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March 28, 2024, 10:02:58 PM

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Been bingeing the American Office

Started by Cuellar, October 16, 2019, 07:26:34 PM

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SavageHedgehog

Quote from: Old Gold Tooth on October 18, 2019, 10:20:34 AM
For me the show never bounced back from Pam giving up on art school because it was too difficult.

When I first watched it I thought it was going to be an interesting character arc about holding yourself back and exploring the strain that would be put on her and Jim, because she knew she had given up on her dream, but nope, she loved art so much it defined her entire character but then hated it and ran back to Jim and her boring office job because it was too difficult. Also the show frames this as a positive move. Really weird.

I haven't seen these episodes in quite a while*, but actually having recently gone into a similar situation, longing for your office job like this is more relatable than you might think.

*Might be just as well.

/SelfImportantNewPage

Armin Meiwes

I really like The Office (US) and I'm not generally a fan of MoR american comedy (Parks & Rec, It's Only Sunny, Community, and all that shite) as I am operating on a much higher level of humour, so it can't be that bad.

Armin Meiwes

Yeah SSN 6 is where the rot starts to set in and it's completely unwatchable by San 8.

Quote from: SavageHedgehog on November 05, 2019, 12:26:45 PM
I haven't seen these episodes in quite a while*, but actually having recently gone into a similar situation, longing for your office job like this is more relatable than you might think.

*Might be just as well.

/SelfImportantNewPage

Yeah I can understand that. Must admit I have not rewatched in a while either. At the time I watched it seemed strange of the show to frame it as a victory when it seemed like we were watching a big part of Pam die.

Clownbaby

I have a funny relationship with The Office US where sometimes I intensely enjoy it and sometimes I intensely hate it. I've seen the biggest criticism of it being it having too many characters be just as odd as Michael Scott but honestly I find the ordinary people the most smug and irritating . Jim and Pam. I like the completely weird cunts: Dwight, Creed, Meredith, Robert California.  Andy and  Erin strangely repulse me and I can't decide whether it's the actors or the characters. I mean, Ed Helms n Ellie Kemper do a good job but i just want them to piss off whenever they're onscreen and there's so many ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON OFF relationships which I just generally can't be fucked with in comedy

Chollis

Yeah I'm watching it again after being inspired by this thread, up to S4 and it's been pretty good, I just really dislike Jim and Pam.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: ajsmith2 on October 17, 2019, 03:27:28 PM
Can't agree about Parks and Rec. Imo it's much more cloyingly cutesy that the US Office. It also must be the most quickly dated comedy TV show of all time, given it aired in a hermetically sealed smug liberal temporal bubble exactly between Obama's inauguration and Trump announcing he was running. And also since two of it's stars were Me Tooed.
Well said, and agreed.

Famous Mortimer

I really disliked Stanley. He feels like a one-episode character who kept coming back, but never changed or did anything even remotely funny. Sort of the same with Meredith, really. There were a few too many characters who just deflated every scene they were in and added nothing.

Clownbaby

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on November 06, 2019, 07:46:08 PM
I really disliked Stanley. He feels like a one-episode character who kept coming back, but never changed or did anything even remotely funny. Sort of the same with Meredith, really. There were a few too many characters who just deflated every scene they were in and added nothing.

Christ, I forgot about Stanley . On paper he seems like the kind of character I would enjoy but something about him just depressed me

mojo filters

Stanley has some great funny lines, and his affectation and delivery is perfect! My favourite was:

It's like I used to tell my wife. "I do not apologize unless I think I'm wrong, and if you don't like it, you can leave." And I say the same thing to my current wife, and I'll say it to my next one, too.

Clownbaby

I get aggressively fatigued by long running comedy series that feel they have to pull on your heart strings as much as/more than makng you laugh. My favourite comedies , my loves, either drop in some heart tugs sparingly or dispense with them entirely, like Always Sunny. Not a single wholesome person in that show and yet I somehow feel much more affection for them cunts than I do for the Office US lot. I loved Community but the indulgent existential Harmon-ness had it pure dragging its feet by season 5

Chollis

Kevin is even worse than Stanley. Absolute shit-tier "funny" sitcom character. Nobody like that exists, he's so written. And I hate the way he talks.

Clownbaby

Quote from: Chollis on November 06, 2019, 08:01:03 PM
Kevin is even worse than Stanley. Absolute shit-tier "funny" sitcom character. Nobody like that exists, he's so written. And I hate the way he talks.

Aye for me he's another one who is acted well but very ''character''. I find this with Brooklyn Nine Nine as well, they're all written as fuck. And they all say things in a very similar way so it feels like any character could be saying any one line

dissolute ocelot

Angela is by far the best and most complex character, although in later series things went meh. And while Dwight on paper should be awful, there is something strangely endearing about Rainn Wilson that stops him from being the hatemonkey guy in your workplace who gets locked in a portaloo and accidentally pushed off a cliff within a week. Creed just about worked because the producers were sensible enough to use him in small doses. Although I believe there was a web spin-off or something.

dissolute ocelot

Although I do think Kelly (Mindy Kaling) was the only character who seemed anything like an actual human being.

ajsmith2

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on November 06, 2019, 07:37:14 PM
Well said, and agreed.

