What a difference a DVD makes.

I’ve slowly been making my way through my Office Season 5 DVD set, having watched all the deleted scenes, the blooper reel and two of the commentaries so far. But it was the “100 episodes, 100 moments” montage, eight and a half minutes of highlights from the show’s every episode, that reminded my why I still care.

Yeah, the first 28 outshined the final 72, but there were stellar moments throughout. (Nothing to see here, by the way.)

And since then I’ve been pretty pumped up for tonight’s Season 6 premiere. Set your DVRs for 8:57 p.m.

Gossip — Michael feels left out as the rest of the office gossips about the summer interns. While Michael searches for the next juicy rumor to share, Andy struggles with heterosexuality.

Not much to go on there, but there are plenty of reviews of the pilot out there. I didn’t get my screener in time, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be spoiled for the premiere anyway. ign.com, for one, loved it.

I’ve given up on expecting the episode summaries to accurately reflect the episodes. Random predictions are as likely to be accurate.

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Can I call it a weekly preview even if I’ve never combined them before and don’t necessarily preview either show a lot of weeks?

To paraphrase the president, yes I can. (Also, Malia, don’t touch that red phone, sweetie.)

I have to admit, Thursday nights wear me out. Yes, a TV blogger is whining about TV blogging. But hear me out. I recap both 30 Rock and The Office, and I can’t start watching either until 9, and they’re not over until 10. Factor in time for pausing the DVR while I scribble down funny quotes and any inspired musings I may have, and it’s closer to 10:30 before I start recapping.

It’s Office Thursday! Well, not quite. But in a week it will be.

So in honor of the winter hiatus’s impending close, I thought it time to open my spoiler-free eyes and take a look at what’s coming up.

When last we left Dunder Mifflin Scranton, the most depressing Christmas party ever culminated in Phyllis revealing Dwight and Angela’s illicit affair to everyone but Andy. Pam was back from New York. Michael was seemingly over Holly. And Meredith completed the shortest rehab stint ever.

First off, here are your next three episode titles and summaries…

Jan. 15: Duel — The office is on eggshells because Andy still hasn’t found out about fiancee Angela’s affair with Dwight. When Michael spills the beans, Dwight and Andy take matters into their own hands. Meanwhile, Michael is nervous about being called down to corporate for a meeting with Wallace.

Jan. 22: Prince Family Paper — Michael and Dwight go undercover to do a bit of industrial espionage on a paper company competitor. Meanwhile, the rest of the office holds a debate to settle the question: is Hilary Swank hot?

Feb. 1: Stress Relief — No summary released yet but Paul Lieberstein is the writer. Read more of this entry »

Retail-wise, Christmas 2009 is a memory, but religiously speaking it’s not even halfway through. I think we’re on Six Geese-a-laying by now, in fact. And since the retail figures rolling in are about as sad as your last 401k report, perhaps we should be turning to a higher power.

With ongoing Yuletide in mind, I give you The Office’s Leslie David Baker and Bobby Ray Shafer detailing the office Christmas tree, a Charlie Brown variety if ever there was one. What this video lacks in image quality, it makes up in horrendous audio quality.

It also boasts the most mis-applied “That’s What She Said” ever uttered on The Office set.

Leslie gets the second place cast award for most disturbing real-life voice. Naturally Brian Baumgartner ran away with that category.

All that said, I think, as Mame put it, we could use a little Christmas, right this very minutes. So for that, thanks guys.

Speaking of Baumgartner, this Atlanta Journal-Constitution interview is a must-read. I’ve been following this show closely for almost three years and I’m surprised I can still learn new things about the cast. What steered the future Kevin Malone from sports to theater is one example.

The role he played on CSI is most definitely another.

So the Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations were released the other day, and the comedy match-ups are pretty familiar.

It’s not surprising the same names keep coming up in these contests, since there are so few comedies on TV these days.

As usual, Alec Baldwin and the cast of 30 Rock go up against Steve Carell and the cast of The Office in the Outstanding Actor and Outstanding Ensemble in a Comedy Series categories, respectively.

There’s every possibility, however unfair, that Jeremy Piven and the cast of Entourage could send both home winless.My money’s on Baldwin and The Office. My heart is on Carell and 30 Rock.

Weeds is up in the comedy series category, too, as is star Mary Louise Parker for Outstanding Actress, though my heart and money are on Tina Fey, but only by a little.

The 15th Annual SAG Awards airs Jan. 25 on TNT and TBS.

Speaking of SAG, by the way, OfficeTally has sifted through and pulled out all the Office folks from the list of some 130 actors opposing a strike by the union. Really? After what a hoot last year’s WGA strike was?

One curious omission struck me: Jenna Fischer. Read more of this entry »

Info has been trickling out all week on the post-Super Bowl episode of The Office.

