The Office (NBC) TV Show • Page 38

Robert California had a few really great moments but I was mostly meh on him

 

Ray Romano should've been it.

 

I’ve posted this before, but if we’re criticizing the later seasons, this is the best cold open since Carrell left

 

I'm also in the camp that loves Robert California

 

Asian Jim is one of the best cold opens in the series for sure

I also like RC

 

Randall Park is great

 

See the later seasons definitely weren't the best but there are plenty of moments that totally made them worth happening to me.

 

I’m not sure what would have made the final season better, but throwing the Hail Mary and trying to work in some tension between Jim and Pam about three seasons too late was not the best choice.

 

The Farm is the worst episode of the show

If we don't count that (or the clip show) it's probably Lice I think

 

Internet sleuths may have discovered the identity of The Office's Scranton Strangler

 

hahah ive heard that theory before but never in such vivid detail. I am on that train.

 

I should’ve trusted Michael’s judgement early on.

 

I don't think I've watched the show at all since it originally aired, but people at work were talking about it, so I just rewatched Casino Night and this scene absolutely destroyed me.

 

People have been saying Toby was the Scranton Strangler since they first mentioned that joke in the show

 

haha goddammit, now I wanna go back and watch it all again with it set in my mind that he's the killer.

 

I’m in the camp that enjoyed the entire show, with 2-5 actually being the biggest highlights for me. I thought Season 8 was great, 9 was even better with exception of The Farm.

 

Toby's devolution into total creepwad is in the trophy case of this show's worst writing

 

I'm on 8 in my current binge and I love Pool Party and the whole part in Tallahassee tbh. Despite Nellie lol. Still have always found season 9 really hard to get through at times though.

 

right?! I really liked 8 a lot. And I like the storyline between Oscar and Angela in S9. Here Comes Treble, Dwight Christmas, Moving On and Promos->Finale are all episodes that I enjoy. It definitely isn't the same as The Office we know and love, but I do still enjoy it.

 

Season 8 for me is the worst. 9 was a step up although not on par with the early seasons obviously. But at least in season 9 they toned Nellie down and got rid of Robert California, in my opinion the two worst things to happen to the office haha.

 

I loved Robert California. I loves James Spader in most everything he does.

 

"I'm the fucking Lizard King."

 

RC was fine, just hard to adjust to. Nellie was awful.

 

I’ll always stand behind season 9. It’s flawed, yes, but I can tell Greg Daniels is back all throughout the season (save for that terrible Farm episode). People in here mentioned how weirdly creepy Toby got over the years and it’s especially odd because that happened under Paul Lieberstein’s watch during his seasons 4-8 tenure as showrunner. I always feel like that’s emblematic of what’s wrong with those seasons. A big part of that is that I’m just not sure Lieberstein understood the spirit of the series or if he just didn’t have the right voice to effectively communicate the emotional beats that felt so effortless in the first few seasons. It just felt so mean under his supervision. So many questionable decisions were made in season 8 especially and Greg Daniels returns to basically undo all of them as well as he could.

Plus, and I know this is one of the many issues people have with season 9, I love the Jim and Pam arc in the final season. I know fronkensteen agrees with me on this. The Cathy storyline was dead on arrival because of course no one ever believed that would go anywhere. It was like that was the only thing they could come up with to jolt some life into the relationship again. What if Jim had an affair? Well, there are plenty of other awful situations that can divide a loving relationship. I’m glad they explored that in season 9. I don’t know, as a married man who works in an unstable industry and has been there, that storyline rang so true for me. Work related issues and living situations can factor heavily into destroying a loving marriage. It doesn’t have to be an infatuation with another person. My wife loves that storyline for the same reason. It made Jim and Pam feel like real people to me again and reminded me why I rooted for them in the first place. I also appreciated that it was a clear arc that played out from the very beginning of the season to the very end. That’s something they got away from in the later years.

As others mentioned, I was also invested in the arcs they gave the other characters. Jim and Dwight’s relationship evolves into the brother relationship it always secretly was. That crushed look on Dwight’s face when he watches out the window as Jim leaves the Christmas party gets me every time because it’s finally made clear that Dwight genuinely loves Jim. It comes full circle at the end when Jim tells David Wallace to hire Dwight as the manager and then Dwight, in his closing talking head, refers to Jim again as his “bestest mensch” (not to mention calling Pam his “best friend” which is undeniably sweet). Then there’s Oscar and Angela’s story which, after years of rivalry, ends with them also realizing they’re best friends. Seriously, Oscar telling Angela she’s moving in with him and then her crying in the car while Oscar holds her...that’s why I watched the show. Dwight looking for family all throughout the season only to get everything he wanted and more. Andy finally finding peace with his imperfections and rose colored nostalgia (honestly, he has the best line of that finale), Daryl finally becoming everything he’d always known he had the potential to be while also realizing he was genuinely going to miss these people, Pam finally bonding with the other women in the office (no the lice episode isn’t great, but I love that Meredith takes her out drinking with no judgment), Pete and Clark, Erin finally getting some agency and feeling like a real human being, even Nellie who, yes, is a terrible character, gets some decent rewrites particularly in her scenes with Pam.

I’m not a fan of Brian at all, but I do appreciate his ultimate role in identifying what Jim and Pam’s lives would look like if their marriage had fallen apart. It also shows that Jim and Pam as an idea isn’t necessarily lightning in a bottle. Brian quietly spent the last decade falling in love with Pam just out of our purview and Jim realizes this almost too late. Anyone could have been in Jim’s position and I liked that that helped snap him back into reality.

I don’t know, it has a lot of weak points for sure, but season 9 is underrated to me.

 

I’m watching Party Down and just had the thought that Ken Marino would have made a great replacement for Michael Scott