Today, and over a month out of season, let's have a look at:
There's only seven of them. The Office was one of my favorite shows for most of its existence, but only one of the episodes below would overlap on a post about my favorite episodes of the overall series. Which means, for one of my favorite shows, I'm mostly looking at some of my non-favorite episodes. I've been trying to figure out why this post is taking me forever to finish and I bet it has something to do with this.
Now that I've sold you the sizzle! Let's start at the bottom:
This one's enjoyable, but its best bits are retreads of better bits from earlier seasons. That's kind of the general vibe of the last two seasons overall. Either that or everyone struggles to sell new dimensions they're given. Or they just go nowhere.
A good example of that last point is Toby and the Scranton Strangler, one of the more baffling near-storylines the show ever attempted. They made it such a conspicuous thing for so long. Why? So Toby could become a bore on the subject? How many miles did they seriously expect to get out of that, and why the multiyear run-up to it?
Dwight's Pennsylvania German pageantry is all fine enough, but the later seasons's general direction of Dwight and Jim becoming bestich menschen never lands with me. The funniest bit is at the end when Darryl crashes through the table. It's set up way too much throughout the episode, but the physical comedy payoff is funny. I tried and failed to screencap it but here's a link to the gif.
"Moroccan Christmas"
Liked this one less than remembered. There was a whole dark underside to the Andy and Angela / Dwight cuckolding that I never liked. This monologue of Andy's great, though:
Most of the episode isn't funny, but there are a few bits worth mentioning:
- Dwight's disgust at the Princess Unicorn phenomenon (“How does that happen? A king had sex with a unicorn? A man with a horn had sex with a royal horse?”) and with Michael's knowing the theme song.
- “Have you ever under the influence of alcohol questioned the teachings of the Mormon Church?”
- Two Michael facts: (1) He invented the screwdriver, sorry the “orangevodjuiceka.” (2) He celebrates Groundhog Day privately.
The rest is mainly Michael in stubbornly clueless mode, which is usually well worth it, but it never really goes anywhere. “I need to find ways to push Meredith to the bottom” is funny but not the whole thwarted-take-her-to-rehab stuff, where Meredith screams unfunnily for a small eternity of screentime.
Moments stray into A territory, but overall it's uneven. Michael (that is to say Steve Carrell) saves it, but it's really not one one of my top five Michael and Holly episodes, either.
My favorite joke is either when Michael sees the fake Christmas tree and demands Pam get a real one. ("A person from New Hampshire sees that and thinks it's a burning cross.") or when Andy volunteers Darryl's truck to Pam and then says "You know Darryl?" to Pam's patient exasperation.
The snowball fight is pretty overdone. Not so much Dwight's side of it, but Jim (that is to say John Krascinski) just never sells me on his his terror and helplessness. We've seen too much to see Jim rattled this way.
Allow me to praise James Spader as Robert California in general.
It's difficult to sympathize with a writing staff that had such a formidable talent - and one who was clearly motivated, to boot, ready to add another eccentric character to his ouevre - and failed to give the show to him the way the earlier seasons are given to Michael. This is the central problem with seasons eight and nine. (Six and Seven, too, pretty much.) As the ensemble grows, you've got to give them new things to do, etc. Not a problem unique to The Office, but one it failed to solve. The things they gave the ensemble - or even former leads like Jim, Pam, or Dwight - to do just weren't very good.
Take Toby, again, who here serves up another representative example. His Chad Flenderman novels started off as a good idea, and then it's run into the ground over several seasons. I think they wanted to be meta about it, like Toby just can't give up on a bad idea or read social signals and the irony of his being the HR guy. But man, do they miss the mark on this. Or Angela, the Senator, and Oscar, or Jim as sports-guy, or Darryl and the warehouse lady, fake-Mose, everything Andy, everything season eight and nine: no one sells the new set-ups.
Come to think of it, they're trying to be meta, here, as well, with Jim and Dwight soullessly pranking one another and no one buying it. Again, though, it's not enough to just be meta. You've got to wield it purposefully. Otherwise it's just annoying. I probably should have this swapped with "Classy Christmas," it's just this one has the virtue of being shorter. Dwight and Jim are slightly less annoying in this one; here they're just kind of irrelevant.