First there was the reveal that Jack Black will guest star. Then came news Jessic Alba would be joining him. (ETA: Almost forgot, Cloris Leachman too.) This is starting to sound like a modern version of The Love Boat. The reassuring part is that they won’t really be in the episode. Instead they’ll be the stars of a bootleg movie one of the staff secretly tries to watch.

My question, then, is why bother?

I mean, I’m glad they’re not going the stuntcasting route. 30 Rock perfected that tack before flubbing it repeatedly this season. The Office, deliberately by some accounts, has always avoided actors whose recognition factor would take viewers out of the show.

So you’ve gotten Tim Meadows as the hilarious Lackawanna County official Michael woos in “The Client” or Amy Ryan, whose Wire stint and Oscar nominations were common knowledge among only a savvy few. Amy Adams is another good example.

The thought of Black or Alba swinging by Dunder Mifflin bugs me more than Liz Lemon sitting next to Oprah on a plane (even if it was only a hallucination).

I previewed tonight’s episode of The Office yesterday, but I failed to mention—because I didn’t realize it at the time—that it’s the final episode of the year.

A quick check of the NBC media site and the always reliable OfficeTally calendar, just to be sure, reveals that after tonight we’ve got a month of repeats before new episodes resume.

Replays of “Crime Aid” and “Customer Survey” will air Dec. 18. “Goodbye, Toby” is up on Jan. 1. New episodes resume Jan. 15. So this is it. E

njoy your new Office fix while it lasts. It also occurs to me that tonight’s episode, “Moroccan Christmas” is only a half-hour long.

How is it not an hour long? The schedulers at NBC have next to no idea when to supersize and when not to. (I know, they technically don’t supersize anymore since that referred to the odd 40-minute episodes like “Casino Night.” I think the term should still apply to anything longer than the standard half-hour episode.)

By the way, in case you  haven’t heard, Karen’s coming back.

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I’m not waiting until tomorrow morning to get down on paper (well, on screen anyway) how awesome I thought tonight’s episode of The Office was.

You know those 712 reasons why you loved this show at its best? This episode had 645 of them, and it wasn’t even supersized.

This  episode was about next-to-nothing. Seriously, a rift over how to spend a $4,300 surplus would barely constitute a B- or C-story most episodes. But the writers blew it up. They took a completely relatable scenario and dissected the petty office politics that would erupt when put-upon office drones are forced to choose between basic comfort and the tools they need just to do their jobs. It was like they were stuck for what to write about, so they called in a security guard to settle the matter.

And for good measure, they split Pam and Jim on opposite sides.  On that note, Pam is a fiercely competitive individual, and she’s not afraid to use her feminine wiles to get what she wants.

Not that it works on man-child like Michael who no doubt sincerely views her as a daughter. Or a sexy sister-in-law. Read more of this entry »

Updated: Watch the first Webisode and other related videos after the jump!

Since they debuted, the periodic Office webisodes have been a mixed bag, a welcome fix in times of hiatus but usually subpar in terms of hastily assembled scripts and sometimes stilted acting.

I sometimes got the feeling I spent more time making my lunch than they spent on this past summer’s installment about Kevin’s gambling debt.

I’ll just throw out a spoiler alert now, even though I don’t plan to be too spoilery.

The latest round of webisodes, which debut at NBC.com tomorrow (Nov. 20), are pretty awesome. For starters, the run times are a little longer than the usual two-minute in-and-out. The casting involves pretty much everyone on the show short of Steve Carell, Jenna Fischer, Rainn Wilson and John Krasinski (aka the convention no-show quartet).

And of those characters that do appear, easily a half-dozen of them could be said to be showcased.

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The Office isn’t what it once was. No show is after 70-something episodes. And to be fair, it’s still better than most of what’s on TV. That said, honest fans can see a finish line in the distance, even if the Scranton branch still has a few seasons left in its bag of tricks.

But I came across an idea for a way to make it end immediately, or at least make the most diehard fans wish it would: Have Ricky Gervais appear as his character from Extras. Wouldn’t that be a hoot? So he tells TVGuide.com…

“I’d quite like them to maybe be watching an episode of Extras, and Michael Scott comes along and goes, ‘This guy is no good. If they ever do a remake, I think I should do that part.”

Maybe it was just an offhand quip, but I can see the sharks circling on Lake Wallenpaupack as I write this, because that would be the show’s ultimate shark-jumping moment.

Read more of this entry »

If there are nicer people in the world than Ed Helms and Angela Kinsey, I sure haven’t been on a press call with them. The Office co-stars spent an hour chatting about bad relationships (Hello, Andy and Angela!) and a host of other topics.

