Believe it or not, I haven’t watched a single rerun of The Office this summer.I mean, I’ve popped in my Season 2 DVDs while on the treadmill, but I haven’t tuned into NBC on a Thursday night since the Season 3 finale. But I’m going to watch tonight, and I’m inviting you to join me.

I’ll be live-blogging “Business School”, one of my favorite episodes from the past season.

Check out my recap from its initial February airing here to brush up if you like.

Here’s the official summary from NBC…

Ryan invites Michael to be a guest speaker at his business school. Meanwhile, Dwight battles a bat that gets loose in the office while Pam invites co-workers to her first art show.

• Pam in her artsy ponytail and purple sweater get-up


• Jim as a vampire


• Dwight as a vampire slayer


• Joss Whedon, who directed Buffy the Vampire Slayer, directing


• “Poop is raining from the ceilings,” says Angela. “Poop.”


• Dwight “bagging” Meredith


• Oscar being brutally honest, but Michael saving the day


• Ryan getting put in his place


• Dwight shooting his neighbor’s dog

9:07 p.m. - I’m getting off to a late start because of a baby who had a hard time getting to sleep and staying there. But thanks to the wonders of DVR, I’ll be caught up in no time. Promise!

9:10 p.m. - Nice cold open! Professor Emeritus Scott does not care that Kevin almost died. And Ryan does not care that his boss is an oaf. A boost in your letter grade is worth being humiliated in front of your class. Michael’s story about Mr. Handel ruining eighth grade still creeps me out.

9:15 p.m. – Dwight is an idiot, even if he wouldn’t do what an idiot would do. Inspiring advice.

Does Michael think he’s speaking at commencement? I think this is the height of Ryan’s frustration with Michael.

Eeeewww. Roy and Pam. It was just so unreal the first time. Jenna’s giving a nice performance, though. John Krasinkski is giving a good performance of Jim giving a bad performance. And Kelly Kapor is giving a good peformance of someone not interested in an art show.

9:18 p.m. – Dwight spies guano and all heck breaks loose. Stellar ensemble performance. Stanley bugs out, Angela cowers, Pam freaks and Dwight is in charge. Kind of.

At business school, things are going even worse as Ryan starts off by hanging Michael out to dry.

Commercial break.

You know, every nuance of Jenna Fischer’s acting was stellar this season. She really has earned that Emmy she’s up for.

9:19 p.m. – I’m only eight minutes behind!

9:21 p.m. – Krasinski’s role was to kind of mope through this season, but the vampire joke shows he’s still got that old charm and prankability.

Michael is in rare form in front of Ryan’s class. He’s here to inspire, not teach. But why’d he have to go and deface that poor guy’s $85 textbook?

There are four kinds of business, six if you count hospitals/manufacturing and air travel.

Let’s catch a bat. White hot garlic bread would convince me someone was a vampire, and where would a vampire bat go but to a -sylvania?

9:22 p.m. – The candy bar bit! I actually thought that was kind of clever.
9:25 p.m. – Toby, Pam’s just not that into you.

Real business is done on paper, or on a classroom full of laptops. Hey, I’m on a laptop right now.

Dwight killed a werewolf once. But by the time he got to it, it had turned back into his neighbor’s dog.

In the first season Halloween, Creed showed up as Dracula and narrowly escaped downsizing. Coincidence?

And here comes the Business School sell-out. Herfendahl Index, indeed.

9:26 p.m. - David will always beat goliath, even if there are five Goliaths.

Michael’s emotion defies logic in its sincerity. He burns Ryan back in front of the class. It’s a riveting scene you don’t expect in a sit-com, even this one. If Michael doesn’t drop a “Suck on that!” on his way out, the tension would hang right through that Disney World commercial

9:28 p.m. - Six minutes behind and Pam is looking adorable in her artsy outfit and ponytail. Did anyone else think Ryan was really fired at this point?

And did you forget about Jim’s vampire prank? He really follows through on this one. A regular Lon Chaney. Or was it Bela Lugosi? Eh, before my time.

Pam really breaks your heart here, trying to pitch her unframed work to a little old lady. Lucky Roy arrives. And look, he brought his dumpy brother. She’s heartbroken herself, even if she doesn’t know it.

And Dwight’s putting a Hefty bag over Meredith’s head. Creepy. Or was that Mary Beth?

Roy is a foot-in-mouth waiting to happen. Geez, the prettiest art of all the art. Geez.

9:31 p.m. – So Ryan’s not fired. Good managers hire and inspire, because people don’t go out of business. But Ryan’s got to sit by Kelly. I can’t remember if that holds up the rest of the season. For some reason I don’t think it does.

9:33 p.m. - I love the way Oscar and Gil just shred Pam’s work. It was brutal but necessary. And now we know Oscar’s looking for a way out of that relationship anyway.

9:35 p.m. - Michael enters to a hearty Pam-casso and just restores all of Pam’s damaged pride. His pride means something to her. And her artwork means something to her.

Again, tension-breaker needed. And it comes in the form of a Chunky Bar.

I think I teared up the first time I saw that hug.

9:37 p.m. - That wasn’t too late, right? I just realized I referenced a Disney World commercial from six months ago when I recorded this episode, forgetting it probably was replaced with another spot.

How giddy is Kelly to have her man by her side. And now I remember that he’s still there by her side in the closing moments of the season finale when he dumps her. It’s cool to be able to see into the future.

9:40 p.m. - Closing comments: This was a turning point episode for this season. Pam sees the real Roy she’d forgotten when she relasped into his arms at Phyllis’s wedding. Granted, no one could believe she went back there in the first place. But hindsight really is 20-20, and in a good way in this case because at the time episodes like this really sucked the life out of me. Now I can better appreciate that Pam had her own recovery to make. She should have made it a lot sooner, though. But in the meantime it was great to see her in an art show, the first real evidence of her pursuing her terraced-home dreams.

We got a lot of humanity from her and Michael that we don’t always get. It sometimes seems like he’s so dense. And Pam often seemed too dense to see past her own problems. I think they both made strides, or at least gave and got a better glimpse of themselves.

You know what? It was a good episode. A good episode.