The Office (NBC) TV Show • Page 10

But wasn't the whole thing revolving around moving the family to NY? I remember Jim goes somewhere, or wants to, but it doesn't happen. I forgot the details.

 

i vaguely remember a brief storyline where Pam fucks around with her salary or something like that. essentially commits a major crime (and i love how the camera guys catch all these crimes and do nothing about it ) and, as i said at the time, "pulls a Creed". it seemed soooooo unlike the Pam character.

one of my biggest gripes of the later seasons was how bipolar at times the characters were written (another Pam example being the buying of a celebrity sex tape - on her work computer no less - in the season 4 opener)

 

She left Dunder Mifflin to join MSPC and did become a salesperson and did decently at it. Then when she came back, she still had her clients and eventually failed because she wasn't that great.

Pam went to school for a few months in New York, not go to a different city to live in and start a business and expect to move the whole family. Those are two completely different things.

 

Oh that's right, wasn't it a sports related thing? I completely forgot about that.

 

She went to school in NY for art

 

Jim and Daryl do something in season 9 in Philly with a sports company. not sure about earlier.

 

Season 2 was easily the best of the Office. Season 3 was fairly strong as well...though having the "jump the shark" moment at the end signaled the end.

After that, things went downhill and became more of a funny bit/scene show than funny episode. Like most tv shows, the US Office dragged on far longer than it should have.

 

What was the "jump the shark" moment to you? And only giving The Office of what sounds like 1.75 seasons' worth of "greatness" is so little. I would argue they had 4 golden seasons, 2-5.

 

i think he means Ryan getting promoted to Jan's job.

but that's... that's not a jump the shark moment. nothing in season 3 is a jump the shark moment.

 

I wouldn't call it a jump the shark moment, but I kinda feel the show started to drift once Sabre came into the picture

 

Agreed

 

Sabre is the exact turning point for the show getting weaker

It's never outright bad imo but I'm always less excited to keep watching after Sabre comes in my watchthroughs

 

Yeah. Jo Bennett and her big dogs always felt like a character who had suddenly dropped in from some other show in a wackier universe. And she brought Gabe with her. It's another reason why I am still defensive about the final season. It has its low points, yes, but Greg Daniels finally returning to salvage the wreckage was apparent from the get go. It feels as close to earlier seasons as it could probably get by then. It helps that David Wallace is back in charge of the company by that point as well.

 

Easy...Jim and Pam getting together. People were calling it the minute it happened at the end of season three and I didn't want to believe it either. But they were right.

Season 4 was a complete train wreck as well. After that, it was no longer must see viewing.

The Office was certainly still watchable akin to the current day Simpsons. But it was clear they would never recapture the greatness of seasons 2 & 3 and they never did.

 

S4 wasn't a "complete train wreck" at all.

 

do you really think they should have dragged out one of the most popular sitcom couples of their era getting together?

 

Season 4 was a trainwreck? Man, I completely disagree. Some classics are in there and "Money" is my favorite episode of the whole series. And I'd argue season 5 is on the same level as 2-4.

 

Season 4 was bizarre and not as good as 2/3... but it's far from a trainwreck. It's pretty enjoyable. 5 is also enjoyable and dare I say the show was at least moderately enjoyable until Michael left. I never actually finished from mid season 8 so I'm gonna try to stick with it on my rewatch now.

It's not the absence of my Michael that killed the show tho imo, I'd like to clarify that. I just feel like what was great about a lot of characters became lost in transition. I understand they needed to kinda change because development but the show gradually fall off. It was just with that and Michael leaving the show stopped becoming a "must-watch" thing for me

 

I had to look at what episodes were in season 4 and realized it was the shrunken season due to the writer's strike. They also had the bold move of the first four episodes stretched to hour-long ones. There are a few forgettable eps (Survivorman, Chair Model) but it had some great ones like Fun Run, Dinner Party, Local Ad, Job Fair and Goodbye, Toby.

 

The show started slipping when it stopped being two crazy/ridiculous people (Michael/Dwight) making the 10 other basically normal people in their office very uncomfortable. They turned Kevin, Andy, Stanley, Meredith, Kelly, and Ryan into one dimensional cartoon characters. They didn't mess up Phyllis, Oscar, Toby, Angela, or Daryl too much, although their personalities did evolve to more comical levels as the show progressed. Creed was the most consistent throughout, but was used best during seasons 2-4. Jim and Pam were incredibly likeable until they finally hooked up.

 

I think that's a huge part of the problem. Once the show became really big, a lot of the characters became fairly one-note caricatures of themselves. For some of them, that was ok - I never really minded Kelly and Meredith being one-dimensional because they were very much side characters. Same with Creed. It's when someone like Kevin, who started off as quite a deadpan, slow-talking accountant but with a bit of depth, became more and more like a caricature over the top, mentally-challenged, 'special' person, that the show began to lose a lot of its brilliance.

 

It's interesting reading everyone's opinion on when this show began its fall from grace. It is one of my top 5 favorite shows of all time and I don't think I realized while binge watching that the show was losing its grip until season 8 to be honest. However, in re-watching it you do see it. For me, the Jim and Pam wedding marked the beginning of the end. After that there are moments but nothing like the first 5 seasons

 

I still don't see any drop off in quality until Michael leaves.

 

Watched "Frame Toby" last night. Great episode, lots of memorable moments

 

Lol I think Michael's intense dislike of Toby is my favorite thing about this show.