Anyone else like this episode? I’ll bet I’m the only one. It seemed like a lot went into this one. Just hate how Pam and Jim wouldn’t know that Erin was an anticipated guest by Andy.
I didn’t like it. The Office jumped the shark last season, pulled up short, and is in the midst of its inevitable trajectory straight into the salivating jaws of a great white.
Yes, it really showed how much Pam and Jim only care about Pam and Jim. Andy’s pining for Erin should have been obvious.
Speaking of which, I kind of got sick of Andy being such a mope last season trying to win Erin, and after he finally won her over we are right back to him moping again.
Too high a cringe factor for me - when characters are embarrassing themselves and only dig themselves in deeper with every syllable, I tend to change the channel for a few minutes.
“The plumber’s got pipes!” was funny, though.
And Angela in jeans and a snug blouse is entirely doable, I hasten to add.
Steve Carell is the only cast member bringing the funny this season. His audition at the end was very much in the show’s tradition of humor that makes you cringe. The bit with the cell phone was amusing, and the bit with the wine bottle rolling down the aisle in a silent theater while the actors stared in disbelief was actually very funny. But most of the cast has become irrelevant, standing around waiting for their line or mugging for the camera.
Yeah, I’m bugged that Andy and Erin finally got together at the end of last season, and now they’re back to square one (with a third wheel of a boyfriend). Didn’t we do this in seasons 1-2 with Jim and Pam?
But I thought this ep was better than last week. The scene with the mobile phone on stage was painful, but the stuff with Dwight/Angela was cute (D seemed more human this week). CeCe was a cute baby, that’s about the best I can say for that storyline.
I thought those bits were funny too. What I liked about this episode was the stories about people other than Michael, Pam or Jim. They can’t recapture the Pam and Jim tension of the first three seasons, but I felt bad for Andy, and liked the Dwight and Angela side story.
My absolute favorite bit was Creed calling in a review of the show. I don’t know what is funnier, the idea he is a drama critic or the idea that maybe there was no one at the other end of that phone.
It reminded me of the Dick Van Dyke Show, where, once a season or so, they wouldn’t have any sitcom ideas, so they’d figure out a way to put Rob, Laura, Buddy and Sally in some sort of variety show.
Having done my share of amateur theater, though, I did love the cell phone and the bottle.
“It’s almost like a babysitters’ club!”
Of course Ryan has an iPad clock in his lap at the theatre.
…and this just establishes again why Jim & Pam are both horrible people. What is with all the mainstream love for that couple???
I loved Dwight this week, between pulling out a knife when the Sweeney Todd group pulled razors, his “the last time I went to the theater, a man dressed as a cat sat in my lap” and his interactions with Angela. Dwangela all the way!!!
Calling Jim and Pam “horrible” seems to be going WAY too far.
I thought this was a quite fun episode, although of course it helps that I like Sweeney Todd. The best part was the beginning, with people’s reactions to the viral marketing. Erin was hilarious as she often is.
I wonder what’s going to happen next episode, in where;
(Spoilers, if you didn’t see/or didn’t want to see the advertisements during last night’s broadcast)
All of Michael’s ex lovers come back. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maoYgVbmxFI&feature=player_embedded
The story I read a while back is that Michael overreacts to a potential STD, and so needs to call all of them to give them the bad news
I know. But those are big spoilers, so I left them out.
Not at all.
Jim Halpert is a horrible person. First of all, he’s the office bully. Dwight has a number of mental issues, and Jim uses those to make him the office punching bag. If he spent half as much time working as he did preparing the next prank to make Dwight (or Andy, or Meredith, or whoever he feels like bullying that day) look stupid, he WOULD be Scranton’s top salesman. The only reason he gets away with this crap is that he’s got Toby wrapped around his finger - there was an episode where it showed that all of the complaints filed against Jim to HR were simply being thrown in a box, rather than being sent to corporate. That clean record is what allowed him to get all of those promotions. Lets not forget about when he turned his target towards Andy, and took advantage of HIS mental deficiencies (notably his anger management issues).
He also treats his “crushes” like shit too. Look at the way he strung along Karen, even bringing her into the Jim-Pam-Karen triangle there, and then dropped her the moment he thought Pam MIGHT be interested. She had to transfer just to get away from their shit. And nevermind the fact that Pam was in a crappy engagement (we’ll get to that in a minute), Jim was acting WAY WAY inappropriate to both Pam and her fiancee while they were still together. Break up a marriage? Hey, as long as it might get him some action with his crush, who cares.
Plus I hate the way he always looks right into the camera, giving us this “can you believe this is really happening?” or a “ain’t I a stinker?” look.
