The Office

As someone who arrives at work every morning at 7am to an almost empty parking lot, we can’t quite appreciate the inconvenience the Dunder Mifflin employees are dealing with as this week’s episode begins. They’re being forced to park down the block and walk to work, because one of the other businesses in their building, W.B. Jones, is renovating its offices, and construction vehicles are taking up precious parking spots. And while we can’t exactly empathize, one look at a post-walk Kevin convinces me that the situation is serious. Not as serious, however, as Michael’s crush on a chair model […]

Posted by Mike, Ryan and johnnysweeptheleg You know, sometimes we don’t give Michael Scott enough credit. Not many people would go the lengths that he did in last night’s episode to trick someone into having dinner with him. Staging a special assignment from corporate for which the entire Scranton branch would have to work late, he slyly gets Jim to admit that he has no plans for the evening before “convincing” corporate to call the whole thing off — leaving Jim and Pam available to attend the most awkward dinner party ever.

Thanks to the writers strike, this might be the last new episode of The Office we see for a while. Let’s hope it’s a good one … The episode begins with Pam explaining that Michael prefers to get phone messages via Post-It Notes when he’s in a meeting. Pam did it for him once and he liked it, so now he insists on it every time. The only problem is, he doesn’t get a lot of phone calls, so Pam walks into a lot of meetings with Post-Its that simply say “good morning” or have a smiley face on them. […]

Posted by Mike, Ryan and johnnysweeptheleg As “Survivorman” begins, the talk around the office centers around the events of the previous weekend. It seems Ryan invited a bunch of the branch managers and Toby to a wilderness retreat, as sort of a get-to-know-you weekend, and Michael was not invited because, as Pam theorizes, “Apparently they already knew everything they needed to know about him.” Everyone seems to be relishing the fact that Michael wasn’t included — except for Michael, of course. Inspired by Les Stroud — “a guy who would go out into the middle of nowhere and just try […]

Karen Filipelli is back. And she’s the regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Utica. And she’s offered Stanley more money to leave Scranton and transfer to her branch. Once Michael finishes fiddling with his Ferris Bueller-inspired dummy of himself long enough to grasp the situation, he decides that he can’t afford to lose Stanley. He wouldn’t mind losing Toby, though, and he calls Karen to suggest she take him instead — despite the fact that Toby’s not a salesman and that Michael admits that he thinks “Toby is the worst.” At least two people would miss Toby if he were gone: […]

At the start of this week’s episode, the office is abuzz — and it’s not just because Sue Grafton is in town for a book signing. An ad agency is coming to the Scranton branch to film a commercial promoting Dunder Mifflin Infinity. Michael is excited because he’s going to get a chance to show off the creativity that allowed him to imagine a unicorn as a 5-year-old, before he even knew what one was or could even speak. Jim is psyched because now when people hear he works at Dunder Mifflin, they might finally stop thinking he sells mufflers […]

Over the past few years, Pam has put up with a lot from Michael. So the fact that he has been watching The Devil Wears Prada in installments, and has identified with Meryl Streep’s character doesn’t faze her much. Besides, he eventually gets to the “big surprise ending” in which it turns out she’s the bad guy, and he apologizes. It’s when his next Netflix rental arrives that Pam begins to worry. “He’s watching Million Dollar Baby. … He’s going to try to kill me.” And so begins the final hourlong episode of The Office until the season finale. Next […]

Warning: It’s about to get all stupid up in here. One would think that — a week after driving his rental car into a lake at the command of his GPS navigation system —Michael Scott would put a little more forethought into his actions. One would be wrong. “Launch Party” starts out innocently enough, with the employees gathered in the conference room, seemingly hanging on Michael’s every word but really just rooting for a little animated cube to land in the corner of the TV screen. From there, it all goes downhill for Michael. Ryan has issued a release announcing […]

As we start the second of four straight hourlong episodes set to begin Season 4, Toby witnesses Jim and Pam sharing an intimate moment and, out of equal parts jealousy and loneliness, issues a memo warning employees against engaging in public displays of affection in the workplace. And that’s how the until-now secret relationship between PB&J (which, thanks to Kevin, is how we will always refer to Pam Beesly and Jim from now on) is revealed to the rest of the office. Somehow everyone is surprised, and everyone has an opinion on the subject. Dwight thinks that both Jim and […]