Well, I enjoyed it very much, and I’m a huge Sweeney Todd fan too. What impressed me is how accurately the show was performed – they got the little details right, from the lines to the stage action occuring during Andy’s Johanna scene… and even the curtain calls, where Andy and the girl playing Johanna took their bows together and we saw Johanna dressed in the correct costume for the last moments of the show (when she’s on the lam dressed as a boy sailor) even though we never got to see those final scenes. Now that is continuity porn!
Also, Ed Helms has a really good voice – he totally sold the opening Ballad of Sweeney Todd (though he wasn’t as good in Johanna, but I think he was undersinging on purpose – Andy shouldn’t be that talented, I suppose).
I also enjoyed the Dwight/Angela moments, especially Angela being savvy enough to avoid the sex while intriguing Dwight. Michael was obnoxious but understandably so, and I loved how supportive he was of Andy despite his own disappointment. Didn’t care about Jim/Pam as usual, and I seem to have misunderstood the last scene; were they getting drunk on orange juice and Bailey’s in the car? That couldn’t possibly be right, but then what was the point of the discussion re: the Bailey’s Irish Cream?
I love this episode. I laughed so hard during the phone, bottle and balloons scene that it hurt. I like the scene at the end where they all hundled around the piano with Michael trying to make Dwight feel better.
I was half expecting them to reveal that Kelly doesn’t know how to read an analog clock.
Intriguing? She was completely avoiding the sex because she became re-attracted to Andy. That’s why she changed out of the easy-access skirt into jeans.
First off, it’s literally impossible to become drunk off of Bailey’s and orange juice - and not just because the orange juice would curdle the Bailey’s (which the writers were apparently unaware of). But I think the point was that they were looking forward to an actual night out, complete with (possibly dinner,) theater and drinks - and that was their way of finishing the night off.
Munch, I disagree. I think she changed into the “seed pattern” outfit specifically to draw Dwight’s attention to her. She put the gum on her chair specifically so she could change into something that would be alluring in Dwight’s world.
I thought it was a funny episode. Yeah, that Ryan iPad joke was great. Just showing the clock was funny, even funnier that it was analog. And, yeah, I also thought it was a setup for Kelly asking what it said.
The Babysitter’s club joke was really fun. As was Erin’s desire to become a babysitter. I love how they created Erin as a character who cluelessly responds to things as if the other person was stupid “I didn’t know I was supposed to take the baby to the hosptial!” just cracked me up.
Although, I didn’t get why Jim and Pam couldn’t just take the baby home and have their juice on there. I guess it was more of a night out in the car.
I didn’t see Jim and Pam as being horrible. We don’t know they asked Erin. Since, she was interested in getting into the babysitting racket it is just as likely she volunteered. Even though she wanted to see the show. It’s not like she has shown that she has returned Andy’s feelings. She’s with Gabe now and sees Andy as a friend.
Yeah. Dwight was really funny. I liked his booing bit with Michael saying “I didn’t like that at all.”
I am surprised so many people liked this episode. Usually, if an episode is set totally outside of the Office a lot of people don’t enjoy it.
ps:
I don’t want to get in a whole debate on Jim and Pam with you, fusoya. There’s no way I am going to convince you, nor are you going to convince me. But, I did have a question. How is it cheating by Pam to want to get to the hospital as early as possible to spend as much time as they can there? That’s just trying to get the most out of their plan. But, added to that as the episode wore on it turned out she wasn’t entirely worried about the extra day, but she had a lot of fear and just didn’t want to have the baby. So, it was a bit more layered. But, even without that “cheating” seems a bit harsh. Are you the same person who thought the widowed wife was cheating the credit card company because her husband’s debt was wiped away?
It’s been a while since I’ve seen that episode, but I seem to remember Pam being REALLY REALLY naggy about how she refused to go to the hospital, despite being far enough into labor that she was probably going to deliver in the office’s broken down elevator. It may have been because she was afraid of having the baby, but they were definitely playing up how she thought she was being so clever by waiting until 12:01AM to walk in, and it reminded me of the similar selfishness that Sarah Palin did when she refused to deliver her baby (you know, the one who turned out to be retarded?) until she was back on Alaskan soil. And once I start comparing you to Sarah Palin, there’s definitely something wrong with you!
Anyway, to specifically answer your question, it was cheating because they realized that if they came in at 12:01AM rather than 9PM, it would get them an extra day of covered insurance, since they would count that first 3 hours as a full day. Which WOULD have been a clever plan if you forget about the fact that delivering birth isn’t something you can just safely wait out an extra 3 hours.
I really liked this episode. And I can’t see Jim and Pam as horrible people. They know Erin is dating Gabe, and since she probably offered to babysit and they knew Gabe was sick, they wouldn’t see it as an opportunity that Andy had set up in his mind to get Erin back. They’d figure she wasn’t planning on going because Gabe wasn’t going, so hey! Date night! And I thought the line about the orange juice was a joke. They were drinking it in the car because Cece woke up when they tried to move her from the car to the house, so to have a few more minutes of quiet in their truncated date, they decided not to move her just yet. Most new parents have had these moments.
