i love banter...but i HATE witty banter

...previously on The Office...

...and now...

The Office

"Training Day" & "Michael's Last Dundies"

The last two weeks have given us a surprisingly good Office ("Training Day") and a subpar one ("Michael's Last Dundies"). News of Will Ferrell's run as the new manager was off-putting given how much this popular show has resisted using big name guest stars, so the presence of Ferrell promised to be distracting. It was a relief at the beginning of "Training Day" to find Ferrell tapping his good actor and adjusting to The Office, just as Steve Carrell was so good amping up to Ferrell and Adam McKay's world in Anchorman.

The meet-cute between Michael Scott and Ferrell's DeAngelo Vickers strains the limits of human stupidity, but they play it so well together that they can stretch it that far without snapping the tone. They seem totally natural together, cavorting like schoolboys around the office after-hours. It is almost too perfect when Vickers chuckles "We should write a movie or something!" given both that Michael Scott did write a movie and that these are actually two movie stars acting on television.

There is much in these two episodes that is on the nose, but "Training Day" mostly keeps it on the right side of the top. It is oddly consistent and gratifying to hear Scott just announce that he loves fanfare for it's own sake. Given the conceit of meeting the new boss, several characters to some degree just state their role in the show, like this was Community or something. In any case, Mindy Kaling's demonstration of a staged "meet-cute" is further proof that she should have her own movie or sitcom.

The transition from Carrell I still suspect to be unwise but I'm curious to see how they'll handle it. One novel angle here is considering this cast of characters that has, over seven seasons, progressed beyond eccentric from the point of view of a newcomer. One of the most interesting wrinkles is Vickers' perception of who the funny guy is: Andrew Bernard (arousing telling hurt/questioning looks from Scott and Jim Halpert). Scott turns against Vickers on the one-two combo of this choice and the new guy finding a laugh where he couldn't.

Andy stumbles into this role through idiocy mistaken for wit. He soon tries to class up his humor with an actual well-constructed monologue joke that puts off Vickers due to its (non-partisan) political content. Vickers isn't interested in politics, and is repelled by Angela's gloating about her (closeted) state senator boyfriend. He's also repelled by Jim and Pam's gloating about their baby. Though Pam has made a swing back into sympathy in her role as corrupt office manager/corny joke-slinger, it is still gratifying when a character of power silences the couple's smug self-adoration. Vickers' "I know what yr doing, just quit it." stands next to the pre-school interviewer's "Have you ever considered that maybe yr not as charming as you think you are?" in the take-that-Jim-and-Pam canon.

Andy, meanwhile, devolves into buffoonery and then self-lacerating dancing-monkey status to retain his funny-guy status. It is uncannily interesting to see Ferrell playing a character devouring this kind of humor (the kind his detractors accuse him of pandering to). It (like so much this season) risks making the show into too much of a cartoon, but Ed Helms redeems it with his obvious and underplayed pain, resentment, and resignation. The episode has that Office hallmark of layering pain into the silliness.

On the pain front, Dwight is riding for a fall, confronting the knowledge that, after all these years, Michael did not so much as recommend him to succeed him. Yes, Dwight started off as the most obvious cartoon in the cast, and his wackiness has deepened, but so has his humanity and depth. Give or take one attempted coup and one brief resignation, he has been Dunder Mifflin's top salesman, hardest worker, and most loyal employee. It actually is wrong that those around him have never looked past his personal awkwardness and abrasiveness to acknowledge this.

"Training Day" crams at least three great set-pieces into 22 minutes, counting the opening meet-cute. Vickers successfully makes a power move by taking a shave (from Scranton's finest) in his/Scott's office. Scott counters by having Erin attempt to shave him. This potential disaster plays well as the writing straddles just the right side of Erin's mental defectiveness. Like Kevin, Erin can be one of the most charming characters on the show as long as she isn't nudged too far into cartoon retardation. Here, she needs to be quietly stopped from shaving Michael's lips, and that's just enough. She's also adorable locking up in a conflict over Scott's and Vickers' preferred phone greetings.