They said so much cool stuff, it couldn’t possibly fit into a single Remote Access post. So I split it up into two parts. The first part came yesterday, and herewith is part II.

On Andy and Angela’s open hostility

In any group of couples, there’s always one like that, said Kinsey, referencing SNL’s The Bickersons sketch. Helms said the definition of a working relationship differs for everyone.

“I think what works for one might be horrifying to another,” he said. “What Andy and Angela have is largely horrifying, but in some ways who they are dovetails perfectly.”

There’s a bit of a feedback loop between Andy being so accomodating and Angela being so demanding. It isn’t healthy, he said, but it works at least as far as it keeps them together. Also, we’ve all had relationships with different people who bring out different sides of ourselves, Kinsey added.

“Sometimes you’re with someone and you’re like, what am I doing?” she said. “I think Andy and Angela have a lot of that.”

Andy’s parents might be the only people who know them who don’t question their relationship, Helms said.

On cracking each other up

Kinsey, Helms and Rainn Wilson forced the cameras to take a break while they composed themselves recently. It started with her, then Wilson. When they got it together, Helms lost it.

In the season premiere, the scene at Angela’s desk when Andy calls her Angela-ella-ella, Oscar Nunez—who never breaks—nearly fell apart and that made Helms lose it.

“And it’s so frustrating because sometimes it’s like your favorite take,” he said. “It’s the take that’s going the best and that’s the funniest that makes you lose it.” Read more of this entry »

For about 28 minutes I was convinced The Office had dug up the missing seventh episode of Season One, such was the tenor and humor of “Customer Survey.”

The premises were mundane, but that’s long been the show’s classic secret weapon. In this case it was a disgruntled customer service rep and a silly plan by Jim and Pam to stay on the phone all day. (Even Karen never put Jim through that.) And the result was hilarious. I laughed nearly throughout, and when I wasn’t laughing I was engaged in the story.

But that was the first 28 minutes or so. And then came the confrontation, the ham-handed heart-to-heart between Pam and her charming, benign New York guy friend. We got what, about 14 seconds of screentime from him to date, a couple of quippy lines and virtually no sense of who he is or what he’s about.

So when he asks Pam to chat privately, unaware Jim is listening in on the world’s smallest Bluetooth earpiece, we figure he’s got designs on our Pammy. Nope, he’s got her best interests at heart. You can’t do New York in three months, he tells her. Jim may be in Scranton but her future is right where she is.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved how this scene played out. It was cringeworthy for the audience. And I did love when Jim said, “That’s it. I want to talk to this guy. Put me in his ear.” Jim fears he’s right. Pam does a little too. Plus, she wishes Jim weren’t listening in so she could pretend the conversation never happened. But it did. And the bumps in the Jim-Pam road just got bumpier. Read more of this entry »

There’s a new episode of The Office on tonight. But before you dig in to that, Ed Helms and Angela Kinsey spent the better part of an  hour today chatting with reporters and bloggers about their on-screen relationship, inflatable gremlin dolls, Angela’s troubled youth and nostalgia for the fake news.

Here’s part one of what they had to say, with part two to follow soon.

On approaching their at-times unlikeable characters

A lot of characters in comedy are unlikeable, Helms said, and that’s what gives viewers license to laugh at them.

“I’ve tried to find a lot to love about Andy and a real sort of sincerity, he said. “If anything he’s guilty of caring too much sometimes.

He likes giving the audience something to hope for with Andy but also lot to just roll their eyes at and laugh at.

Kinsey has had jobs that were mundane and forced her to work with people she wouldn’t otherwise like to hang out with. There was always the stickler or the busybody, she said, the person who went berzerk with the smallest amount of authority. But even with all that she tries to find the upside in Angela Martin.

“I try to find in my own way, the way Ed does, a way to like her even with all her craziness,” Kinsey said. “She’d probably drive you crazy, but she’d probably completely organize your desk for you if you let her.”

The funny thing for Helms is trying to justify Andy’s love for Angela.

“My dad asked me recently, ‘Why are you with that woman?’” he said. “It’s a very valid question.”

But Andy has an unflappable optimism and a decisiveness about things. He puts his whole heart into his decisions like his commitment to Angela. Read more of this entry »

Ugh. This looks like it’s the one.

When last we were at Scranton Business Park, David Wallace left us with the chillingly glum observation that he didn’t know Michael was dating Holly. The branch manager whose last girlfriend and former boss sued the company is dating the HR rep. What’s not for a CFO to love about that arrangement?

So yeah, Holly’s gone, just as sure as Amy Ryan is gone, at least by all accounts. She wrapped her sixth and final episode several weeks ago, and it airs tonight. (The hour-long season premiere counts as two episodes.) And if there was any doubt, tonight’s episode title is…

Employee Transfer — Pam is embarrassed when she is the only person at corporate wearing a costume on Halloween. Holly and Michael take the long trip to Nashua after they get some shocking news from corporate. Meanwhile, Dwight torments Andy and tries to get under his skin.

