Working-Class TV
New evaluation: Office doing a better job
When it premiered last March, the best I could say about NBC’s remake of BBC’s instant-classic workplace satire
The Office was that (unlike the
Coupling fiasco) they didn’t fatally screw it up.
The clone captured the tone of 9-to-5 ennui spiced with absurd humor; plus, as flirtatious coworkers Jim and Pam, John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer were perfection. My problem was with the comic focal points: recent Golden Globe winner Steve Carell as clueless boss Michael Scott and Rainn Wilson as his unctuous deputy Dwight, both often overplaying like they were in a Saturday Night Live sketch, destroying the delicate illusion of realism.
Lately, matters have improved at the Dunder-Mifflin paper-supply company. Many of the office’s lumpy worker bees have subtly emerged as authentically amusing characters. And Carell has toned down Michael’s volume, amping up the pathos of a lonely guy who fancies his irked employees are his friends.
This theme was wonderfully and hilariously illuminated in several January episodes, when Jim drunkenly blurted his feelings about Pam to Michael, who got drunk on the knowledge, buddying up to a mortified Jim. Naturally Michael couldn’t keep the secret, putting Jim and Pam (who’s engaged) in an awkward position, forcing them into a nondenial denial of their obvious mutual attraction.
I still feel the irreverent Scrubs would be a better fit with My Name Is Earl than The Office, but I respect NBC for nurturing this offbeat show as it finds its own voice and audience.
