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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

The Office rocks

Brigade du jour

21:40 / 31.01.03

Well okay, probably been done before, if so then please moderators delete this thread and let me know where the old one is, I don't really have time to trawl through the whole lot.

I like The Office because it's not just a sitcom. Sometimes it's just not a sitcom. It's a drama, and a very believable one too. I think it's the best acted programme on telly, and when Brent was begging to keep his job I actually cried. And this guy's supposed to be the unsympathetic character.

I was heartbroken when Tim asked Dawn out and got knocked back even though everyone in the universe knows they're married forever on the astral plane.

I think it's just fucking brilliant, basically. But I'll save other stuff later in case anyone else likes (or dislikes) the show and wants to comment (hint hint heh heh!).

Peace!

19:38 / 01.02.03

I'm with you on this one FHTB, but I really don't think Brent is such an unsympathetic character. He just wants to be loved doesn't he? I was surprised, for instance, to see he featured on Channel 4's Top Ten TV Bastards. He's not a bastard is he? He's just clueless, no?

Brigade du jour

20:20 / 01.02.03

Oh absolutely, he does actually mean well, he's just hamstrung by a severe shortfall in the social skills department. Dude.

Put it this way, I can see the good in him, but I wouldn't want to talk to him in the pub for very long.

Brigade du jour

20:20 / 01.02.03

Btw, I think I have a crush on Dawn. Anybody with me?

23:09 / 01.02.03

Is this a show you can get only in the UK? Cause I've never heard of it.

Brigade du jour

23:17 / 01.02.03

Oh it's great. Let me explain. It's a spoof on these reality-TV docu-soap things you get everywhere these days. But obviously, it's all fake and played as a sitcom. Except it has this wonderful quality whereby its very authenticity makes it almost too close to the bone to actually be funny a lot of the time. More often it's actually quite bathetic.

Anyone who works or has worked in an office environment will latch on to at least some of what the programme is all about. It has a lot of specifically English cultural references, but not so many that it can't be exported, although I don't think it has been yet.

04:51 / 02.02.03

They've started airing it on BBCAmerica - I think it's on Thursdays at 10:20? The concept is also being remade for US distribution.

11:36 / 02.02.03

The Office is possibly the funniest thing EVER. I absolutely love it. The first time I watched it I was screaming "that's what it's like"- the whole afwulness and mundaneness of life spent standing around a photocopier. Sheer genius....

I have to find a copy of the one from the final series where it's Comic Relief day, and Dave Brent does his "special dance". Current paramour has a low embarassment threhold with things like that. I plan to restrain her and pin her eyes open a la Clockwork Orange and see if the subsuquent embarassment/horror requires hospital treatment.

For all you US peeps, I read somewhere that there are plans afoot for a US version - it'll be interesting to see if they can keep the same deadpan tone (think Spinal Tap) or if they cock it up completely.

And hmmm, Dawn is certainly "crushable" but she pissed me off to much by staying with the cretin - I'm too angry with her to fancy her anymore "Go with Tim, Dawn! Just say YES!!"

14:19 / 02.02.03

Being from Bolton makes me biased but I have to say I prefer Peter Kays 'Phoenix Nights' but I also love the office.

Why would Dawn want to be with a complete loser like Tim? He is more of a wánker than Brent or Gareth. Both Brent and Gareth don't know what how sad they are or what sad lives they have. Gareth does know how sad his life/job is and could do something about it but fails everytime he gets chance.

14:57 / 02.02.03

Tim does seem to be rather pathetic doesn't he, but still the episode with the quiz in did actually make me cry at the end because you (by which I mean me) really have to feel sorry for the poor guy stuck in a job he hates, seemingly paralysed and miserable.

20:10 / 02.02.03

They just started airing this on BBCAmerica two weeks ago, coincidentally after my having seen it for the first time over Christmas on a holiday in England. I am fucking ecstatic. I can't relate to love-and-relationship comedy, so most comedies bore me stupid, but this - man, I've worked with people like this! I can totally relate to the awkward post-joke silences, the sketchy boss who is humored by his coworkers, the attempts to out-comedy each other with jokes and quotes. Argh, it's my old workplace, completely.

Kind of clunky having to translate Brit references for my friends who also watch the show, though. "Eastenders is ..." "It's a play on 'Quality Street', which is ..." etc.

Brigade du jour

20:35 / 02.02.03

That must be pretty hard work dude. Maybe a British English glossary is what you need. Except it probably won't have an entry for things like 'Rainbow' and Ali G.