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For the life of me I can not figure out how Amy Ryan could be so in demand that she can’t commit to a full-time gig on The Office.

I mean, Steve Carell balances a booming film career with his leading Office role. Ryan’s a great actress, sure, but is she more in demand than he is? Maybe studios are more flexible with the schedules of bankable stars, and his films have grossed more than $500 million.

Still an Office gig hasn’t kept John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer or Rainn Wilson out of theaters. And they are neither top-grossers nor Oscar-nominated.

Ryan talks here with The Daily News about her upcoming role in Clint Eastwood’s The Changeling, a role that sounds closer to Helene in Gone Baby Gone than it does to Holly Flax.

“People who are struggling in some form in their lives are usually the most interesting parts to play,” says Ryan, 38. “If you’re playing a really nice character who has everything together, there’s no conflict, there’s no real drama. I’d much rather take on these kinds of parts.”

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Did you like the “Jim-proposes-to-Pam” scene near the end of the season premiere?

I did, but it turns out the writers were divided pretty sharply on it. One faction favored going for true documentary effect by omitting the audio of the dialogue so all you’d hear was the passing traffic.

What’s more, as showrunner Greg Daniels tells The Washington Post, the original plan was to shoot the scene at an actual rest stop on Connecticut Merritt Parkway (which seems completely random, partly because it doesn’t run anywhere near Scranton, Pa.). That was deemed too costly, but the Hollywood reproduction ended up costing more than twice as much. And there’s more…

One of the things that we decided at the last minute was to leave the sound in; we also had one version where it’s the exact same visuals, but you weren’t able to hear their dialogue. And that’s a very poetic way of doing it. The staff was completely divided down the middle, and I lost sleep over which way to go on that.

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It’s been a while since I’ve gotten sucked into the sappy storylines of The Office.

Once upon a time, Jim’s crush on Pam was a peripheral distraction that you couldn’t ignore anymore. And once you stopped trying, you could totally relate to it. Then they went and overdid it, leaning too heavy on that aspect of the show and throwing things off balance. And they brought in Karen.

Well, “Crime Aid” looked like it was going to be one of those loopy, stupid episodes where Michael gets way too goofy, the laughs are plenty but the story is sitcom-ish. It looked like another “Safety Training.” Instead, it was a frenetic thing of beauty.

So much went on in 21-plus minutes, so many parallel stories and odd character pairings. The overarching plot was almost secondary to the episodic events within.

It was so satisfying (and smile-inducing) to see Michael and Holly trade dorky jokes and TMI comments about their budding affair. No, Michael, the third date is no gimme. Well, unless it’s with Holly, who seems incapable of not going with the flow no matter what bizarre comment her new beau throws out. Yup, twice.

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So a nasty ear/sinus infection and sore throat (TMI?) kept me from blogging about an episode of The Office for the first time in almost two years.

That’s not to say that I didn’t post my insights and observations about “Baby Shower” (loved it), along with podcast pal Chris Serico (kinda liked it, I think), aka CGC.

I’m still feeling oogy, but I’m back on the horse. We’ve got a new episode tonight, and I can’t wait to sit back with a hot cup of tea with honey and just enjoy the funny. I’d say it’s got a tough act to follow after last week’s bit of brilliance.

Here’s the episode summary for “Crime Aid”…

Michael helps Pam get a part time job at corporate so she can afford to go to art school. Michael and Holly get an early start at the office on their date night. After the office gets robbed, Michael decides to hold an auction to raise money for all the items lost.

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Like high tide at Omaha Beach, Chris and Bri break down “Baby Shower,” a solidly built episode, much like a $1,200 stroller.

No, we won’t be singing any wildly inappropriate lullabies, but if things run long one of us may need to take a quick nap on that couch in the back.

Podcast file:

Flash video:

I really liked “Baby Shower,” last night’s episode of The Office.

I didn’t think I was going to like it. I didn’t feel much like watching it, in fact, mainly because I’m a little under the weather.

But it got me anyway. From Dwight birthing a buttery watermelon to Amy Ryan pulling out the  Oscar-caliber chops for her final scene with Michael, I was impressed with the way this episode pulled me in. You had me at “Omaha Beach,” Creed.

I’ve got a lot to say about it, but like I said, I’m not feeling up to snuff. So I’m going to take my time to collect my thoughts, transcribe some of the funnier bits and generally assemble a blog post that does it justice.

Until then, feel free to watch it again on our dime. The full episode, including the series’ second afterbirth reference, appears after the jump.

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