My 'The Office' Manifesto

This post contains a spoiler from the Season Finale of The Office towards the end. MB

I never thought I'd say this, but I don’t know that The Office can hold my interest much longer. I almost feel like Jim and Pam in this picture, sitting in one of Michael’s meetings. I’m just not into it anymore but I’m NOT going to shoulder all the blame!! Writers must be held accountable as well. I humbly submit the following evidence:

Exhibit 1: Continuity issues.

Exhibit 1A: According to tonight’s season finale, Pam is some kind of closeted volleyball monster. She explains how she played volleyball all through school and went to volleyball camps every summer.

This is supposed to be the same Pam Beesly that once admitted to faking menstrual symptoms to get out of P.E. as frequently as possible in high school. So, is she an athlete or the ‘artsy-fartsy’ girl with ‘the sweater and everything’, like Roy once described her? Of course, that's not to say you can't be an athlete AND prefer heavier knitted tops. It's just not how Pam's character has been portrayed up to this point.

Exhibit 1B: The whole thing with Jim’s position at work. When he came back to Scranton from Stamford, he was officially named Michael’s ‘Number Two’. It was an actual promotion and was a big deal. He even told Dwight in passing that it came with a pay increase. But to facilitate this season’s storyline with Charles, the position is now an imaginary one?

And these are just two examples off the top of my head. There are more from the past couple of seasons. I know it sounds like I’m some kind of Comic Book Guy The Office nerd, but I think it’s hurting the show to change the nature of the characters in order to force feed some of the plot devices they (the writers) have been coming up with.

Exhibit 2: The existence of Ryan. Ryan’s whole character arc this season reminds me of the scene in Soapdish where Robert Downey, Jr’s character, soap producer David Seaton Barnes, is arguing with Whoopi Goldberg (playing Rose Schwartz, one of the show’s writers). Barnes wants to bring back Kevin Kline’s character who was killed off in the show. He figures the writers can come up with some clever contrivance to make it work. “He was DECAPITATED!”, Rose exasperates, to which Barnes replies, matter-of-factly, “They froze the head.”

Ryan is the frozen head. He was arrested for defrauding his employer. There is no way in this (or any kind of alternate) reality, that Ryan could get hired back by that same employer, even as a temp. It is impossible. There is absolutely no way it could happen at a publicly traded company. You might as well make Ryan impervious to bullets and give him heat ray vision. Frankly, I’m kind of insulted that the writers expect their viewers to believe it. And, after all, The Office is supposed to be a documentary. Sure, wackiness can ensue but it should at least MAKE SENSE!! It feels like B.J. Novak has some kind of contractual requirement for ‘X’ amount of screentime so the writers are just putting Ryan in there.

Exhibit 3: I'm too tired to even get into Angela's relationship schizophrenia over the past couple seasons.

And, finally, Exhibit 4 and my biggest issue: Pam and Jim. There. I said it. The two of them as a couple just don’t do it for me. In fact, they're turning into one of those couples that you just want to punch in the face (if it were possible for a couple to have one face able to be punched). Perhaps if I was into bridal showers and saying “Cute!” all the time, then maybe I could get into it but the longer it goes on, the closer I feel we’re getting to The Office turning into Full House. Jim can be Uncle Jesse, Pam can be Lori Laughlin. Michael will fill in as Uncle Joey and Dwight can be a kind of deranged, fascist Bob Saget. At the end of the show there will be hugs all around and lessons learned for everybody.

OK, that may be extreme (and possibly not a good example because I don't know who could be the Olsen twins, Candace Cameron or the other girl. Kelly could be that troublemaking ditz, Kimmy), but it seems not too far outside the realm of possibilty lately.

Pam and Jim find out that they’re (SPOILER ALERT!!!!)


having a baby, and I just don’t really care.

Well, we’ll always have Season 2 on DVD……

Please feel free to convince me that I'm wrong on this.