"Secret Santa"
Now we're into Episodes I Really Like land. This one's great. It might have a few things we've seen before, but they're things that - at least at this stage in the game - are always welcome. Namely Michael's compulsion to ruin any situation where he doesn't get his way ("When you need my help because I am ruining everything, don't look at me! ") as well as his framing everything through an 80s-TV view of the world ("Oscar, you just moved in next door. Stanley, you're our mailman.")
I love Michael's intermittent 'uslurping's and 'lepoards' and such. Another is 'spiderface,' as in 'cut off her nose to spider-face." (Also: "You heckled Santa for an hour and a half." "That was a different guy. That was Jesus. Jesus sort of ruined the party. Hurt, petulant Jesus.)
Michael’s stagedive at the end always makes me laugh. I mean, I've seen this over twenty times. A joke that lands consistently despite over-familiarity is worth noting. What else. Oscar doesn't sell his part of the episode. We're supposed to believe it's gay-dimensional chess at episode's end? It's tough to tell whether it's the actor or writing room with Oscar after season six or so. The “Walk Alone” montage has its moments. The uncut version is better than the Netflix one.
Not much to say about this one. It's a perfect earlier-season episode. Everyone's arcs are still on the up-and-up, an the jokes come one after the other. (“We are going to sell that to charity. That is what Christmas is all about.” “Reverse psychology. (To the people working the camera on the fictional documentary being made about Dunder Mifflin) I don’t know if you guys know about it.” Dwight's “Take that, Saddam!” or his “Yankee swap is like Machiavelli meets Christmas.”) Much hinges on the oblivious cudgel of Michael's narcissism, and plenty of heart from the character dynamics (mostly Pam and Jim and Dwight and Angela).
I always remember this episode as featuring Slade's "Merry Christmas, Everybody." It doesn't, though - I'm crossing my wires with the original UK Office's Christmas episode. It does, however, feature "Christmas in Hollis" by Run DMC, so that's cool.
"A Benihana Christmas"
This is one of the cringeworthiest of all Office episodes. The summary above doesn't do it justice. To try and quote the many things that make me laugh as I have with the episodes above would mostly be cut and pasting the entire script. Every character is pitch-perfect, every set-up gets a great pay-off, and every bit works all on its own and as part of a whole. And the last scene between Michael and Jim - I can only speak for myself, but this was a turning point for both of their characters when I was originally making my way through the show. That such a moment of sincerity comes after the many layers of uncomfortable irony that leading up to it makes it all the more remarkable.
This is the first and best of Michael's romantic-grief breakdowns. Later, with Holly, the grief. - while still uniquely Michael-Scott-esque, i.e. inept, big-hearted, uncynical but tragically unexamined - is too real. And those episodes - and all we say with Jan - are all great, no question; it's just here we see his utter, vulnerable cluelessness as to why he’s been dumped or what kind of relationship he was actually in. If there is a better example of this in the series, it's the great scene in "Women's Appreciation" with Michael and the ladies from the office at the mall food court. But nothing with Jan would've been as effective without this earlier stuff with Carol.
The two best cringeworthy moments - and The Office thrives in this particular area - are when Andy orders Nog-a-sakis at Benihana
and the cutaway, which calls such little attention to itself when it happens that it's disorienting as you slowly realize what's happened, from the girls at the restaurant to the girls (one of whom Kulap Vilaysack has had quite the post-this-episode career) they bring back to the party.
That Andy and Michael are unaware they are different women is painfully funny enough, but it's compounded both by Michael then forgetting which of them is the one he's calling his girlfriend and finally by their not realizing they're actually in high school.
And hey! Directed by Harold Ramis. Nice.
CHRISTMAS EPISODES,
LEAST-TO-MOST
There's only seven of them. The Office was one of my favorite shows for most of its existence, but only one of the episodes below would overlap on a post about my favorite episodes of the overall series. Which means, for one of my favorite shows, I'm mostly looking at some of my non-favorite episodes. I've been trying to figure out why this post is taking me forever to finish and I bet it has something to do with this.
