The Office: The Delivery

• jordo212000

  

  I still watch the show every week to get a few laughs. There is no getting around the fact that the show is a shell of its former self. While I really do not want to agree with Manhattan Buckeye, I have to. The characters are all completely different and the humor has changed. Michael's IQ is a complete joke now. How can this guy actually run an office?
  
  I still watch in the hope that it will return to the way it used to be. I was actually telling some friends last night that I think the show should have ended somewhere in the middle of season 4 after Jim and Pam got together. But obviously there is too much money to be made, so they are going to keep making episodes.
• End of Line

  

  I thought the episode was pretty funny. I couldn't stop laughing when Kevin was talking about putting spicy food up Pams butt LOL.
• Glory Days

  

  jordo212000 wrote: Michael's IQ is a complete joke now. How can this guy actually run an office?

  Everybody keeps saying that but i think he showed he knows a lot more than people give him credit for when Jim had problem's being a manager earlier in the season. even throughout the whole series when Jim was in charge in the past or when Dwight tried to take over the office Michael always stepped up when he had to.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  "Everybody keeps saying that but i think he showed he knows a lot more than people give him credit for when Jim had problem's being a manager earlier in the season."
  
  I agree to a certain level, in the past his character has shown some managerial competence....which helped out with the sympathy for the character regardless of the selfishness/cluelessness. But the last couple of seasons accentuate the awkwardness and leave out any type of proficiency. If you really want to understand why the show is so bad now, look at what made it great...it wasn't a hodgepodge of writing but rather a carefully and IMO smartly structured show with three main storylines:
  
  1) Steve Carell as Michael Scott, a clueless boss in the same range as Ricky Gervais' character, awkward but not hateable because he meant well....it is the crux of the show. Carell did an incredible job in the first few seasons because his craziness was toned down.
  
  2) Jim/Pam were the straight characters, the mockumentary was seen from their eyes, as young people who were better than the workplace environment they had to tolerate. They didn't need to make their own humor (aside from Jim's pranks), the humor came from their observations and their relationship was a realistic if not bittersweet situation that many of us have experienced.
  
  3) The office and Dunder Mifflin was the third character, with Dwight being the standout, just an allegory of boring, banal white collar life. The individual characters had quirks (particularly Dwight who again was the standout), but it wasn't unrealistic....just a group of people unmotivated and disenfranchised with their work.
  
  The humor evolved from the interactions of 1-3. Watch an episode in the first 3 seasons. There are ups and downs but for the most part the plotlines take a 1/3, 1/3 and 1/3 of the three "players" and the great moments arise from their conflicts and collective/individual resolutions.
• sherm03

  

  Every time I read one of your posts about the show, Manhattan, I keep thinking of the episode where Jim, Pam, and Andy were watching the pirated movie. Jim and Pam kept talking about Pam's parents, and the Nard dog kept thinking they had some deep philosophical thought about the movie.
  
  LOL! Dude, it's a freaking TV show! You are taking this to heart...and it's actually kind of sad.
  
  I watch the show for the lulz. If I ever get as emotionally attached to a TV show are you are to this one...someone please stab me in the face.
• 3reppom

  

  I don't disagree that the show is a touch off from where it used to be. I do disagree with the notion that the show has been ruined by the creative team during the past couple of seasons. There is a problem with the show that is rooted in the scale of the world in which it is displayed. I highly doubt that Greg Daniels anticipated this show getting 118 episodes when he developed the pilot. It has gotten to the point where they don't have very many stories to tell. After all how many different ways are there for Jim to show his exasperation with Micheal, how many ways can Stanley display his apathy for his job or for dwight to show his contempt for his co workers? The argument that the show isn't what it used to be because the writers have somehow abandoned the essence of the characters is wrong. Everyone in the office is pretty clearly defined at this point, so going to the well again to have jim pull more pranks on dwight because they know it works isn't the right move, they have done that before so they have to do something new. This is one reason why the small scale of the world in which the office exists is starting to hurt the show. So they have attempted to expand things with varying degrees of success. If the show was rehashing old gags and plot points from the first three seasons I would have quit watching around the first few episodes of season 5.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  Well, unfortunately sherm03 you missed what was great about the first 3 seasons. Enjoy the nard dog tearing his scrotum...that is high comedy.
  