Tim is a bit of a loser, but the stuck in a job he hates bit - well I know exactly how he feels. In fact, forgive the slight digression, but when I saw American Beauty I was in a job I hated but was frankly too scared to leave because I needed the money bad. My favourite bit in the film is Kevin Spacey appearing from behind a frosted glass office window, a box of personals items perched on his shoulder, punching the air with a joyous 'YES!' I cried happy empathic tears.

It's a similar thing with Tim, identification thing you know?

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

15:54 / 10.10.03

Juuuuuust picked up the DVD today and it has a lengthy glossary which ought to take care of any localization problems. It's also got a booklet cover that's a David Brent penned office newsletter. Fucking hilarious, no surprise. There's a piece on "Amateur DJ Keith Bishop (Accounts Department). After playing up his "Big Time" and "Massive" status, and pointing out his weight ("19 stone (hence the jokes)") it ends with this brilliant chestnut:

[His weight] doesn't get in the way of his mixing. But just don't get stuck behind him if there is a fire evacuation! (Heaven forbid, fire is no laughing matter.)

So. All you 'mericans. Get buying.

23:38 / 10.10.03

I just got the DVD in the mail! Yahhhhh! :: girly shriek ::

Also, BUMP for BBC America airing the second season starting on Sunday. :: more shrieking ::

11:58 / 11.10.03

Gareth does know how sad his life/job is and could do something about it but fails everytime he gets chance.

By which I assume you mean Tim...

This is the brilliance of The Office. It's not black and white. Every character is at least partly likeable, but they are all very frustrating for different reasons. Take Gareth and Tim. At first, you take them at face value and side with Tim, because Gareth seems to have a ridiculous lack of self-awareness, where Tim seems fairly on the ball.

But after a while, you start to think, but hey - Gareth's got nothing to hide! It's sad that he thinks he's this tough military guy when he's not, and it's sad that he thinks his job is important when it isn't. But at least he's committed. He's chosen who he wants to be and how he wants to live his life, and he's sticking to it. What's more, he has more depth than you first realise. When he thinks Brent is leaving and "the whole team is on the scrapheap", he's devastated!

Tim, on the other hand, isn't true to himself. He is a lot smarter than Gareth, and has the potential to achieve a lot more. But he refuses to do so. Remember his little speech about rolling the dice? Basically, Tim says, don't take risks in life because you might end up worse off. But even when he has opportunities handed to him on a plate, like when Neil offers him David's job, he throws it away without hesitation. Why? Not because he has anything better lined up, but because he feels that doing nothing is better than doing the wrong thing.

Dawn, like Tim, is also not true to herself. They're made for each other!

And Brent IS an unsympathetic character. He just wants to be loved? Well Gareth loves him, and what does he get for it?

12:00 / 11.10.03

These characters have burrowed deep under my skin...

15:42 / 11.10.03

Ah, The Office. A one-note joke that got tired very quickly indeed and didn't do a huge amount more than revel in its own sense of smug self-satisfaction. Look at us, we're so fucking pathetic, just like you. "Wow, it's so real. I mean, I can recognise bits of myself in each of the characters." Really, you can? And you still feel the need to wake up each day?

And, of course, the comic genius that is Ricky Gervais. No, really. Those TV awards acceptance speeches he's done - the highlight of his career since even he realised that you can sail along for only so long on the one idea (wait, sorry, that's unkind of me, they killed it off because stopping at two series = guarantee of future recognition of show as a classic) - have been so very funny. Hi, I'm Ricky Gervais. I'm not at all like David Brent. Oh, wait, yes I am! Ha ha ha! Did you see what I did there? Ha!

Less searchable M0rd4nt

16:59 / 11.10.03

Oi! I liked The Office. I used to work with wankers just like those and I want to see them pilloried on telly. It makes me feel better. It was hideously accurate and remined me very forcibly of just why I'd rather sweep streets than be around people like that.

Brigade du jour

18:10 / 29.12.03

Just watched the last two episodes ever (so they say).

Fucking cool! And you know what? For all The Office's clever-clever, self-referential metatelevision and updated cultural details ("Bo Selecta!" etc.) it remains just a simple comedy-drama, made (IMHO) far more deeply effective than most others by its verisimilitude. Here's some evidence of my take on it:

S P O I L E R S !!!

You know, Dawn ran all the way back from god knows where just to be with Tim (who is, as has been argued here, a bit of a loser himself).

Brent told Chris the rep, without irony, to fuck off.

Gareth was forced to confront his own latent homosexuality, albeit only via a jokey kiss on the cheek.

Brent even got himself a nice little girlfriend, although I didn't really buy that, to be honest.