Now that I've sold you the sizzle! Let's start at the bottom:
7.
"Dwight Christmas"
Directed by Charles MacDougall. Written by Robert Padnick.
s9, e9 (2012)
When the Party Planning Committee fails to put together a Christmas party, Dwight steps up to throw a Shrute Family Christmas, replete with traditional fare (hog maw and gluhwein, also used to sterilize medical instruments) and himself dressed up as Belsnickel. Pete learns Erin has never seen Die Hard, and Jim prepares for his new job in Philadelphia.
This one's enjoyable, but its best bits are retreads of better bits from earlier seasons. That's kind of the general vibe of the last two seasons overall. Either that or everyone struggles to sell new dimensions they're given. Or they just go nowhere.
A good example of that last point is Toby and the Scranton Strangler, one of the more baffling near-storylines the show ever attempted. They made it such a conspicuous thing for so long. Why? So Toby could become a bore on the subject? How many miles did they seriously expect to get out of that, and why the multiyear run-up to it?
Dwight's Pennsylvania German pageantry is all fine enough, but the later seasons's general direction of Dwight and Jim becoming bestich menschen never lands with me. The funniest bit is at the end when Darryl crashes through the table. It's set up way too much throughout the episode, but the physical comedy payoff is funny. I tried and failed to screencap it but here's a link to the gif.
6.
Directed by Paul Feig. Written by Justin Spitzer.
s5, e11 (2008)
s5, e11 (2008)
Phyllis, now head of the Party Planning Committee, throws a Moroccan-themed Christmas party as head of the Party Planning Committee, infuriating former head Angela. Meredith gets drunk and accidentally sets her hair on fire, leading Michael to stage an unsuccessful intervention over everyone's objections. Meanwhile, Dwight makes money by taking advantage of the latest toy craze, a Princess Unicorn doll.
Liked this one less than remembered. There was a whole dark underside to the Andy and Angela / Dwight cuckolding that I never liked. This monologue of Andy's great, though:
"When I was in college, I used to get wicked hammered. My nickname was 'Puke.' I would chug a fifth of SoCo, sneak into a frat party, polish off a few people's empties, some brewskis, some jell-o shots. Do some body shots off myself. Pass out, wake up the next morning, boot, rally, more SoCo, head to class. Probably gotten expelled if I'd let it affect my grades, but I aced all my courses. They called me 'Ace.' It was totally awesome. I got straight "B"s. They called me 'Buzz.'"
Most of the episode isn't funny, but there are a few bits worth mentioning:
- Dwight's disgust at the Princess Unicorn phenomenon (“How does that happen? A king had sex with a unicorn? A man with a horn had sex with a royal horse?”) and with Michael's knowing the theme song.
- “Have you ever under the influence of alcohol questioned the teachings of the Mormon Church?”
- Two Michael facts: (1) He invented the screwdriver, sorry the “orangevodjuiceka.” (2) He celebrates Groundhog Day privately.
 |
| Great opening bit, as well. |
The rest is mainly Michael in stubbornly clueless mode, which is usually well worth it, but it never really goes anywhere. “I need to find ways to push Meredith to the bottom” is funny but not the whole thwarted-take-her-to-rehab stuff, where Meredith screams unfunnily for a small eternity of screentime.
5.
"Classy Christmas"
Directed by Rainn Wilson. Written by Mindy Kaling.
s7, e11 (2010)
s7, e11 (2010)
Michael couldn't be happier when Toby takes a leave of absence and Corporate sends Holly to cover for him. Michael forces Pam to plan a second, classy Christmas party on the day Holly returns to Scranton. Unfortunately she's still with A.J. so Michael spirals downward. Jim agrees to a snowball fight with Dwight, which he later regrets.
Moments stray into A territory, but overall it's uneven. Michael (that is to say Steve Carrell) saves it, but it's really not one one of my top five Michael and Holly episodes, either.
"She's one sassy black lady!"
