According to wikipedia, the Ice Road Truckers episode “Road to the Finale” was largely a clip show, with added outtakes. And that was just the first one I thought of to Google. I don’t think it’s particularly unusual, after all, documentary shows have basically the same incentives to do clip shows as scripted TV does.
ETA: American Chopper apparently had one too
Well, I’ve never seen American Casino so I don’t know what you’re comparing The Office to, but there is no reason why a documentary series cannot make use of previously filmed clips. Whether you personally have seen this in a documentary series is beside the point. If we accept that The Office is edited, and it very clearly is, then the imaginary documentary crew could edit in older clips if they felt like it. They might be forced to do so for much the same reason that a scripted series might resort to a clip episode – some technical or staff problem could have caused them to wind up short on footage for the week.
I can see plenty of reason to be annoyed that this was a clip episode (I wasn’t delighted with it myself), but it didn’t undermine the documentary format. There have been other episodes that did far more to strain the credibility of The Office as a documentary series, such as “Employee Transfer” where the crew would have had to split into three teams with two of them traveling several hours outside Scranton.
I would agree if it were explicitly presented as such; it wasn’t. Instead, they shoe-horned some lame contrivance to justify the clips.
Listen, I didn’t find it to be a realistic portrayal, and as such, it was jarring at the time. There is nothing you can say that will retroactively cause me to change my mind, so we’re going to have to agree to disagree.
There’s a pretty big difference between finding the use of clips contrived or jarring and saying that it “completley defies this being a ‘documentary.’” That is the specific claim I was arguing against. I don’t have any interest in arguing with you about your subjective opinion as to how well the episode worked, but if you phrase your opinion as a factual claim about the documentary format then you should expect to be called on it here. There’s no reason why an edited documentary series could not use clips, so the presence of clips (even if they’re used awkwardly) does not totally destroy the pretext that The Office is a documentary.
That wasn’t the exact argument I was making, and I apoligize if I have that impression with my admittedly hastily written original post.
I still stand by what I originally meant, in which a job-based documentary that has a clip-episode presented within the context of a narrative defies the show’s original premise. I found it cheesy, contrived, and unbelievable–all of which are feelings that violate what the show (imo) was originally based upon. However, more recent episodes had already violated those, so perhaps within the context of those, it wasn’t such a stretch. It’s just that, when I think of The Office, the first couple of seasons immediatly spring to mind, which I’m sure was aided by the very clips this episode presented.
The show’s premise has been shot, beaten up, dragged into the back of an alley, kicked repeatedly in the gonads, peeded on, cut into small pieces, cremated, cast into a small, decorative glass phallus from the ashes of the corpse & then been used to repeatedly penetrate a small goat.
Remember the episode when everyone was freaking out because they couldn’t find the old guy with dementia who had wandered off? While the documentary crew was following him around.
Touché. I am in awe of your description.
And yeah, I remember that ‘old guy with dementia’ episode too…ugh, Office, how I miss thee.