What did The Office mean to you?

Seriously?

 

Seriously.

 

Mike Schur and Greg Daniels left The Office and created Parks and Rec, a similar but superior (at this point) show. They seemed to have learned from some of the mistakes of The Office in later seasons. I think Parks and Rec kind of combines the best aspects of both The Office and another Daniels show, The Simpsons.

It will be interesting to see if Parks and Rec keeps the quality level high if it goes a few more seasons, or if it will struggle down the stretch like The Office did.

 

Thanks, Jake. That wasn't so tough

 

I either never knew that or forgot that I did.
Thanks.

 

My take on the show as a whole is probably not popular: Parks & Recreation dimmed the star that was The Office.

We saw the concept done better, more intelligently and with more heart. I loved the first five years of The Office, but Parks & Rec suddenly made The Office — even at its best — look flawed. The characters were too cartoonish, Michael Scott and Andy Bernard were both unlikable when the show thought the viewers were rooting for them. The Office tried to make social commentary about corporations in a larger sense in the later seasons and fell flat. The show was better when it focused on the small daily injustices and annoyances of an office.

Parks & Rec makes a comment on American government at every level in a really smart way. And it's a funnier show.

I still love the early seasons of The Office, but it is no longer one of my favorite shows of all time.

Jim and Pam going to Michael's and Jan's condo in The Dinner Party is my favorite episode.

Favorite moment? From that episode when Michael Scott shows Jim and Pam around the condo and the look in his eyes when he shows them his 20-inch, $200 plasma screen television.

 

As an employment lawyer who does sexual harassment trainings, it was great.

I thought that the show went off the rails after season 3 and I only sporadically watched thereafter. It's hard to maintain work comedies and the show did not age well.

And not to be a Eurosnob, but the UK version was such a groundbreaking show. It was more about sadness and the forced attachment of spending so much of your lives with random people. The US show was obviously far broader and really was more about pity for Michael Scott.

 

I think my most frustrating experience as a television consumer was reading people, here and otherwise, defend the wedding line dance.

 

You must've loved every time Toby Flenderson entered the conference room.

And the wedding dance was the kind of thing that should've been included as a DVD extra, not be a part of that otherwise stellar episode. (I'm still afraid that a hotel will take my shoes and destroy them, a la Kevin.)

 

Are you trying to bait Double Down into returning?

 

Yes. But Todd Packer and Michael gave me the most material.

 

Was Arrested Development the first comedy done from the camera perspective of a second person, or you are in the room with the characters? The Office was the second, right? Every comedy before AD was shot from a third person outsider point of view, right?

I just think the second person camera angles and story telling allows for much more freedom telling jokes and the setup of jokes. The intros of Kevin caring for the turtle or Hard Core Parcore (however it is spelled) can be done without any need for plot setup or needed to be built into the plot line because of the format used.

So The Office was sort of revolutionary, but Arrested Development was the one that really broke ground.

Maybe I am not explaining that correctly.