And Angela was so playing Dwight. No one changes clothes in the middle of a play unless it is important. She changed into an outfit that she knew would get him interested…the farmer goes for the farm girl look. It had nothing to do with the “ease of accessibility” of the skirt…she knew what look would get him aroused. And when it succeeded, she decided to play the long game and keep him on the hook by acting as if she was letting him off of it by punching the card. She has no interest in Andy at all. But she wants to tantalize Dwight to the point that he will want her past the contracted five encounters. Therefore…tight jeans, heels and a gingham blouse. Dwight doesn’t stand a chance. He’s going to be dreaming about her tush in those jeans all weekend.
Here’s how I saw that … they had taken CeCe home, and she fell asleep in the car (as babies tend to do). Every time Jim tried to take her out of the car seat, she’d wake up. Jim and Pam were enjoying a quiet moment the best they could … in their driveway, in the car, with a sleeping baby in the car seat, drinking curdled Baileys and OJ. Yummers!
I did laugh at the little exchange they had as they left the theatre … Jim: “We’re never leaving home again, are we?” Pam: “Not together!”
Here’s my take on the complaints: as Toby pointed out in the episode, people need to vent sometimes and things don’t need to be done formally, so that was the point of most of his complaints. By humoring Dwight and Jim, he actually kept the peace. He also protected Dwight even more than Jim. If Dwight’s complaints, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, went to corporate, he might have been fired himself because he looked like a loon, even if he was right. Some of his complaints would have been bizarre (pennies in the phone, being trained to be hooked on Altoids), but the sheer volume of them would send up a serious HR red flag at a normal company.
That isn’t cheating, it is simply playing the system. If she had gone in at 11:59 you just know the insurance company would have denied her the extra day.
I agree with that; waiting until midnight to arrive at the hospital to deliver the baby certainly isn’t cheating, but instead is simply gaming the system. And as for the idea that Pam has been indecisive about what she wants to do (art student, salesperson, office manager, etc.), that rings true for me. In real life, a lot of people have problems figuring this out.
BTW, the Onion A.V. Club linked to this article from The Hollywood Reporter describing how they plan to write Steve Carell out of the show.
Dwight has a screw loose, but he imposes his stupid logic and nonsense on to others. He’s difficult to deal with, and is rude to people. He feels that everyone, (even Michael), is his inferiors, and would often refuse any advice or feedback others would give him.
If Dwight weren’t a bully himself, I would agree that Jim and Pam would be wrong to mess with him.
To be honest, I don’t recall Karen mentioning Andy’s anger management issues until he was actually IN anger management; Where someone at David Wallace’s party mentioned to her that she was one of the only people that stayed at the branch after the merge, to which she replied; “Yeah, the other’s in anger management”. Maybe it’s in a deleted scene I don’t remember, but I don’t think Jim anticipated Andy snapping like that. Andy was being annoying, and Jim did what he knows best.
After that, the only time I remember him ever REALLY pranking Andy, was when he tried to warn Jim that Pam’s not right for him, and projecting his own feelings with his experience with Angela. In the end, Jim told that what happened to him sucked, and reassured him he would find someone else.
Jim and Pam have their faults too. Jim’s kind of a dick and the show acknowledges that, and Pam has MANY faults IMHO. Oscar’s a “straight man” too, (hehe). So’s Darryl. I USED the think they made Jim too “perfect”, but he’s humiliated himself quite a few times now.
They are overdoing it with the musical stuff. Okay for the online extras but getting too much on the show. And Sweeney Todd is just awful. Couldn’t they have picked something halfway good?
Jim and Pam did nothing wrong with allowing Erin to babysit. She wanted to. She’s with Gabe. It wouldn’t be doing Andy any good to assist in his obsession with Erin. P[del]B[/del]&J do non-nice things. This wasn’t one of them.
Yeah, she was doing it to entice Dwight, not to get out of her “easily accessible skirt”.
The fundie types (whether you’re talking Muslim or Pentecostal or whatever Angela is supposed to be - Prudecostal? Prudelim?) forbid their women from wearing pants because it’s a bad thing for them to be showing their assets to others. If she’s wearing a skirt you don’t get tempted by the molded butt, eh? Of course, as a guy growing up in the 80’s I personally find skirts much more appealing…
And Angela turning down the sex wasn’t because she was all soppy toward Andy, it was because she’s finally ‘playing the game’ with Dwight. A few more times getting turned down and he’ll be all in love with Angela again.
Jumping the Shark originally meant latching onto increasingly bizarre gimmicks to keep a show going past its sell-by date. I’d say the problem with the Office is that they didn’t jump the shark so much as do the opposite. They hit the reset button and tried to roll everything back to season 1, Ryan’s back as an intern and in a on-again off-again romance with Kelly, there’s a weird love triangle between the secretary and the saleman, Michael is back to manager, Jim is back to saleman.
I think the Office held on for so long because they were OK mixing things up. They had Jim work at a different branch for a while, Ryan went on to be a corporate super-star, Micheal and Pam tried to start their own company, etc. Given that keeping the show to just the office itself is kind of limiting after a season or two, I think that the various gimmicks are what kept it going.
Now we’re basically just doing an inferior rehash of the first season, and its boring.