Michael's spiteful PB&J platter before the slightly peanut-allergic DeAngelo doesn't play as well. Childishly mean-spirited is part of the Michael Scott DNA and can be great in small gestures or directed at Toby. This sequence, however, crosses a line where it isn't the character's best look. Not quite as bad as his racist impression of Darryl last Halloween, but in the same vein. The peanut sequence, however, finds a segue into the third great set-piece. Vickers flees into the "multi-purpose room" (pointedly not the "conference room") and calls a meeting.

Michael unsuccessfully attempts to block everybody from obeying their new boss. As he sees them dutifully file in (and is unsubtly informed that he has lost Dwight's loyalty), he is forced to deal with the losses of his departure. When DeAngelo, in a classy move, comes out to defer to him, they have a reconciliation that is strange, silly, and moving.

blah blah blah:

"Everyone I know who skis is dead"

"The southwest is one of my favorite regions"

"I love the desert...it's one of my favorite ecosystems"

"C'mon, Darryl..."

Kevin's toupee recurs

"What do you think about bald people? I HATE them."

"I saw a hawk. Just looking at me."

Dr. Doolittle masculinity

"What's the Native American girl's name?" (Kelly, who's actually Indian, may have caught the eye of the clueless southwestern enthusiast.)

"Training Day" offered a lot to dig into, but "Michael's Last Dundies" was a disappointing follow-up. Like "Threat Level Midnight", it had problems following up a cherished old episode while dishing out something too cartoonish and off for The Office, then awkwardly trying to shoehorn traumedy into it. The occasion gives several characters occasions for one-off gags, and some of them hit. Many of them are laden with more serious contexts that are ill developed and often not paid off.

This is symptomatic of a problem with the decision to continue beyond Carrell/Scott. The show has lately been giving Michael some good special moments en route to what seems will be a satisfying, happy ending (though I would have been happy with a satisfying, unhappy ending like David Brent had). The problem is these moments have to awkwardly and jarringly compete with efforts to bring the supporting cast more to the fore. It is a great cast, but the writing has sometimes stumbled in doing this, and the limited space can make the Michael stuff seem abrupt and forced.

I'll keep watching until hope is sapped, as The Office still has one of the best casts and writers rooms in the business. While I prefer the American show to the British one, Gervais' creation will prosper historically given the soul of wit (brevity) and it's commitment to a stark, tragic, mundane structure. At seven seasons, the American The Office is long past its seasons 2-4 peak where it demonstrated an ability to stretch those story dynamics further and beyond. Now we're getting into the great unpossible valley.

To speak to this episode, it seemed not so necessary to saddle Ferrell with painful awkwardness. It would be fine if it came from a complex psychomatrix as in the case of the Michael Scott character, but DeAngelo (fingers crossed) won't be around for more than a 4-episode stretch, so what is the reward of putting him through that? Apparently to give him odd set-pieces where he and Michael do bizarre physical schtick and yell at each other. This is what we feared.

There was some serious material (Erin's disillusion with Gabe, Dwight's escalating, um, disillusion, etc.) but it was tossed off and put into the awkward framework of a Dundies that didn't seem nearly as communal and organic as it did many years ago at Chili's. They seemed ill developed and rarely developed for a payoff, more just a parade of grievances and odd shots. The funniest moments went to the writer/background-characters.

Paul Leiberstein got his fine Eyor on as Toby and we got to see BJ Novak's Ryan actually hurt not to be sexually harassed by Michael this year. On the non-writer side, my friend Khori has turned into a Kevin Malone advocate, and I understand that when I see him deliver the title of this post.

There was a video made by Scott that should have been funnier, but trying to cram in that level of awkwardness for Ferrell's brand new character was problematic. It also suffered from the "Threat Level Midnight" problem of being both laughably amateurish and way too sophisticated for Michael Scott to have put together.

