and he didn’t want to disappoint them, like he almost did once and he said something like “yeah, no, yeah, that um, yeah, I’ll totally do that, yeah” with the plans of running it by Pam later. Word just made it to her first.
I’m assuming the big plans for the show include moving Pam and Jim to Philly as the series winds down.
Snipped.
I have no problem with that. However, were my husband to bring a business opportunity home, and after discussion we agreed that for whatever reason, we couldn’t do it, that would be the end of it. I’ve seen couples divorce over less. He took their entire life savings and dumped it into this company after specifically saying he wouldn’t! And then lied to her about it until he couldn’t anymore. And I think she handled being told that she was moving pretty well. I might have launched into full on harpy mode.
I get that this is a sit com, but damn, that’s some heavy shit to bring on her, especially since he’s been shown as being generally respectful of their friendship/marriage.
There was an episode in which he told her about the business opportunity and she said, “Go for it.” Basically he’s been in the same job for like ten years and really needed a change. In other words, she’s supportive of the choice to join the startup. (Perhaps it’s that I identify with him, in terms of sticking with a job for too long, simply because it’s a steady paycheck.)
You’ve got this a bit backwards. Jim started working for the startup after talking to Pam and Pam saying no, but he didn’t give them any money until after Pam agreed. Yes, Jim was an asshole for agreeing not to take the job and then he did anyway. But at the time there was no monetary committment. Pam sayng “no” to that question is kinda jerky if you ask me.
Secondly, we have no idea how much the $10,000 represented. It could have been their life savings or it could have been less. Remember, it’s been shown multiple times that Jim pulls in some huge commissions on a regular basis. I know everyone likes to harp on how unhappy D-M makes Jim, but he makes a good living there.
It sounds like they are setting Jim and Pam up for the classic movie/tv career conflict:
Does Jim take that potentially highly lucrative and exciting sports marketing startup dream job in Philly at the expense of dragging simple Pam out of her comfort zone where she will be miserable and lonely?
Or does Jim stay in Scranton at a comfortible job he clearly hates, never realizing his greater potential and resenting Pam for the rest of his life?
Worst episode ever, IMO. Near the beginning when the staff was freaking out over the Espresso machine, it seemed like a completely different show. No one was in character. I thought, “This is it, The Office has finally jumped all the way over the shark.”
The Dwight story actually had potential but was ruined by bad writing and overly obvious setups and punchlines.
Darryl’s story was the only one that worked at all, and even that had it’s awkward moments, like “the shot”.
Like how huge and how regular? (I hadn’t noticed this.)
Huge enough that him and Dwight hit a commission cap one season.