- Creed, with regard to Holly.
 |
| Note: not a sassy black lady. You know this, but for those who don't. |
My favorite joke is either when Michael sees the fake Christmas tree and demands Pam get a real one. ("A person from New Hampshire sees that and thinks it's a burning cross.") or when Andy volunteers Darryl's truck to Pam and then says "You know Darryl?" to Pam's patient exasperation.
 |
| Erin's antipathy for Holly is kind of funny, too. |
The snowball fight is pretty overdone. Not so much Dwight's side of it, but Jim (that is to say John Krascinski) just never sells me on his his terror and helplessness. We've seen too much to see Jim rattled this way.
4.
"Christmas Wishes"
Directed by Ed Helms. Written by Mindy Kaling.
s8, e10 (2011)
s8, e10 (2011)
Andy attempts to make everyone's Christmas wishes come true. His bringing his new girlfriend to the party causes Erin to drink too much at the Christmas party and she is escorted home by Robert California. Meanwhile, Dwight and Jim are ordered to stop pranking one another, lest they forfeit their Christmas bonuses. Hi-jinks ensue.
Allow me to praise James Spader as Robert California in general.
It's difficult to sympathize with a writing staff that had such a formidable talent - and one who was clearly motivated, to boot, ready to add another eccentric character to his ouevre - and failed to give the show to him the way the earlier seasons are given to Michael. This is the central problem with seasons eight and nine. (Six and Seven, too, pretty much.) As the ensemble grows, you've got to give them new things to do, etc. Not a problem unique to The Office, but one it failed to solve. The things they gave the ensemble - or even former leads like Jim, Pam, or Dwight - to do just weren't very good.
Take Toby, again, who here serves up another representative example. His Chad Flenderman novels started off as a good idea, and then it's run into the ground over several seasons. I think they wanted to be meta about it, like Toby just can't give up on a bad idea or read social signals and the irony of his being the HR guy. But man, do they miss the mark on this. Or Angela, the Senator, and Oscar, or Jim as sports-guy, or Darryl and the warehouse lady, fake-Mose, everything Andy, everything season eight and nine: no one sells the new set-ups.
Come to think of it, they're trying to be meta, here, as well, with Jim and Dwight soullessly pranking one another and no one buying it. Again, though, it's not enough to just be meta. You've got to wield it purposefully. Otherwise it's just annoying. I probably should have this swapped with "Classy Christmas," it's just this one has the virtue of being shorter. Dwight and Jim are slightly less annoying in this one; here they're just kind of irrelevant.
 |
| Best joke in this one is Robert's Black-Eyed-Peas rant, with the little moment with Ryan to the camera after. |
3.
Directed by Randall Einhorn. Written by Mindy Kaling.
s6, e13 (2009)
s6, e13 (2009)
Michael is outraged when Jim allows Phyllis to be Santa at the office Christmas party and spirals downward from there. Oscar has a crush on Matt, the new gay warehouse worker, and Andy tries to woo Erin via his secret santa plan to give her the literal twelve days of Christmas as presents, which appears to backfire horribly.
Now we're into Episodes I Really Like land. This one's great. It might have a few things we've seen before, but they're things that - at least at this stage in the game - are always welcome. Namely Michael's compulsion to ruin any situation where he doesn't get his way ("When you need my help because I am ruining everything, don't look at me! ") as well as his framing everything through an 80s-TV view of the world ("Oscar, you just moved in next door. Stanley, you're our mailman.")
"David, guess who I am sitting here dressed as."
"I'm not going to guess. You can tell me, or I will hang up."
"I will give you a hint. His last name is Christ. He has the power of flight.
He can heal leopards."
"Michael--"
"I am Jesus, David. And you know why? Because Phyllis, a woman, has
uslurped my role as Santa."
I love Michael's intermittent 'uslurping's and 'lepoards' and such. Another is 'spiderface,' as in 'cut off her nose to spider-face." (Also: "You heckled Santa for an hour and a half." "That was a different guy. That was Jesus. Jesus sort of ruined the party. Hurt, petulant Jesus.)
 |
| "In jail." |
Michael’s stagedive at the end always makes me laugh. I mean, I've seen this over twenty times. A joke that lands consistently despite over-familiarity is worth noting. What else. Oscar doesn't sell his part of the episode. We're supposed to believe it's gay-dimensional chess at episode's end? It's tough to tell whether it's the actor or writing room with Oscar after season six or so. The “Walk Alone” montage has its moments. The uncut version is better than the Netflix one.