It may have been a wash with a few laughs to pan, but the sentimental finale struck a chord in me, as falsely shoehorned in as it was. The whole staff joined Michael in the conference room to deliver a touching parody of a song. As we learned back in "Goodbye, Toby", Michael is a parody song enthusiast and practitioner. It was hard not to sniffle as the whole staff sung him his own goodbye song, a variant of "Seasons of Love" that turns into "Remember to Call". It makes perfect sense that this Office has just caught up to Rent.

Dwight Schrute is notably missing. I'm eagerly awaiting a hate/love final showdown on the scale of Hank on the final episode of The Larry Sanders Show.

the 2 kellys

Mindy Kaling and Ellie Kemper of The Office are among the world's most beautiful people. No shit, People Magazine. We done known that for yrs.

You know how many fake peope are talking about how fake the world is right now?

You know how many fake people are talking about how fake the world is right now?
Community

This episode of Community was in part a movie homage.

Community is my favorite show right now, and favorites are hard to write or speak about outside the realm of hyperbolic superlatives. Talking to a friend once, I noted how I talked incessently about Peter Greenaway despite a generalized lack of awareness or interest, but I rarely mentioned Stanley Kubrick.

"You don't talk about Pink Floyd much, either." she observed.

So it has taken me this long to dish about a sitcom. One doing another movie homage. They pushed the hell out of the Pulp Fiction angle on the social networks for this one. We get some great costuming. Jeff does Vincent Vega with his already established lack of commitment (he's just Jeff in a suit). Shirley goes much further to be Jules, giving herself facial hair where Jeff couldn't be bothered to get a wig.

Britta makes a fetching Mia, Troy and Annie are an adorable Pumpkin and Honeybun, Chang continues his tradition of raceblind costumery as Butch, and clueless, tasteless Pierce is best placed as the gimp (he's hot and his balls are touching a zipper).

It is great fan service, for fans of Community and modern American pop culture at large. Does it service the silent majority of world citizens who don't obsess over movies and music and stuff, who aren't dillegently typing at the internet about their particular media fixations and vendettas? In the words of Shirley, "I'm sorry Charlie Kaufman but some of us have to get up for work in the morning."

I would argue that Community's characters are at the forefront, and with some acclimation are moving, appealing and funny to audiences not so hung up on pop culture that they can track the show's deep, continuous referents and meta-levels. I showed the chicken fingers episode to a friend who hadn't seen Goodfellas and he laughed. Importantly, he had already seen a few episodes of Community.

Furthermore, there isn't a show more hyper-aware of its own detractors, and doesn't hesitate to address and challenge accusations against it. That may be just as exasperating to the viewer that doesn't care about the movies the show loves or the show's opinion of itself. This is addressed, too, but we'll get to that later.*

Anyway, the episode subverts the expectations for a Pulp Fiction jizzerama and instead avoids the Pulp Fiction party for a conversation between the show's handsome hero and breakout star, Jeff and Abed. We see all the elements for a wacky Pulp Fiction surprise party indefinitely delayed because Abed is acting wacky for himself (not as pop culturally fixated and wacky).

Jeff and Abed wind up having the kind of profound conversations only Community really does, finding themselves on the opposite sides one would expect them to be in a pop versus life debate (some disturbing crevasses of Jeff's twisted psyche are also explored). Then it turns out the whole thing has been a movie spoof. Abed has been using Jeff to unwittingly reprise My Dinner With Andre.

I was rather embarassed not to have picked up on this, especially considering how on the nose the homage is. Jeff narrates over a brisk city walk to the restaurant just like Wallace Shawn and Abed embodies Andre Gregory in wardrobe and mannerism. How many TV actors can do more with less than Danny Pudi?

The whole thing wraps up neatly with a montage of Pulp Fiction moments done in the style and narration of My Dinner With Andre, an idea which is in itself a hilarious juxtaposition. The characters are great and the jokes funny even if, I imagine, one has seen neither movie. I don't think any television show crams quite as many types of jokes into a script. If so, probably not at this level of execution, and not with this cast.

