STRIKE UPDATE: Citing a contract provision allowing for the suspension or termination of actors during a work stoppage, Universal Media Studios has suspended regulars on The Office, along with 30 Rock and Bionic Woman, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

I think I speak for Office fans everywhere when I say this writer’s strike couldn’t have come at a worse time because the show is really hitting the kind of stride we haven’t seen in two seasons.

You thought “That’s What She Said” was a one-note joke? New writer Lester Lewis made it an orchestra last night. Kelly Kapoor talked smack like Spike Lee at a Knicks game. Jim Halpert showed he learned a thing or two about making good use of his time with the boss away.

And Steve Carell once again demonstrated his versatility as he weaved the dramatic with the farcical and never missed a beat.

Whether you loved every second of “The Deposition” or not—and seriously, how could you not?—you’d better not be too quick to delete it from your DVR. With production shut down, that was the last of The Office we’re going to be seeing for a long time.

I was nervous going into this episode that there would be open storylines left dangling like unintended cliffhangers that they planned to resolve quickly before the strike cut the season short. Thankfully, that didn’t really happen.

The cold open saw Pam delivering notes to Michael during meetings. She explains why in a talking head.

Every time Michael’s in a meeting, he makes me come in and give him a Post-it note telling him who’s on the phone. I did it once, and he freaked out. He loved it so much. The thing is he doesn’t get that many calls, so he has me make them up every 10 minutes.

The notes range from “Good morning” and a smiley face that impresses Jan to a hot dog man saying “Hiya Buddy!” Of course when Ryan insists Michael take the fake call, all he can muster is a limp “Hiya Buddy.”

On the way to New York for Michael’s deposition in Jan’s wrongful termination suit against Dunder Mifflin, it’s clear she has been coaching Michael on what to say. His mnemonic devices are inscrutable. He also wants to put the top down.

Jan: Remember, it’s not just a pattern. It’s a pattern of disrespect and inappropriate behaviors.

Michael: Diz Ray. My friend Diz Ray got new specs. Dizrayspect. My friend Inappro drives a Prius with his behind neighbor.

Jan: Does this work for you?

In a bit of visual humor, Jan’s hair when they arrive for the deposition makes her look like Richie Sambora, circa 1987.

Ryan emerges with an entourage of goatee’d wunderkind wannabes. He’s Michael’s friend when he wants to be sure Michael’s testimony won’t hurt the company. What a manipulative jerk. If you listen closely, Michael drops an “absofruitly” on Ryan.

Back at the office, Jim’s no longer Michael’s protege. He’s getting waxed by Darryl in warehouse ping pong (a nod to Pam Pong, perhaps?) as Kelly talks smack to Pam.

What has two skinny chicken legs and sucks at ping pong?…I’ll give you a hint. It’s not my boyfriend. I think it’s a guy over here.

You’re boyfriend is so weak he needs steroids just to watch baseball.

Jim couldn’t hit a ping pong ball if it was the size of the moon.

Were Jim’s parents first cousins that were also bad at ping pong?

Smack and trash are different, Kelly explains. Trash is hypothetical. Smack is right now, as in “You’re ugly and I know it for a fact because I got the evidence right there.” Pam can’t take it. She even had to step aside for Kelly a the ladies room.

My thought: Pam steps aside for no one.

So she sets up a net made of six-pack holders on the conference table and lines up practice partners for Jim, starting with Kevin.

After scrimmaging with Kevin and Meredith, Jim convinces Dwight he’s practicing for a client who’s a ping pong master. It turns out Dwight is one too. His talking head in which he names the greats of the game is a hoot. I can’t even pronounce, let alone write, any of them.

Despite all the practice, Jim has gone from completely hopeless to simply miserable, and is still getting killed by Dwight. When Dwight learns the client is Darryl, the jig isn’t quite up. He thinks Jim just got confused.

In New York, of course Toby’s in on the deposition, despite Michael’s objections. Being sworn in he says yesshhh and delivers Jan’s lines perfectly. Then he gets off-track with inane answers and “That’s what she said’s” that are much funnier when a court stenographer reads them back, though not in Michael’s estimation.

Jan’s lawyer: Can you go back to where this digression began?

Stenographer: Mr. Schneider: ‘And you were directly under her the entire time?’ Mr. Scott: ‘That’s what she said.’

Michael: Delivery’s all wrong. She’s butchering it.

Michael testifies, awkwardly, that Jan’s breast enhancement was to blame for her firing, and he’s got the framed love contract/relationship disclosure form that he referenced in last season’s “Cocktails” episode as proof. In turn the company’s lawyer produces JamaicanJanSunPrincess, the topless photo of Jan from “Back from Vacation” that Michael accidentally e-mailed companywide more than a month before their relationship became official.

What a great job calling back to an unanswered question we thought they’d never address: Did Jan ever know about the photo? No, she did not.

