The Office

The Office as most people in the United States knows, stars Steve Carell as the manager of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company and follows the unconventional day- to-day lives of people who work in an office. The show features an office romance, a dorky assistant (to the) regional manager, and an annoying boss that tries, and fails to be funny. Overall, I would say that The Office is fine to watch, and more often than not funny. But, I wouldn’t necessarily rave about it as much as other people tend to do.

The way the show is formatted is interesting, as it is shown as a documentary with interviews, quick zooms on people, and mildly shaky camera movements when situations allow it. This gives the actors some creative license so they can act like the camera is their friend and not something they have to avoid looking at. This allowed for the infamous, glance at the camera move to be born on a scripted television program.

American comedy is simple; it features blatantly funny comedy acts that people will automatically laugh at, such as someone doing an exaggerated sketch or parodie. So in the comedic sense, The Office is pretty funny to watch with Dwight and Michael doing most of the memorable jokes. The thing that doesn’t make it unworthy of a laugh, is the fact that all the actors deliver the jokes with a sense of naturally ease, like this is something they could actually, or have actually said in real life.

There are four main characters that are Jim, Pam, Michael,and Dwight. All four of them have the typical office character. Someone who thinks he is funny, another who is an odd-ball, while also being annoying to his co- workers, another who hates his job but doesn’t leave, and one who allows for the romance on the show to come into play. In the show, the audience is usually told random facts about each character, such as the fact the Dwight is Amish, and owns a beet farm, or that Pam’s favorite flavor of yogurt is mixed berry. This makes for great comedy, but something that I felt the characters lacked was a sense of depth. Interesting backgrounds would make it so each character would seem complete, making it so we as an audience know the random facts, as well as some intimate things, something that should happen after five seasons of a “documentary” show.

As for the supporting characters, The Office introduces many. However, their characteristics are made so they represent people by exaggerating physical and emotional characteristics to become undeniably humorous. Kevin takes charge in this fact, as he is fat and talks like a baby. Other characters such as the awkward receptionist, Erin, in the later seasons, the hyper sales directer, Andy, as well as every other character in the show exhibit this as they are all the same, dorky, silly character. I find this a little too excessive and unrealistic, as mostly-normal and somewhat serious people can be equally as funny and add a balance to the show. As of now, Jim stands alone in adding a grounded persona to the list of characters,and I would like to see more characters like that. By leaving out the numerous amounts of extras and keeping a select few with multiple personalities, it could create a new depth to the entire program. Because, with all the supporting characters, its almost too much to keep up with.

All in all, The Office is not exactly overrated, but it isn’t necessarily the best thing on television.