The Office

Last night I was visiting a friend of mine, and he took it upon himself to expose me to a television series that he enjoyed immensely, The Office. The series is set-up as a mockumentary of office life. The cameras are obviously handheld and fairly often they'll sit down with one of the actors and interview them, get their take on the day's happenings. If you think about Dilbert and Office Space, which The Office certainly must draw a lot of comparisons too, you have about the right tone and sense of humor.

I had seen part of an episode on my own before and chuckled a little bit but never made an attempt to watch it again. Now, after seeing another two episodes, I can put into words why. The show is depressing beyond belief. The eccentric, quirky cast of characters the character based comedy are entirely unlikable, and, by the end of the first episode, I just wanted to jump into the TV and beat everyone with a two by four, that is if I hadn't been consumed by the despair for my future The Office generated. I couldn't look beyond the arrogance or timidity or passive-aggresiveness or total disconnect from reality any of these characters displayed and hated all of them. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad if any of these characters displayed some depth or heart, but they didn't. The director's / producer's / writer's idea of moving a character beyond the single trait they were built upon was putting the boss into an improv class where he acted the exact same way he did at work.

For myself, I like reading Dilbert and enjoy watching Office Space even though the closest I have ever come to working in an office was a strange sort of free-lance marketing internship for a local bank last summer. Those had some key differences though. Dilbert is a cartoon which further discombobulates it from reality. As cruel as the boss may be or as lazy as Wally gets, they're still cartoons and not confused with real life. Office Space has a happy ending and a fully developed protagonist.

All that being said, there are still some things I enjoyed about the series. The acting was excellent. I did feel as though I was watching real office workers and not a bunch of actors, and the camera work, which I had originally expected to irritate me, actually worked in the show's favor and drew me in.