Now, as for Pam Beesley. Horrible person as well. What the hell does Jim even see in her? She sucks at everything she does, and when she gets tired of sucking, she’ll move on to her next crappy adventure to suck at. They just did an episode where she was sick of being a saleswoman, and so made up an office admin job, which I’m sure she’ll suck at as well. Why hasn’t she been fired years ago? And then last season, the FIRST time she realized being a saleswoman is hard, she acted like she was entitled to just take her old job back from Erin. She doesn’t seem like a very pleasant person to be around (and it seems like the only office workers who ever give her any attention are the ones who have crushes on her - Jim, Michael, Kevin, Toby, etc). She isn’t even THAT hot, man. It seems like half of her storylines involve how good of a liar or a manipulator she can be. Plus, what the hell was with that “lets stay engaged forever and never get married because we aren’t right for each other” thing? Either get married or don’t, jeez.
Fine, so they stop playing around and finally get together. Why is this the biggest event to ever happen in TV? Two douches who really do deserve each other finally did it. Great, the show is called THE OFFICE, not The Jim & Pam Happy Time Love Hour. At least the show is consistently showing them as being shitty parents, starting from day 1, when Pam was trying to cheat her insurance plan to get one extra day in the hospital, by refusing to give birth until after midnight. Even JIM started to realize this was a bad idea, but she wouldn’t hear it. And then they mix up their baby the same day it’s born. The worst (or actually best, since at least the writers actually agree with me on this!) was the episode where they interview at the daycare center, acting like their shit doesn’t stink a bit, and they get shown the door by the manager who sees right through them.
So then we have last night’s episode. Jim & Pam don’t even want to see Andy’s play, but when they realize they can stop Erin (who DOES want to see it) from seeing it by getting her to babysit, they’re both on board, because it will mess up what Andy & Erin had going there, and they have a chance to mock Andy to his face, to boot! You’d think with both of their back stories, they’d have more empathy for them…but no no no, Jim & Pam are the only cute office couple allowed in this building, and any competition must be destroyed!
Horrible people, both of them.
Pam and Jim DID want to go to the play, as mentioned in a deleted scene.
Fusoya, the bulk of that stuff is made up of assumptions and characterizations you made up in your own head, in particular, the thing about intentionally stopping Erin from seeing the play.
So I’m going to ask you the same thing that I ask people when they make the identical rant about Seinfeld (or Six Feet Under or Friends or The Sopranos etc)
Why do you watch it? If you’re this worked up, I can’t understand why you pay any attention to it.
Without all the things you mentioned, it wouldn’t be very interesting. A show needs conflict and drama or people are going to lose interest pretty fast. Perhaps you might be interested in Clockwatchers.
Also, I don’t think Jim was aware that Andy had an anger issue. One even could argue that both Andy and Dwight have done nothing but torment Jim for the entire series. As for the Jim/Dwight thing, I’m not sure we really know who started it, I think they just get on each other’s nerves.
What mental problems does Dwight have?
Why do I watch? I’m a fan of Dwight and Kevin and Angela and Creed and Oscar and Holly. At times, most of the other characters are fun too (Jim & Pam are pretty much the only ones I can’t stand, although I really won’t miss Michael either). I do enjoy the show, but I still think Jim & Pam are both horribly-motivated characters. Which wouldn’t bother me if it weren’t for the fact that they seem to be seen as the saints and/or straight-men on the show. Personally, I think Stanley is the show’s straight man. At least the Seinfeld gang were humorous about their selfishness…
Indifference is the opposite of love. Even if Jim & Pam didn’t DELIBERATELY try to stop Erin from going to the play, they should have had enough sense to realize that Andy wanted her to be there, and not messed that up so that they could go instead. They don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves - can anyone name a selfless deed either of them ever did for another co-worker on the show?
Jim was told that Andy had “anger management issues” in one of the episodes where he was working in Stamford. It was either by Karen or by the boss there, but it was after he was first introduced to Andy by them. Jim & Pam sat there and let Andy have a nervous breakdown over trying to locate his cell phone, so much that he didn’t even step in and calm things down when Andy started punching walls (maybe because he thought his face would be next?)
In my memory, it’s seldom that Dwight actually STARTS it, at least not deliberately. He usually innocently goes along with whatever Jim’s trying to trick him into, and then once he KNOWS he’s being messed with, he takes his revenge. It’s like how every Tom & Jerry cartoon started out with them being friends. Do you really need to ask what kind of mental issues Dwight has?? Last week he didn’t see anything wrong with walking around a mall covered in beet juice…