Andy is aggressively unpleasant to watch and is single-handedly ruining what could have been a good victory lap season for The Office.
I decided to just relax and watch it as a brilliant work of surrealism and it works.
It’s starting to bug me that all of the sudden everyone mentions the cameras and breaks the fourth wall when for ten years nobody has even noticed them.
Not true at all. Every single time Jum gave the cameras on of his “Jim” looks, they were acknowledging the film crew. Also, there were times when they pulled off their mic packs (I’m remembering Michael do this at the hospital in at least one episode).
Yes, and they also did testimonials every episode but no one ever talked about the cameras. Specially people not from the office who shouldn’t be used to them.
After which it will be revealed that there is a second film crew filming the filming, for a documentary on the making of a documentary.
The only line I liked was Jim’s “That’s right, I’m a douche now” when Pam commented on his Bluetooth earpiece. What I liked about it was that when I saw that thing in his ear, the thought that occurred to me was “Oh, that’s a douche tell.”
I like Jim in Philadelphia, Pam should support him more. He said OK to art school, even after she failed, he was on board to wait for her to take the class again. He said OK to her running off and working for the Michael Scott Paper Company. He waited three years to start dating her.
Pam’s been finding herself this whole series, and yet she’s, (practically), where she started off nine years ago. Sure moving’s an adjustment, as is getting a new job. Even though Jim told her about his involvement in the company a little late, she agreed to it. But Pam had her time to shine, and got nowhere.
It’s been pretty well established for a while now that the documentary format is more a style of presentation than an actual character in the story. This reminds me of a complaint i read on Ken Jennings’ blog some years ago; it was one of the reasons he thought the US version was not as good as the UK original;
The show has included a few reminders of the doc crew–the mic packs are a good example–but the “Jim looks” are IMO strictly a part of normal direction in this format. The US version of the office found it more fruitful to pursue this line rather than strictly adhere to the “surprised documentarian” notion, and unlike Jennings this didn’t bother me as long as the show was funny.
That’s what makes the “breaking the fourth wall” this year so jarring. I’ve been OK with the format as it has developed for the past seven years, and lump criticism that “a real documentary crew couldn’t have filmed this” in the same dustbin as complaints like “MTV doesn’t play much music anymore” or “On Family Guy, why can’t the family hear what Stewie’s saying but everyone else can?”. But now the boom-mike guy just suddenly steps onto the stage, and Jim and Pam act like they’ve been friends with him and his family for years; yes, technically it’s plausible, but it really goes against how you’ve been presenting the action in all previous seasons. And now that you’ve done it, you can’t really do it again and have the same effect: IMO they wasted it on a nothing storyline, and at the very least Pam should have maybe gone to dinner alone with the boom-mike guy, maybe have him remind her of some of Jim’s bad qualities, make a play for her, and see her visibly tempted. They may still do that closer to the finale, but if they don’t, this was a lost opportunity in a series that hasn’t had many this last season.