*or not, what do i know? i'm not doing a second pass on this.

is it worth the asthma?

It's gorgeous, but is it worth the asthma?

Parks and Recreation

It is said here that Pawnee has georgeous sunsets due to the cloud of pollution created by the Sweetums factory. We learn a few more things about the town. Pawnee also has a bed and breakfast infested with cats and run by a killjoy who serves German muffins* before the crack of dawn. Pawnee also has a campground that is lovely to see Chris Pratt fall around as Andy. Toting a guitar, tent, and balloons for his beloved, camping-averse April, whose response to a babbling brook is "Shut up!"

The characters on this show, my current second favorite, are just lovely. Oddly for TV, they all seem to share a genuine affection for each other. A possible exception may be series scapegoat** Jerry, who perfectly spoils Ron's fishing (like yoga for him, but he still gets to kill something) by wondering aloud if his sixteen-year-old daughter should be allowed to take birth control and pondering conducting a teen abstinence workshop.

Adam Scott and Aziz Ansari continue to cultivate an odd couple chemistry as Ben and Tom, both of whom share names with famous partners/antagonists of characters named Jerry. Note that this show also had Andy initially dating Ann, who dressed as Raggedy Ann for Halloween. The show's mid-season debut this season robbed us of another great Halloween episode.

Rashida Jones (Quincy's daughter) as Ann is finally getting funny on this show. She suffered for a little while with the Pam Paradox, wherein the attractive female supporting lead on a Greg Daniels show is stuck being the voice of reaon for a crazy supporting cast. Pam has blossomed as a corrupt office manager showing her geek side with a lovably corny sense of humor. Ann is getting her moments playing a ridiculously attractive person ("sweet, beautiful Ann" as Leslie is apt to describe her) confronted in full adulthood by getting dumped for the first time by another ridiculously attractive person (Rob Lowe giving good cartoon positivity). Ann finally has an oppurtunity to be stupid and act foolishly.

Donna gets to pitch a luxury dog park at the campground before drinking gin from a flask while reading a book called Your Erogenous Zones. Hopefully one day the show will develop its heavy black woman a little bit more, but it is good to know that for now she seems to be the most independent and erotically satisfied character of all.

With all this yapping about this supporting cast, I have been withholding the truth that this is very much an episode about Leslie. Her (so far) charmingly chaste chemistry with Ben is teased nicely. Those two kids are good together and good at their jobs. That last part marks a big disparity between Leslie Knope (rhymes with "hope" and sounds like "nope"), and Michael Scott. Amy Poehler and Steve Carrell share a similar improv-wizard lunatic enthusiasm and commitment in their lead performances on Greg Daniels mockumentaries. But where Michael Scott is very dumb and usually incompetent while fumbling his way to the endzone, Leslie Knope is very smart and professionally hypercompetent, pushing the ball forward as her team accidentally covers her.***

Andy shares more with Michael Scott than Leslie does. They are both soulful, charismatic idiots blessed with an outsized romantic streak. Andy could be very much like Michael if he ever was erroneously placed in an authority position. Come to think of it, he coaches youth basketball much like Michael runs his office.

I don't intend to damn Parks and Recreation with constant comparisons to The Office, but they are inevitably stylistically very similar. More relevant, I would say that Parks and Recreation is in the thick of its sweet spot, much as The Office was in seasons 2-4. That is to say, it is one of the all-time sitcom greats at the moment.

For most of Parks and Recreation's run, Leslie has been the underdog battling institutional apathy and budget cuts that stymie her limitless well of great ideas. Now, after executing her biggest idea to resounding success ("Harvest-Best!" trumpets the same paper that ran the headline "Knope Grope Is Last Hope" after a city official clutched her breast while having a heart attack) her script is flipped. Everybody defers to her expecting a triumphant follow-up to her recent home run.****

Poehler gets to spend most of the episode in a manic showcase of poignant self-doubt and type-A determination to work through the problem, and she is majestic. Leslie is lucky enough to have Ron Swanson to characteristically spend most of the episode avoiding involvement with anything before solving problems with a little bit of grudging paternal intervention towards the end. After an existential crisis, it comes as no surprise that Leslie's still got it and is a fountain of positive inspiration and good ideas. She needed only a good night sleep and Ron to lock her in a room full of cats to get it.