I think this is why the series has been so phenomenally successful. It satisfies people who watch television in the frustratingly vain hope that they might happen across something new and just a bit different.

Yet at the same time it pleases the more traditional viewers who just want a happy ending. Or a sad ending. Or any resolution at all. Or just a beginning, middle and end.

But, and this is my point I think, what's actually kept me watching the programme religiously for two years is the same thing that keeps me watching other programmes and films that I truly love (as opposed to appreciate or admire). I WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO THE CHARACTERS. I really do think that's what it all comes down to.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

18:41 / 29.12.03

100%, Mr. Living-in-the-UK/lucky-bastard.

That's why I just love the shit out of The Office. Not for the conceit, but for the honest story it tells. The reason it's such a phenomenon, is because everyone has either seen or been a David Brent, a Tim, a Gareth, a Dawn, a Finch at some point in their lives, most likely most if not all of them.

But, in life, you rarely get any resolution. That's what entertainment is for.

Robert McKee, I am thy vessel.

That's what mystifies me so much about claims that this is a "one-note joke" of a show. The docudrama aspect of it is, yes, completely played. So, for that matter, is the concept of the television show. What's truly original about this show is its insight. I keep thinking about that brief sequence during the Red Nose Day episode, when the office en masse attacks some poor shlub and yanks his pants off. Vicious approximation of daily life in an office (or any social situation for that matter).

Cut to Tim's reaction shot.

Print.

21:10 / 29.12.03

S
p
o
i
l
e
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s

Ah... "Chris, Fuck off!" I cheered for Brent...
tops the Dawn/Tim bit any time.

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:34 / 29.12.03

I have mixed feelings about the Christmas specials. It was good to get some closure, and the final resolution of the Tim/Dawn storyline was great, but it seemed to humanise David Brent too much at the death. Ultimately, Brent doesn't *deserve* happiness...

22:38 / 29.12.03

I love the office. I saw the first of the last two episodes, but was unable to get to a TV in time to see the second. My shitbastard family neglected to record it. If there is avyone in barbeland who has it (near Brighton, England preferably, please feel free to contact me via PM.

Please.
I know nothing and I need closure.

12:02 / 30.12.03

Doesn't he, Haus? Doesn't he?

SPOILERS, DICKWEED

He starts impersonating Frank Spencer instead of just insulting the woman with the broken camera at the end, end everyone finds it funny. I just thought it meant that he had, someone, learnt people through his paper-thin, possibly entirely-in-his-own-mind, girlfriend.

Did ayone else notice the lack of photocopiers, and miss them? And, while I may be putting words in his mouth, I think Randy may have been talking about Brent; certainly "The Office", "Ricky Gervais" and "David Brent" have actually become insanely ungrammatical, and deeply annoying synonyms. I'm curious as to what the remake will be like, having heard in some docu. sometime that they were side-lining Brent and pushing Tim and Dawn to the fore. Can anyone really see Tim and Dawn holding 26 episodes?

Matthew Fluxington

15:06 / 30.12.03

There's no reason to make an American Office, and I'm sad that Gervais and Merchent are even going to waste their time trying. I don't think the characters could be translated into American circumstances, or the format of 20+ episodes. It won't work. And we don't need it - we've got our own brilliant quasi-documentary comedy called Arrested Development, which likewise could never be adequetely translated into a British version. In a lot of ways, Arrested Development is superior to The Office, actually.

03:10 / 03.01.04

I also think Brent possible became a little too humanised by something as potentially-transient as the Regard Of A Good Woman, but I loved the Christmas episodes, particularly the Tim/Dawn stuff. Watched the whole thing twice over, and wept both times. Who'd have thought Keith would prove such an able DJ?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:39 / 03.01.04

Still only seen the first series (which was genius), but I'm just glad to see Gervais has himself a decent career now. Seriously.

When he was just the guy who turned up on Claire Sturges' show who was just fucking funny for an hour, and then lost his XFM job when Capital bought 'em cos he'd made too many anti-Capital jokes (I particularly liked his idea for a gameshow "Foxy Boxing", in which every week Dr Fox would get the shit kicked out of him by a random listener), I prayed for him to be recognised as GENUINELY FUCKING FUNNY.

And I'm asssuming Steve Marchant was "Steve" that used to turn up with him to bother Ms Sturges. Power to both their elbows. (Actually, I'm feeling magnanimous... power to all four elbows. And she was a pretty decent DJ too... kind of like Janice Long used to be.)

14:44 / 20.06.04

I just finished watching series two yesterday, and I completely loved the whole thing. I really liked the first series, but it didn't completely click for me until the last episode, when Brent basically sells out his people, and then gets screwed over somehow, and tries to make it like he decided to stay, wasn't forced to.