Michael digs the hole a little deeper by letting it slip that he and Jan kissed two years ago (in “The Client”).

Company Laywer: Are you telling me that your relationship began two years ago and not in February as you previously testified to here?

Michael: Line.

Company Laywer: I’m sorry, what?

Mediator: He asked for a line, like in a play.

It’s a made-for-DVR scene when the stenographer reads back Michael’s ensuing testimony, in which he hedges and begs for a bathroom break to avoid questions. So he throws himself at the mercy of the deposition and admits to his and Jan’s past.

That’s when Jan’s lawyer brings out the big guns, Michael’s diary, to Michael’s dismay. It reveals their relationship was a one-sided affair. In interest of disclosure, everyone gets a copy, including Toby who pipes up and asks for one for himself.

The sight of everyone involved reading his diary in the cafeteria forces Michael to sit with Toby, who tries to console Michael by recounting his own parents’ divorce. So Michael shoves his lunch onto the floor. Nice.

Jan explains that she found the journal under her side of the mattress. (He doesn’t like the lump.) She equates it to him e-mailing that photo, which sounds reasonable at the time.

Back at the deposition, Michael’s journal reveals a lot of talk about a hot girl named Ryan —excuse me, a cool hot guy who’s a friend. I loved how Toby loved this.

Things get nasty, though, when the company lawyer starts hammering home how badly Jan has treated Michael, specifically giving him bad reviews even after they were dating and even calling for his firing. Steve Carell’s face as the show cut to commercial was devastating.

But Michael won’t turn on the company he believes was going to promote him, even after Jan points out Wallace never considered him seriously for the corporate job. The thing is, Wallace was never vicious when he testified to that. He hedged his words and called Michael a nice guy. So when the question is ultimately put to Michael as to whether the company treats its employees with disrespect, he says no.

Jan can’t believe it, and Wallace is impressed. Kudos to Andy Buckly who plays a secondary role with authenticity and restrained sensitivity. Easiy one of the most underrated characters on the show.

Back at the ping pong table, Jim shows off his new prowess by scoring a point. He’s down 19-4, though.

Pam: Yes, you see that?

Kelly: Yeah, the floppy-haired girl you date won a point.

Kelly’s final Avril Lavign-esque taunts spur Pam to call her out. They’re going to settle this like women, on the table tennis table. But it turns out they both stink. So Darryl and Jim go upstairs to play. I would so rather have seen Pam mop the floor with Kelly, but I guess that wouldn’t be believable and would probably make Jim feel pretty badly.

At the end of the day, Wallace apologizes to Michael, and he means it. The nice guy comment he made in his testimony meant a lot to Michael, who says David is a nice guy too. The camera catches up with Michael for a talking head and the line of the night…

Why did I do it? I don’t know. Jan said that it was because of the photo that she revealed the diary. But she already brought the diary with her to New York, so… You expect to get screwed by your company. You never expect to get screwed by your girlfriend.

Their ride home is tense as they quibble over cheap dinner plans, underscoring how broke they are and how rocky their relationship is. I think they’ll stay together if only because there’s no reason for Jan to stay on the show if they don’t. Of course the lawsuit could get settled with the terms that she be rehired. We won’t know for sure for a long time.

I’d find it a lot more interesting if they stayed together Jan came around to see how much more Michael is committed to her than she is to him versus the two of them splitting up.

The end tag is a moment of zen: eight seconds of Dwight and Mose Schrute in an epic ping pong battle.

A few observations:

About halfway through I found myself wondering if this was as great an episode as it seemed at the time. After repeat viewings, yes it was.

It didn’t occur to me until it was over the first time, though, that there was almost no sign of Oscar, Angela or Phyllis and no Creed or Andy at all. I guess I didn’t miss them, but I usually like the full ensemble episodes best.

The ping pong storyline wore a little thin for me, but I think that was mainly because I just wanted them to get back to the deposition, which had me riveted. One thing I thought about later was that last week, while Michael was out of the office, Jim almost turned into him. This week, with Michael in New York, Jim spent the day playing ping pong. Lesson learned, I guess.

This was another example of an episode that, while great in 21-22 minutes, could’ve used another 8-10 minutes of screen time, if only to breathe. This is a very minor nitpick of an episode I loved, but there wasn’t much in the way of setups and transitions. Such scenes provide fodder for laughs and they also help establish an episode’s pace. It’s a moot point, though, because NBC chief Ben Silverman has made it clear we’ll never see a 40-minute episode again. Something about people not wanting to see shows that start at 8:41 or 9:23.

And lastly, Jim and Pam have proven through eight episodes that a show can bring a couple together without destroying what made their relationship interesting. Read this Pushing Daisies review from Entertainment Weekly to get a sense of how idiotic and outdated the Ross-and-Rachel sitcom relationship paradigm has become.