‘The Office’ works because it’s inane, and so real
By Jane Holahan
Updated Feb 19, 2007 15:40
But there is one show I just can’t miss.
“The Office,” starring the terrific Steve Carell, is the best sitcom on TV right now. I’d even say it might save the sitcom from a long and dreary death.
Based on the BBC version of “The Office,” which was created by and starred Ricky Gervais, the American “Office” actually reflects the reality of the work world where, let’s face it, we all spend way too much of our lives.
“The Office” doesn’t sugar-coat it: Eight hours a day, five days a week, about 48 or 50 weeks a year of clueless bosses, bizarre coworkers and insipid rules and regulations in a workplace where we get paid way too little to sit around in our little cubicles waiting for 5 p.m. to roll around.
(Needless to say, absolutely none of this is true where I work.)
Sitcoms rarely — heck, never — address the lives of quiet desperation that the work world is really about.
But “The Office” does and it manages to do it with laugh-out-loud humor, heart and a wisdom that few sitcoms possess.
Most of us work and work is a big part of our lives. Yet the sitcoms we watch either ignore work completely (Didn’t you wonder how the gang on “Friends” could hang out in that coffee place in the middle of the day all the time?) or turn it into some sort of comic fantasy world.
My favorite working girl is Carrie Bradshaw from “Sex and the City,” who is required to do nothing but write a fluffy column on her laptop once a week, never has to write tedious stories about some has-been celebrity who’s rude to her during the phone interview — um, sorry, got carried away there — who can still afford $400 shoes and an apartment in Manhattan.
“The Office” is about fire drills and office parties and the brown-noser who tells on you when you say something nasty about your boss.
(Of course, I never say anything nasty about my boss.)
It’s about how inane work can be, how hopeless working at the Scranton sales office of a midsize paper company, which is where the show takes place, can sometimes feel.
“The Office” actually reflects the real world.
People go to places like Chilis to eat in “The Office,” just like real people.
The cast is brilliant and, unlike most sitcoms, it’s not comprised totally of gorgeous, stick-thin model types and hunks. They are real-looking people. And, as eccentric as they are, anybody in any office will tell you they exist. (Except in my office, of course.)
Carell is wonderful as Michael, the boss. He’s got a good heart buried somewhere, but he is just plain dumb about the world around him. Totally clueless to his own insenstivity, he has no idea why he has to take sensitivity training.
There’s Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), who is really into “Star Wars” and is ready to believe any and all conspiracy theories; Angela (Angela Kinsey), who is ready to take offense at everything; Kevin (Brian Baumgartner), the balding, lumpy middle-age guy who’s still in a rock band; Ryan (B.J. Novak, who also writes for the show) is the temp who’s never going to leave; Creed (Creed Bratton) is a possible psychopath who had quite a life back in the 1960s and Kelly (Mindy Kaling) who desperately wants a boyfriend.
Not everyone is weird. Jim and Pam (John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer) are the normal employees we all like to think we are, giving each other looks of disbelief as their working world unfolds.
So check out “The Office.” You might see some people you recognize all too well. I know I did. (Uh, just kidding.)
——— Jane Holahan is a New Era staff writer. Her column appears every other Wednesday.
Talkback on LancasterOnline
Welcome to the new TalkBack on LancasterOnline. Please use the comment box below to share your opinion on this
article. If you would prefer to use the previous TalkBack forums instead, please use this link.