Then, series two took everything up a notch. Series one was a comedy, with some dramatic parts, but two was a perfect fusion of the two, with most of the humor coming out of these painfully awkward situations. By episode four, when Brent just bombed at the motivational speaking, I was barely laughing anymore, and was really feeling sorry for him. Brent's descent over the course of the season was just perfect. The first series establishes David's world, and all his rhetoric about being the best boss, and then to see this all destroyed by Neil's arrival was the stuff of great drama.

As people said before, the last scene, with Brent begging for his job, was just brutal. That, combined with the scene where he tells the motivational speaking team to fuck off, just made a brutal finale. This guy's entire world had been destroyed, it was really astonishing to see a comedy go to such real emotional depths.

But, all the drama aside, it was probably the funniest show I've ever seen, and none of the laughs were cheap. They all came out of the characters, and played a point in the narrative. It was almost like a really good musical, in that rather having the laughs support a weak plot, the laughs and the plot were perfectly integrated, so that a joke not only made you laugh, it made you really understand the characters. That's why, particularly at the end, stuff like Brent's dance, which would have been hilarious earlier, is now just painful to watch, because we identify with the character so much.

One thing I'm wondering, what's the deal with Chris Finch? They made such a big deal out of him, yet he only appears on a couple of episodes. Is he a big British comic personality, or is it just that they wanted to make a character who was sort of legendary, and larger than life?

Brigade du jour

20:12 / 20.06.04

I think the latter. The actor who plays Finchy is not, to my knowledge, a huge comedy star. He's done some other stuff in other TV shows I believe, but all supporting roles. Apologies to him and his agent and family and friends if I'm wrong!

I suspect Finchy as a character is designed to humanise Brent by being even more obnoxious, as if to say "Look, here's a git. But look over here, this guy's a cunt!"

20:18 / 20.06.04

The resolution with Tim and Dawn was entirely necessary I think. It would have been cruel to the viewer not to. And with Lee acting like more of a wanker every episode, it was inevitable really. I really felt for Tim though, trying to hold it together acting like a friend, thinking she was going away again. The business with Brent was no big deal. He didn't become any less of a twat, just happened to meet someone who was big enough to accept him for who he was. If that was to continue, he's lucky. But as it's been said already, he doesn't deserve any of it, because he hasn't learnt a goddamn thing from the whole situation.

I liked Gareth as the boss, and his affected way of greeting Dawn when she arrived at the Office. "Dawn Tinsley, as I live and breathe..." Ha ha what a mupppet.

21:15 / 21.12.04

saw this on an entertainment site, wow, he really turned down some big shit....I'm surprised he turned down the Shakespeare film with Pacino, that's an art-house film...

>> Gervais: "I've Turned Down Fame and Fortune"

>> Ricky Gervais has turned down $18 million in earnings from a host of Hollywood roles, because he isn't motivated by money. The British comedian, who shot to fame after writing and starring in TV hit The Office, insists he is embarrassed by the amount of cash offered to him - and even rejected "so much money it was shocking" from the BBC to make another series of the spoof documentary. Among the roles Gervais has turned down are English butler Higgins in George Clooney's remake of 80s TV program Magnum PI, a part alongside Al Pacino in The Merchant Of Venice, a role in the upcoming Pirates Of The Caribbean sequel, and a cameo in TV drama 24. Gervais, 43, says, "The money being offered was criminal. But I am not interested in money. I'm interested in doing something I am proud of. Money gives me the creeps. I hate it when people print how much I'm getting paid. It's not guilt. It's embarrassing enough being an actor for a living - it's a worthless, pointless job. But when people know you earn a thousand times what a nurse earns it's f**king embarrassing. I am not proud of my earnings. I'm proud of my work. I've probably turned down £10 million."

09:51 / 23.12.04

Gervais to write an episode of The Simpsons

01:24 / 20.09.06

Sorry to dig up this old thread, but this is my first time viewing the original Office (saw a couple of episodes of the american one). I just saw the charity episode where David does his... dance. Quick question: does David achieve an erection while dancing? (or is Gervais just well... my God, I can't believe I'm asking this question. I can't believe I've noticed what I just saw).

Brigade du jour

14:33 / 20.09.06

Damn, I'm so getting the DVD now!

That ... didn't come out right.

15:36 / 20.09.06

I had seen this episode earlier, but reseeing (just for the scene where David is made redundant) I noticed IT. The friend who borrowed me the dvd set said it was the entire point of the scene (if it was, people's reaction are way funnier).