TV #35 of 2020:
The Office, season 1
This 2005 debut was a little rough at the time, and another decade and a half of evolving cultural norms haven’t made it any better. Michael Scott is of course a walking HR complaint of offensive and inappropriate behavior, but even our ostensible hero Jim would be insufferably unprofessional as an actual coworker. These edges get sanded down a bit as the series goes on and becomes more stylized in tone, but in this relatively grounded first season, it’s all pretty cringe-worthy.
A lot of the characters are also just lightly sketched in over these six episodes, which is jarring for a repeat viewer who remembers their big personalities, but does add to the realism of this era of the show. The cast members mostly seem like real people caught in a dull job, where the only excitement comes from unwelcome intrusions by their odious boss or his power-hungry assistant Dwight. Much of the ensuing humor falls somewhat flat for me by 2020 standards, as it tends to reduce to, “Wouldn’t it be awful if this happened in a workplace!?” Yes — yes, it would.
There are seeds of more nuanced comedy here, though, as well as two major innovations that help redeem the year. First, the mockumentary talking-head format is a brilliant device for illustrating the vast gulf between a character’s self-perception and who they are in reality, and it allows Michael to be the butt of the joke rather than the employees that he torments. And second, there’s the sweet understated connection between Jim and Pam, whose dynamic already feels warm and bubbly even as she’s engaged to someone else and apparently only sees him as a friend. Pam is written as less of an active protagonist at this point and more of a goal for the salesman to pursue — we don’t really get a sense of her inner life or precise feelings about her relationship until the finale — but Jenna Fischer elevates that material and makes it easy to root for a romance to blossom.
The Office was almost canceled after this short initial run, and it probably couldn’t have continued on as the same program for much longer without losing all audience sympathy. Luckily it got sleeker and more humane with some distance from the original British series it was remaking, and I’m excited to rediscover it with fresh eyes.
★★★☆☆
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