  I'll repeat it. Tearing a scrotum is the high point. Awesome.
• sherm03

  

  No, Buckeye. I liked the show the first 3 seasons. And I've liked it since then, too.
  
  I'll repeat it...if you don't like the show anymore, then change the channel!
  
  You've gotta be Irish. You're like every old timer Irishman I've ever met. Something pisses you off, but you continue to put yourself through it just so you can bitch about how annoying it is.
  
  Again, I don't watch the show to analyze it and dissect it. I watch it because Thursday nights are boring, and I'd rather watch TV than read a book.
• Thunder70

  

  best episode since the Wedding. Laughed a lot. Gonna have to watch it again...
• j_crazy

  

  while not as good as the 1st half of the season, i've liked the new episodes.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  Peter King who usually pimps the show (I'm sure it has NOTHING to do with being on NBC) even mentioned the lameness in his Monday Morning QB column on CNNSI:
  
  "Disappointing big, big, big episode of "The Office.'' I'm always warned about spoiling the show for those of you who have DVRed the thing but not watched it yet, so let me make my three problems with the show known without being exact. One: Pam is too smart and too caring about her child to be so crazy to delay her trip to the hospital for the dumb reason that she uses, over and over again. Two: Dwight's the best, but doing what he does because he sees a spot of mold? Don't buy it. Three: It's not funny."
• RedRider1

  

  Manhattan Buckeye wrote: One: Pam is too smart and too caring about her child to be so crazy to delay her trip to the hospital for the dumb reason that she uses, over and over again.

  Exactly...it was borderline wreckless and just out of her character.
  
  thunder,
  yes it was the best episode since the Wedding. You could offer those 2 episodes on one DVD and skip the rest and have the basic point of this season.
• vball10set

  ^^^+1
• Thunder70

  

  RedRider1 wrote:

  Manhattan Buckeye wrote: One: Pam is too smart and too caring about her child to be so crazy to delay her trip to the hospital for the dumb reason that she uses, over and over again.

  How is it out of her character? To my knowledge, she was never pregnant before on the show. She was entering uncharted waters. Even Jim, who seems to always have it together, was beside himself being a new parent and all. I thought that dynamic (jim/pam acting nervous/scared) was pretty cool IMO.
• Glory Days

  

  ^^^ agreed
  

  Manhattan Buckeye wrote: Two: Dwight's the best, but doing what he does because he sees a spot of mold? Don't buy it.

  really? Dwight always goes over the top with everything he does, how is that any different from everything else he does?
• Thunder70

  

  exactly...
• Quint

  

  I liked this episode! I thought the part with Dwight getting pulled over while throwing weapons out of the car was hilarious! The Michael Scott Paper Company episodes were definitely the valley of this show, but I think it is starting to make its way back up.
  
  Does anyone watch Parks and Recreation? I actually think it is very humorous. Ron Swanson cracks me up.
• se-alum

  

  Quint wrote: I liked this episode! I thought the part with Dwight getting pulled over while throwing weapons out of the car was hilarious! The Michael Scott Paper Company episodes were definitely the valley of this show, but I think it is starting to make its way back up.
  
  Does anyone watch Parks and Recreation? I actually think it is very humorous. Ron Swanson cracks me up.

  Parks and Rec has come a loooooooonngggg way since last season, which I thought was virtually unwatchable.
• Quint

  

  I could not agree with you more se-alum. I couldn't even watch that first season. . . then I watched a couple episodes this season and now I'm hooked.
• vball10set

  Quint wrote: I liked this episode! I thought the part with Dwight getting pulled over while throwing weapons out of the car was hilarious!

  ..coupled with the cop calling him by name--I'm still laughing at that scene!!!