2.
"Christmas Party"
Directed by Charles Macdougall. Written by Michael Schur.
s2, e10 (2005)
s2, e10 (2005)
The office Christmas party turns into a disaster when Michael turns the Secret Santa into a Yankee Swap (i.e. anyone can steal each other's Secret Santa gifts) and everyone's specifically-chosen gifts (including the teapot Jim made for Pam stuffed with personal memorabilia as well as a note of his true feelings for her) are bandied about as everyone scrambles after the iPod that Michael originally bought for Ryan. Seeing that his idea has ruined the party, Michael buys alcohol for everyone.
Not much to say about this one. It's a perfect earlier-season episode. Everyone's arcs are still on the up-and-up, an the jokes come one after the other. (“We are going to sell that to charity. That is what Christmas is all about.” “Reverse psychology. (To the people working the camera on the fictional documentary being made about Dunder Mifflin) I don’t know if you guys know about it.” Dwight's “Take that, Saddam!” or his “Yankee swap is like Machiavelli meets Christmas.”) Much hinges on the oblivious cudgel of Michael's narcissism, and plenty of heart from the character dynamics (mostly Pam and Jim and Dwight and Angela).
I always remember this episode as featuring Slade's "Merry Christmas, Everybody." It doesn't, though - I'm crossing my wires with the original UK Office's Christmas episode. It does, however, feature "Christmas in Hollis" by Run DMC, so that's cool.
1.
Directed by Harold Ramis. Written by Jen Celotta.
s3, e10 and 11 (2006)
s3, e10 and 11 (2006)
Michael plans to invite Carole to Jamaica with him for Christmas, but she breaks up with him before he has a chance. Andy takes Michael to a local Benihana to cheer him up, and they both convince waitresses to come back to the Christmas party with them, not realizing they are different girls than the ones they were flirting with at the restaurant. Back at the office, a disagreement within the Party Planning Committee leads Karen and Pam to create their own Christmas party, separate from Angela's.
This is one of the cringeworthiest of all Office episodes. The summary above doesn't do it justice. To try and quote the many things that make me laugh as I have with the episodes above would mostly be cut and pasting the entire script. Every character is pitch-perfect, every set-up gets a great pay-off, and every bit works all on its own and as part of a whole. And the last scene between Michael and Jim - I can only speak for myself, but this was a turning point for both of their characters when I was originally making my way through the show. That such a moment of sincerity comes after the many layers of uncomfortable irony that leading up to it makes it all the more remarkable.
This is the first and best of Michael's romantic-grief breakdowns. Later, with Holly, the grief. - while still uniquely Michael-Scott-esque, i.e. inept, big-hearted, uncynical but tragically unexamined - is too real. And those episodes - and all we say with Jan - are all great, no question; it's just here we see his utter, vulnerable cluelessness as to why he’s been dumped or what kind of relationship he was actually in. If there is a better example of this in the series, it's the great scene in "Women's Appreciation" with Michael and the ladies from the office at the mall food court. But nothing with Jan would've been as effective without this earlier stuff with Carol.
"It's a bold move to Photoshop yourself into a picture with your girlfriend and her kids on a ski trip with their real father. But then again, Michael's a bold guy.
Is "bold" the right word?"
The two best cringeworthy moments - and The Office thrives in this particular area - are when Andy orders Nog-a-sakis at Benihana
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| "One part eggnog, three parts sake. Some places won't make it for you, though, because eggnog is seasonal." |
and the cutaway, which calls such little attention to itself when it happens that it's disorienting as you slowly realize what's happened, from the girls at the restaurant to the girls (one of whom Kulap Vilaysack has had quite the post-this-episode career) they bring back to the party.
That Andy and Michael are unaware they are different women is painfully funny enough, but it's compounded both by Michael then forgetting which of them is the one he's calling his girlfriend and finally by their not realizing they're actually in high school.
And hey! Directed by Harold Ramis. Nice.
~
Leftover screencaps:
