I realized a few days ago that I haven't really been talking about my shows much this fall - by that I mean the shows that are my real favorites, like Parks & Recreation. Partly it's because I've been so busy, and partly it's because Community's not on the air, but it's also partly due to the fact that I've been watching with a more over-arching point of view, instead of simply evaluating shows on an episode by episode basis. And with that in mind, it is time to talk about The Office.
Now, I have loved The Office for a very long time, and I was never the hugest Michael Scott fan. I even thought the show had the potential to improve in his absence. But they made some bad decisions along the way and cast the wrong people and went way too far down the Robert California rabbit hole and last season the show was, let's face it, bad. Very bad.
But then this season came around. And since we all know this is the final year, the show has been given a chance to get back to where it started as well and demonstrate how far it's come. At the center of all that is the combination of relationships between Dwight, Jim, and Pam. Oh, sure, there's Erin and New Jim, and Angela and Oscar, and all the rest in between and they're great, but resolving the Dwight/Jim/Pam relationships is clearly the documentarian's goal. As someone who knows the early seasons to an obsessive point it is absolutely captivating and joyful to watch the pleasantly gradual denouement of these characters.
The Office's first Christmas episode was a classic in both the Michael-is-a-clueless-jerk and the Jim-and-Pam-are-tragically-in-love veins, with the Yankee Swap and the teapot and the shameless-but-apt iPod promotion and the Meredith's boobs. It set the stage for many, many more great Christmas episodes - the dueling margarita/nutcracker parties (which includes my favorite Creed line: "I don't care which party I go to. Once you've danced naked at a hash bonfire with the spirits of the dead, all parties seem pretty much the same"); the Morrocan Meredith Intervention Christmas (which I believe was also the Princess Unicorn episode - "My horn can pierce the sky!"); the one where Phyllis is Santa. The Christmas party is a time where the employees of Dunder Mifflin open up and get drunk and embrace the holiday spirit, and it's always a highlight of the season. Last year's Christmas episode was a bright spot in a dark, glum year.
