Goodbye Toby? Office finale fever is heating up, as NBC leaks the title (or did they?)
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- April
- 22
There’s a little bit of intrigue concerning upcoming episodes. For the last few weeks, NBC hadn’t posted titles for the last and second-to-last episodes.
Then, over the weekend, a five-digit number showed up for the finale, which I found odd.
The intrigue entered last night when titles went up for those two episodes. The May 8 episode was listed as “Job Fair”, which is consistent with scuttlebutt about online reports of filming at a high school outside Scranton.
But it’s the incredibly spoilerish finale title that caught fans’ attention: Goodbye, Toby.
Jenna Fischer, I believe it was, mentioned someone’s leaving Dunder Mifflin before this season ends, and I just assumed that’d be Jan, who has no more reason for remaining around than Roy did. Anyway, the title is back to being listed as a number, and there are no summaries to go with those last two episodes.
So is Toby leaving? And if he is, would they give the episode such a spoilery title? Or is that something that’ll be established before the finale. Or maybe it’s complete subterfuge put out there by Greg Daniels & Co. to throw fans off the scent.
E!’s Kristin dos Santos recently visited the set and came back not with scoop but with the news that there is a veil of secrecy surrounding this finale, much like that of past finales, notably Season 2’s “Casino Night”. Here’s the meat of what Kristin had to say…
And so the true juice you need to know about what’s in store for this season’s Office finale is that it is something so huge, so unexpected, that Greg Daniels and his team are going to extreme lengths—employing tactics they have never used before—to keep everything top secret as far as what will happen.
And…
Ladies and gentleman, a small taste of what the Office folks are doing to keep you unspoiled:
- The cast members have been told not to say anything about the season finale, including the episode title, whether they appear in it or even if the show is still called The Office!
- For the first time ever while doing a set visit (yes, that includes Lost and 24!), I was asked to sign a confidentiality agreement before doing any interviews—as were our crew guys and even the show publicists who work for NBC!
- At least one scene of The Office’s last two episodes of the season was shot in front of a green screen. (To throw off any onlookers?) I’m told security was tight.
- Members of the cast and crew said they must turn in their scripts and sides at the end of each shoot day.
- Steve Carell says he wasn’t even given a script for the season finale and that the writers are feeding him his lines via earpiece.
In the meantime, here’s the summary for Thursday’s episode
Night Out: Michael and Dwight decide to surprise Ryan in New York for a night of clubbing and meet his friends. Meanwhile, the Scranton branch is upset when they find out they have to come in on a Saturday for Ryan’s website project. Jim’s plan to save them has unexpected results.
I’m not a big fan of out-of-the-office excursions, because there are so few Booze Cruises. So I’m holding my breath on this one.
By the way, OfficeTally visited the set of The Office. Read tanster’s report and check out her pictures here.
And in some very cool news, TheOfficeQuotes.com scored an interview with “Cool Paul” Faust, one of the head’s of Scranton Business Park’s Five Families. And yes, that’s his real name, minus the “cool” part, I guess.
TVGuide.com offered its insights into the current lineup of Comedy Night Done Right, breaking down each show’s strengths and weaknesses. You can read the whole thing here, but these are the parts I agreed with most.
Jim & Pam: Good office romance. For now.Solution: Remember this is The Office and not The Michael Scott Show. Keep it in the workplace, and good things will happen.
And the part I disagreed with most…
The Office has taken its lumps and is the funniest show of the night. It’s in dangerous shark jumping territory with the Jim and Pam romance, but there’s enough wackiness in Scranton to keep the fin at bay
30 Rock is still consistently funnier. As for the rest of that, yeah it’s probably true, but it’s too disturbing to ponder for long.
Oh, and if there was ever any truth to Lauren Graham starring in an Office spin-off (and I don’t think it was ever more than wishful thinking by Gilmore fans), she shot them down in this interview.
A third deleted scene is up from “Chair Model”, by the way.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 11:00 am by Brian Howard.
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