I don’t know about you, but I’ve been more or less pleased with The Office this season. It’s not back to the level of excellence it set years ago, but it’s eons ahead of where it was last year. There’ve been moments, of course, but for the most part so far so good.
Or, so far before last night so good.
The introduction in the premiere of Dwight’s plot as the owner of the building was an intriguing development for the character. That, coupled with some better effort from most of the supporting cast, left me enjoying the beginning of season seven. Last week was even better, with Michael squaring off against Toby in a counseling session. How great was that?
But last night kind of sucked. While I loved that the plot centered around Andy’s community theater production of Sweeney Todd, that was about all I enjoyed in the episode. And Sweeney Todd is no picnic either — there have been only two instances where I’ve found myself interested in experiencing the play: the Johnny Depp movie (of course), and in Jersey Girl when George Carlin and Raquel Castro (Gertie) put on a scene for Gertie’s school. That’s it.
This is Steve Carell’s last season on the show, and I read somewhere that the writers are using that as an excuse to cast Michael in all sorts of situations that they’ve always wanted to before. So why is it that the only romances we’re suffering through right now are Erin and Gabe (what?), Andy trying to win back Erin, and Angela trying to woo Dwight before they fulfill their contractual obligation to procreate? Only Dwight and Angela are of interest on that list, and not in this form. The punch card is funny, but otherwise … gross.
I suppose it was also amusing last night when Michael was forced to pass the wine he stole around the audience, but an unreasonably bitter Michael Scott is not a man I want to see in Carell’s final days. I fear the writers intend to bring Michael way low down for most of the season before lifting him back up instead of letting us see how high he can fly all year long (I am excited to see the reason on the show for his leaving Dunder Mifflin).
It’s also unfortunate that outside of Michael, and Dwight in his building owner capacity, I have no real interest in the rest of the characters anymore. Like I said earlier, I enjoyed the first two episodes, but Pam and Jim no longer have any chemistry, Andy’s only funny when he’s not chasing the wrong woman, and Toby’s MIA most weeks. Who else is there to cheer for? Even Kevin, Creed, and Stanley hardly open their mouths these days.
I did like Creed’s dictation of his review of the play. I like to think he was either leaving himself a message at home, or talking on one of those play phones ala Stewie on Family Guy.
I won’t condemn the show or the season for one poor outing, but after last year’s debacle … my hope is this was just a necessary evil in order to help build the season out. We shall see.
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Oct 08, 2010 @ 17:30 EST5EDT
Go Angela! The take-away is highly effective. The scene with the wind blowing in her hair was fabulous!
This season has been very funny IMHO.
Michael had a redeeming moment at the end, when he cheered Andy up by telling him he did an awesome job in the play. It’s kind of like that time when Michael came to Pam’s art show and bought one of her paintings. When he finally does something truly nice, you (briefly) forget how stupid and childish he’s been acting.
*POST AUTHOR*
You happened to be right, although I’m not sure why I totally didn’t see it that way. I thought the moment at Pam’s art show was incredibly sweet; I found the Andy moment after his show to be weird. Just rubbed me in two different ways, I suppose.