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Gene Nash's 'Random Thoughts'
The random thoughts of a genius...er...gene nash.
The (American) Office
not ready for prime time
Published on March 26, 2005 By
Gene Nash
In
TV Shows
The Office
is NBC's second attempt -- and second failure -- in as many seasons to translate a popular British sitcom into a successful American franchise.
While ostensibly being a documentarian's look at a dysfunctional regional office for a paper- and office-supply company, its main focus is the even more dysfunctional boss Michael Scott, played by Steve Carell. It's as if someone took
Dilbert,
stripped all the laughs out of it, then gave the pointy haired boss his own spin-off series.
Perfect Casting?
The show
is
perfectly cast, I'll give it that much. Here's a program about a guy who thinks he's painfully funny but is only painful, played by a guy who thinks he is funny but isn't. The character's idea of being funny is telling a long-time employee she has been fired for stealing Post-It Notes, then laughing in her face once she starts crying.
Contrast the character's sense of humour with the actor's. On the premiere episode, boss Michael Scott tries to show how funny he is by grabbing the receptionist's name plate, placing it over his upper lip, then goose-stepping across the room, shouting German accented nonsense. Steve Carell's example of his own comedy, as evidenced on a recent
Conan O'Brien
appearance, is to stand ramrod straight, shouting German accented compliments.
Oh, stop. No. Please. It hurts too much.
Big difference, huh? The first supposedly shows how out of touch the character is, the second means to show how funny the actor is. I think they both proved the same thing, how hopelessly unfunny the actor, the character, and the show all are.
(Conan did laugh hysterically at Carell's antics, but it wasn't the laughter one gives when something is funny, it was the disbelieving, mocking laughter given after you've got the retarded kid to actually drop his pants and light his wee-wee on fire.)
It's Not Funny
The show relies too much on the comedy of discomfort. I have a theory that ultimately all laughter is nervous laughter, that every laugh can be traced back to a release of some type of stress.
The Office
tries to create that stress by making you as uncomfortable as possible -- again and again and again. It can be seen in one of the show's favorite tricks: the long awkward silence. Repeatedly everything comes to a complete stop while people stand around uncomfortably. Eventually, you are supposed to get so tense by this you start laughing.
It
can
be funny. Conan O'Brien pulls this occasionally when at the end of a bit he and band leader Max Weinberg stare at each other for a long time till the audience starts laughing, if only so
something
is happening. The difference is, with Conan O'Brien it is an occasional device for an occasional laugh. In
The Office
it is virtually the only trick in the bag. After a certain point, discomfort stops being funny and is just discomfort.
Too Well Made for It's Own Good
Which brings us to this two-trick pony's only other gag. The show's documentary style is well done. The style and performances are dead on to what a documentary would look and feel like. The actors even look self-consciously at the camera at times, and other times address the unseen crew. While impressive, it's not enough to hang a show on. We can only be impressed by its stylistic virtuosity for so long before we start lifting the bun and asking, "Where's the beef?"
Ultimately, its biggest drawback is the clash of its style and its technique. The realism is so real that the comedy of discomfort never reaches the comic. If you want to get to the ridiculous, you have to leave the sublime (which is why Woody Allen's films stopped being funny when they started becoming art). These characters are crazy and dysfunctional not in a burlesque, sitcom way but in the manner of, "Don't look at that dirty man mumbling to himself on the corner and maybe he will leave us alone."
You wouldn't want to spend time with these people in the real world, why would you want to spend your escapist, entertainment time with them? If NBC hopes this is appointment television, it's the type of appointment you go out of your way to miss -- like when something always comes up just before your root canal.
Maybe you could get away with Scott's bigotry/misogyny/passive-aggressive hatred and the staff's lunacy and dysfunction if they were funny. We laughed at Archie Bunker and spent years peeping into his living room, but
All In The Family
compensated by a) counterbalancing the extreme stereotypes,
giving idiots their comeuppance, and c) being very funny in the process.
The Office
's characters aren't stereotypes; they're too well drawn. They come off as too real, and that induces cringes and discomfort instead of jeers and fun. There is no counterbalance. The "antics" are what they are and nothing more, which, again, is too much for comfort like really being trapped in a cubicle for the insane. If you're looking for a comeuppance, forget it. This is no morality play, just a cinéma vérité look at the lifestyles of the middle-class and desperate.
Though well made, it fails even as Art because it reveals nothing to us about these sad people or ourselves, leaving it nothing more than a passable mimic. It's the difference between a zoo monkey imitating the passers-by and Marcel Marceau.
Escape The Rat Race
Steve Carell and his show are going nowhere. He's doomed to be a critic's darling, while taking the fall for this unfunny flop. Stylistically, the show's a success. As comedy, it's a bomb. Either way, it's not mainstream American fare. There will always be those who think mocking the retard is funny, or that torturing people is a sport, but they are in the minority. This show might have some limited, cult success on a cable outlet, but for a prime time network audience it is dead on arrival.
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