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Review
A funny day at 'The Office'
NBC scores with its new British-inspired sitcom, even daring to air it without a laugh track. Workers of the world, watch!
By CHASE SQUIRES
Published March 23, 2005
NBC is so starved for a hit sitcom, the network has renewed Matt LeBlanc's bland Friends spinoff, Joey, for next season.
Or maybe it's viewers who are starved, so hungry for a sitcom they'll watch anything with a 30-minute format and a laugh track, because Joey is NBC's highest-rated sitcom and television's third highest-rated, behind Everybody Loves Raymond and Two and a Half Men. And CBS's Raymond ends in May.
There may be hope ahead. Network executives and viewers should feast on NBC's new midseason offering, the British-inspired workplace comedy The Office, premiering Thursday.
A cross between comic strip Dilbert and cult favorite movie Office Space, The Office (sorry, no laugh track) is intelligent, funny and, alas, all too real. For anyone who has made fun of the boss, endured boorish co-workers, chafed under directives from an overbearing, faraway headquarters or dozed through corporate seminars, The Office is for you.
The show stars Steve Carell (the news anchor who speaks in tongues in Bruce Almighty) as Michael Scott, supervisor of a Scranton, Pa., office products outpost for the fictional Dunder Mifflin Inc.
Michael Scott is every boss you've ever hated. He thinks he's uproariously funny, wise and every employee's pal and role model. But as revealed in mockumentary segments, in which players talk directly to the camera as if they are in a documentary, he's an insensitive, dimwitted clod.
It's not intentional, mind you. He doesn't get it, but everyone else does.
Addressing the camera in the pilot, Scott describes himself with disarming sincerity:
"People say I am the best boss. They go "God, we've never worked in a place like this. You are hilarious (pause) and you get the best out of us.' I think that pretty much sums it up," he gives a thoughtful look and holds up a mug that reads "World's Best Boss," then adds, with a nod, "I found it at Spencer Gifts."
In another episode, "Diversity Day," Scott's appalling lack of sensitivity sparks a corporate rescue mission in the form of a diversity lecture. Scott, of course, doesn't understand why his Chris Rock imitation came across as racist, or even that the whole focus of Diversity Day is to clean up the mess he made.
"How come Chris Rock can do a routine and everybody finds it hilarious and groundbreaking, and I go and do the exact same routine, same comedic timing, and people file a complaint to corporate?" he asks the camera.
Carell steals every scene he's in, whether he's doing his "funny" impression of Adolf Hitler or creating his own Diversity Day video: "Diversity Tomorrow: Because Today Is Almost Over" - huh? "Abraham Lincoln once said, "If you're a racist, I will attack you with the north,' and those are the principles that I carry with me in the workplace."
His supporting cast of suckup Dwight Schrute (played by Rainn Wilson), decent and long-suffering receptionist Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) and desperate sales drone Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) are perfect foils. Workers will understand their pain.
To paraphrase Drew Carey: You hate your job? There's a support group for people like you; it's called "Everybody." We meet at the bar.
Thursday, we meet at The Office.
Chase Squires can be reached at 727 893-8739 or squires@sptimes.com
The Office premieres Thursday at 9:30 p.m. on WFLA-Ch. 8 before moving to its regular slot on Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m.
[Last modified March 23, 2005, 00:54:07]
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