An Office Apology
-
- May
- 18
Memo
To: Greg Daniels, Executive Producer, The Office
CC The Writing Staff
From: Brian Howard, Remote Access—The T.V. Blog
Date: May 18, 2007
Re: An apology
Hi Greg,
This is a little embarrassing. You don’t know me, but I follow your show pretty closely. Yeah, perhaps a little too closely. The reason I’m writing this memo is that I wanted to clear some things up.
I’m really sorry if this is weird for you to hear, but I need you to hear it:
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for what I said back on Sept. 21 about how that flashback scene between Jim and Pam looked badly edited, and that it was a total cop-out, plot-wise for Pam to go through with the wedding. That was wrong of me to say. I don’t know a thing about scene editing. And plot-wise, I guess it made sense.
And I’m sorry that a few weeks later, on Oct. 12, I said that you made Pam too sad and that I didn’t get the whole bird funeral thing. I got it. I was just lashing out.
A month later, when you killed off the Stamford branch, I might have called it contrived the way Jim convinced Karen to follow him back to Scranton. It wasn’t. It’s just that she wasn’t Pam and, well, I’m sorry I said that.
I was speaking in anger in January when I demanded to know whether Jan knew Michael had forwarded that e-mail with the picture of her half-naked on a Jamaican beach. I guess I was still pretty distraught about seeing Pam crying in the hallway, and I just wanted to know.
I must have been pretty angry still at Phyllis’s wedding, because I really tore into you then. To be honest, Greg, I’m still not sure I understand why Pam left with Roy that night. But I digress. Mea culpa on that one too.
After that, things started sailing along pretty smoothly for a while. We visited Ryan’s business school, had cocktails with the CFO, watched Michael wangle a raise and even got a lesson in suicide prevention.
But in the back of my mind I kept thinking, what’s taking so long? Could this many months have passed since that night in the parking lot when Jim spoke his mind and let the chips fall where they may? And these two still haven’t spoken? Just give them five minutes, I moaned.
Then I started formulating conspiracy theories about chasing ratings and bowing to network meddling. I questioned what had become of the brain trust that had given us Diversity Tomorrow (“Because today is almost over.�) and The Dundies? (“The Busiest Beaver Award goes to Phyllis Lapin!�)
By the time an obscene watermark accidentally shipped out, I feared I might never get the closure I sought. I wanted Jim and Pam together the way they were on Casino Night. I didn’t want it a year later. I didn’t want to wait to see Pam grow into her own. I just didn’t want to wait.
Boy, was I wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
You really redeemed yourself, starting with those scenes of Michael at the Steamtown Mall with the ladies, buying them lingerie and seeking their counsel Then you took us to the beach, showed us what it takes to be a leader (hot dogs and sumo suits!).
And you gave us Pam’s speech. A brilliant 27 seconds of brilliant silence on the deck of a booze cruise couldn’t match the brave emotion of 97 seconds on a sandy beach with hot feet.
And you weren’t done yet.
By the end, Pam was willing to let go, to wish Jim well and to face the future alone. With the time for speeches and for awkward silences past, you gave us, of all things, an interruption. And capped it with “It’s a date.�
So what can I say, but that I’m sorry I doubted you. I won’t be impatient any more, even if I think it’s about time Dwight and Angela stopped hiding or that Michael and Jan parted ways. I’ll even stop ranting about how much Creed creeps me out. (I probably won’t let up on Toby though. Grow a spine, man!)
It’s been a long and winding road to get where we are, and I said some things along the way that I didn’t mean. I’m sorry about that.
I just needed you to know. Once.
This entry was posted
on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 11:31 pm by Brian Howard.
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