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Which Office do you love? Both! | December 15, 2006

Are you a fan of The Office (either version)? At this point, who can answer no to that? If you don't like one, you like the other. If you like one, you probably like the other, too. (I know that isn't logical, but it's Friday and my thinking's not perfect.)

Anyway, I have often tried to extrapolate something eloquent from my thoughts about the U.K. versus U.S. versions of The Office, but have never come up with much beyond babbling about how much more like an uncomfortable documentary the U.K. version felt. At any rate, The New Yorker has come up with a brilliant essay comparing the two versions (I found the link via Ricky Gervais' site ... obviously; I was going there to try to buy the CDs of the podcast, but they're not available to those of us in the States yet, apparently. No fair!).

Uh, yeah, back to The New Yorker's piece (it's no wonder I'm never eloquent with all of the digression around here): It's bloody brilliant. Why, you ask?

Well, THIS sums up why I love Gervais and his David Brent:

The show’s lodestar was Ricky Gervais as the regional manager, David Brent. With his dated Vandyke, darting eyes, and shit-eating grin; with his wish to be more of a friend and entertainer than a boss, a wish torpedoed by the coercive feebleness of his patter and his horrifying dance moves; and with his unerring gift for joining conversations and killing them with one unpardonable remark, David was a new figure in sitcoms: the unbearable lead. In the first episode, in a scene that extended for an excruciating two and a half minutes, he sought to impress the new temp by having him sit in as he played a practical joke on the receptionist, Dawn (Lucy Davis). After calling her into his office, he pretended to fire her for stealing. When she began to sob, he winced and shifted and finally murmured, “Good girl, that was a joke we were doing.” With her head still in her hands, she called him a “wanker” and a “sad little man.” “Am I?” he said, attempting nonchalance. “Didn’t know that.” But he does. And our slow discovery of how this self-knowledge eats at David made us, grudgingly, begin to think of him as tragic.

And this sums up my love for the U.S. version:

What distinguishes Dunder-Mifflin from Wernham Hogg is not hope but consolation. In the British “Office,” we never learned most people’s names; the American version lovingly anatomizes everyone and takes advantage of the long-take documentary format to reveal the full complexity of everyone’s feelings (we glean, for instance, that Toby has an unspoken crush on Pam, and therefore resents Jim). Lost is the condemnatory power of the anonymous British chorus; gained are both a standard American melting pot and a commedia-dell’arte stock company, featuring Kelly the Yakker, Meredith the Lush, Kevin the Letch, and Creed the Cantankerous Freak, who is just a possession or two away from being a hobo. When Dwight is hovering uselessly in Michael’s office as Michael tries to deal with the sudden death of his predecessor, who was decapitated in a car accident, Creed (Creed Bratton) suddenly dips in his random oar.

CREED: You know, a human can go on living for several hours after being decapitated.
DWIGHT: You’re thinking of a chicken.
CREED: What’d I say?

And I watched last night, thinking of this article the whole time. Last night's episode was fantastic, by the way. I still find Jenna Fischer to be an overactor, and I'm sick of the Jim-Pam thing. But Ed Helms has been such a delightful addition to the cast. And all of the more tertiary characters make me squeal. Angela was hysterical. And even though her moments were brief, so was Kelly. But the real highlight was that Michael couldn't tell his girlfriend apart from the other Benihana waitress. As he said, "All waitresses look alike." So, he MARKS HER. Hilarious. And him telling Jim about doing it was just as hilarious.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm terribly glad The Office and The New Yorker give us such delightful gifts this holiday season.

Posted by deann in Love| News | permalink