*"...the fuck is a German muffin?" -Ron Swanson

**much like Toby on The Office, except the whole cast seems to indulge in the irrational hatred that Michael Scott inflicts upon that character

***i'm not very good at sports metaphorism

****george, you just told yrself stay away from sports metaphors. don't push it

my stories (pt. 1)

apparently it will take me 2 nights to describe and comment on nbc's thursday night programming. here i have some words on 30 Rock and The Office.

I'd like to help, but my hands are tied

30 Rock

30 Rock is hilarious, but it hurts to watch with limited Tracey Morgan/Jordan. With the Tracey presence, it is a joke carousel about to fly off the wheels creating a dizzying euphoria where you don't have to think about everything too much because it has that screwball snap and lunatic absurdity. These jokes could be uncomfortable if they didn't fly so fast and take place in show biz, satirizing a community that is uniformly crazy while being both hypersensitive and brutally mercenary and calloused.

So far as I know, the show is written by a Benneton conglomerate of top notch New England joke slingers. Something in the show, in the dialog and the "wacky" situations, is almost unbearably misanthropic. This is impossible to overlook without the active participation of Tracey, himself a brilliant racist caricature. What goes on there? It is strange and beyond my comprehension. Donald Glover came through the show in its better years. In this episode, Hannibal Burress, current in-house black comic genius, had a walk-on as a prison inmate Jack was going to put in a Trading Places kind of scenario.

Why is this how they put Hannibal into the show for a single line of dialog? This is a cartoon show, but every cartoon beyond the single comedy writer lady trying to have it all and the bluebood titan of industry forces its characters into buffoonery, malice, criminality, and so on and so on. So of course it is funny. Funny and deeply troubling. There is no black male life in 30 Rock between Harvard snob, celebrity lunatic, and criminal/homeless. That is the triangle, and within it, a void. Gay men don't fare much better.

Unless they are played by Will Arnett, who is always a delight here, reducing Alec Baldwin to gossiping like a schoolgirl. Even better are the schoolboy imagination games they play in confrontations, this time jockeying for metaphorical roles in "The Itsy Bitsy Spider".

Very funny episode, and not as egregiously hateful as the show can be (which is still pretty egregious). They seem to think the LA uprising is a good setting for a cutaway flashback, which it could have been if it meant more than a lame "out-of-towner-in-LA-doesn't-know-how-to-refer-to-the-freeway" gag (okay, still funny thanks to Fey's performance).

Beneath all this ranting about the hate coursing through 30 Rock's well-educated witty veins, I think the problem is I don't give a rat's ass anymore. Liz and Jack have a nice dynamic, and everything else is a vehicle for laughs and zaniness, which hit hard once but have a bitter aftertaste. Maybe I shouldn't speak since I haven't rewatched an episode in a year or so (not like my glorious love affair with the program in season 3).

But back to the hatestream. I'm mad at it, because it is messing up my default love of Tina Fey. And my type adoration of the pretty smart girl with glasses. The show avoids a lot of questioning on the front of its queasy regard of society beyond this rarified existence. Because we all know it is smarter and prettier than us and will embarass us if we dare question it.

I've granted the show enough satire licences. Truth is it hates (and not in that delightful Virginia way). I'm sure it hates you, too, and has a lot of cruel, brilliant gags to throw at yr lifestyle and demographic. And you should love it because it is presided over by a lovable mess of a clever lady.

Still, very funny.

Well that's Dallas

The Office

Yeah, I cried a little, so what? Yr heart's made of stone?