Thanks, although I have to admit I nicked the observation about it airing exactly within the Obama comfort zone off of someone else on Twitter.

ajsmith2

Ryan Howard is possibly my favourite character, he has such a unique progression the way he evolves from this secondary 'look at the camera in despair' audience identification figure into a firstly a bearded supervillian, and then into this existentially detached hipster. Some of his best moments come from the 3rd of these personas, like 'What not try stop being Jim for a day?', 'Aw Stanley, you'll live forever' and 'Just use one of those'. (all horribly misquoted from memory, sorry) It's another reason why the 9th season is my least favourite as it's the only one without him and Kelly. I agree that despite (or maybe because of?) the shallowness of those characters there's something that seems more real about them than a lot of the others. I have great affection for them both.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on November 06, 2019, 07:46:08 PM
I really disliked Stanley. He feels like a one-episode character who kept coming back, but never changed or did anything even remotely funny. Sort of the same with Meredith, really. There were a few too many characters who just deflated every scene they were in and added nothing.

Stanley and Meredith are emblematic of a phenomenon unique to American Situation Comedies, that is to say the ratctheting up and intensifying of the foibles of comedy characters with each passing season, to the point that someone who may have been ,say, mildly gormless at the start of the first season becomes monumentally thick to the point of actually being mentally retarded by the final one. Both Stanley and Meredith were normal, average, unremarkable people at the start of Se01 of the office, but by Se09 , Stanley was this lumbering, massively stupid, near brain-damaged creature, and Meredith was...well....a massive shameless slapper and heavy drinker. I think Oscar stayed fairly consistent as a character, to be fair.
It happens to a lot of long-running American Situation Comedies. I think "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" may well be intentionally parodying this phenomena,with the acceleration of depravity that's been put upon to their characters , with it becoming apparent that it is highly likely that the initially slightly creepy Dennis is more than likely a serial killer, and Charlie may well be a specific satirical depiction of initially dozy character regressing to full-blown severly mentally disadvantaged, if not mentally ill ,type.

dr_christian_troy

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on November 07, 2019, 01:09:13 PM
Both Stanley and Meredith were normal, average, unremarkable people at the start of Se01 of the office, but by Se09 , Stanley was this lumbering, massively stupid, near brain-damaged creature, and Meredith was...well....a massive shameless slapper and heavy drinker. I think Oscar stayed fairly consistent as a character, to be fair.

Do you mean Kevin?

Lisa Jesusandmarychain


Bronzy

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on November 07, 2019, 01:09:13 PM
Stanley and Meredith are emblematic of a phenomenon unique to American Situation Comedies, that is to say the ratctheting up and intensifying of the foibles of comedy characters with each passing season, to the point that someone who may have been ,say, mildly gormless at the start of the first season becomes monumentally thick to the point of actually being mentally retarded by the final one. Both Stanley and Meredith were normal, average, unremarkable people at the start of Se01 of the office, but by Se09 , Stanley was this lumbering, massively stupid, near brain-damaged creature, and Meredith was...well....a massive shameless slapper and heavy drinker. I think Oscar stayed fairly consistent as a character, to be fair.
It happens to a lot of long-running American Situation Comedies. I think "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" may well be intentionally parodying this phenomena,with the acceleration of depravity that's been put upon to their characters , with it becoming apparent that it is highly likely that the initially slightly creepy Dennis is more than likely a serial killer, and Charlie may well be a specific satirical depiction of initially dozy character regressing to full-blown severly mentally disadvantaged, if not mentally ill ,type.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Flanderization

Cuellar

Yeah, Kevin is shite. I hate 'stupid' characters in sticoms anyway. 'Durrr what this do boss' groan. Dougal in Father Ted might be an exception, but even he gets on my tits quite a bit.

Cuellar

Right got about 16(!) episodes into the final series then skipped to the end.

Shiiiiiit ending, shit programme. SHIT

Cuellar


lankyguy95

You seem to be triumphant but you have watched almost nine full seasons of a show you think is shit.

chveik

that's quite the achievement. what now, Park and Recs? it's even worse for the twee stuff

Cuellar

I'm not going anywhere near that. I've seen the memes, the gifs, I get the picture.

kitsofan34

Just finished watching all four hundred and eighty episodes of Gunsmoke.

....meh, take it or leave it.

Clownbaby

Quote from: Cuellar on November 08, 2019, 10:46:58 PM
I'm not going anywhere near that. I've seen the memes, the gifs, I get the picture.

Get watching Parks and Rec ya fanny and suffer like I did

I like Amy Poehler, but my god the oddly unplaceable smugness radiating off that show, I still don't really know what it is about it that irritates me. What bothers me about 50% of The Office US bothers me about all of Parks and Rec. Ron Swanson is alright by me. Everyone else can kind of piss off. Especially Aziz Ansari's character. Every character is written as finding him ''creepy and annoying but loveable'' as that's the kind of character they want the viewer to see but where the fuck is the loveability, I don't think Aziz is capable of emoting in that way full stop

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: ajsmith2 on October 17, 2019, 03:27:28 PM
If a Will Ferrell scene is your highlight of the US Office then it definitely isn't for you. No knock on him at all, but it wasn't a good fit for either party.

Can't agree about Parks and Rec. Imo it's much more cloyingly cutesy that the US Office. It also must be the most quickly dated comedy TV show of all time, given it aired in a hermetically sealed smug liberal temporal bubble exactly between Obama's inauguration and Trump announcing he was running. And also since two of it's stars were Me Tooed.

I know Aziz was Metooed, but who was the other one? (Unless you mean Louis CK, who I didn't really count as he was only a minor recurring guest role).