So the exit strategy is official for the moment. Michael Scott should be marrying Holly Flax and heading up to Colorado to help look after her parents. This was set up well. Michael has no idea how real humans talk, so he's going from notions he's picked up from his still juvenile media intake, and he makes an awkward call to Holly's father to request approval to propose to her.

Remember when Pam was the receptionist? When transferring calls, she would fake him out and let him work out his first greeting instinct, which would usually involve mean-spirited sarcasm and/or a bad impression. Of course, calling Holly's dad, he opens up by insulting her and threatening to fire her. Then he asks the real question. Then we learn he was talking to voicemail.

The fallout of this indelicate message, when Holly hears back from her parents, is her realization that her father is beginning to suffer from senility if not outright dementia. Even in a delightful episode such as this, good Office always leavens the merriment with something real.

Oh, yeah, the delight! The staff is holding a garage sale in the warehouse amidst the big proposal plotline. Oscar gets to pawn off all of his Will & Grace crap that was mistakedly given to him as gifts. Ryan relishes bragging about conning his mom into preparing foodstuffs that he has now bottled for sale. Also, he has appropriated the likenesses of Phyllis and Oscar in his packaging. I rilly love writer BJ Novak's portrayal of Ryan, quietly shifting through the seasons into several shades of douche (excepting his glorious star arc in season 4 climaxing in "Night Out").

Dwight masterfully scams all of his co-workers through trade. One weakness he notes is Ryan's misuse of co-worker's faces, and he uses this to trade Stanley's photo album to him. Dwight works his way from a thumbtack to a telescope, which Jim manages to trade from him for a bag of magic beans.

This season has been a bit off as the writers deal with Carrell's impending exit and try to shift to the rest of the cast, but it has been doing better lately. The highlight of the garage sale plotline was Darryl, Andy and Kevin staking money on Dallas (the TV show): The Board Game. Darryl and Andy as a team are a recent surprise. It turns out Darryl, following up on his occasional role with Michael, rilly takes to mentoring dim white men. Kevin slides in easily as he jammed with them on the novelty frog song earlier this year and he has a gambling problem. He gets to give good exasperated victim through much of the game before sneaking away with victory. "Well that's Dallas" becomes The Office's equivilant to "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown".

Incidentally, I hope Michael Scott burns something down before he leaves our lives. Preferably Utica. To the ground. We almost have this pleasure tonight before Pam intervenes. Michael's first proposal gesture involves sloppy gasoline writing very close to the office building and the automobiles of its workers. Pam is still very good at being a maternal firewall for Michael's most destructive instincts.

Speaking of that bitch, she's not as much of a bitch anymore. After her initial vulnerability and sadness, Pam had a period with Jim as the smuggest asshole couple in the paper company. Now that child rearing and grown up bills have humbled them, Pam has returned to lovability as the office manager, a title she fraudelently created for herself. She even organizes the office to help Michael craft a more sensible proposal plan.

This is where the (slight, I promise) crying comes. Michael takes Holly on a walk through the building, up and into the office. Along the way, he points out the moments he and we remember. Some that he didn't see (Toby's announcement that he's leaving for Costa Rica). Some that we didn't see (those two crazy kids have done some sweet and freaky things up and down the staircase). Some more memories as we stroll through The Office proper. Then they get to stroll past the cast fake proposing (I would also pay to see an Angela-Holly erotic encounter).

Yes, this is fan service, but it is fan service done well in comparison to "Threat Level Midnight" earlier this season. Finally, Michael does get to start his fire in a way. Several candles surround Holly's desk when he finally gets down on one knee and presents his awesome ring to her (he went by the "three years' salarie" rule). The sprinklers go on and our favorite lovers kiss soaked after a proposal spoken in some strange Yoda-Kermit-? language only they get.

This show loves showered proposals, because a loving couple making out in the rain (or the sprinklers) is beautiful. So beautiful that the supporting cast, acting as our surrogates, can't help but eavesdrop and barge in for hugs and high five/fist bump miscalculations. Then the news that Michael will be leaving shocks them. As it did us.