On SNL this week, Ricky Gervais, creator of the original BBC version of The Office, stopped by to reveal his inspiration for the show.

Actually, more than anything I’m impressed with Kristen Wiig’s and Jason Sudeikis’ impersonations of Pam and Jim. And that Steve Carrell guy does a great Michael Scott, too.

Season 4, Episode 14 (Se04,Ep14)

What an emotional roller coaster THAT was.

If you’re a die-hard ‘Office’ fan, and you don’t know what happened yet - just stop right now. DO NOT READ THIS. Just watch it and enjoy it. Here’s the entire episode for you to watch with limited commercial interruption.

Why? Because I had an excruciatingly wonderful time watching this episode, and I want you to have that same experience.

Ok - Now that you’ve watched the episode, let’s dish.

There is so much that happens in this episode that I’m just going to hit the bullet points then address some of them.

- Toby is leaving and Michael is so happy he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He demands a huge party

- Angela refuses, and Phyllis takes the lead on the party planning, including hunting down an “anti-gravity” machine

- Pam gets into a summer program at the Art School in New York, and Jim is incredibly excited for her

- Michael meets Holly, the new HR woman, and after initially hating her because she’s HR, becomes immediately smitten with her right after she insults Toby.

- In an attempt to haze Holly, Dwight tells her that Kevin is mentally challenged - which his speech and general disposition completely re-enforces (best sub-plot of the night)

- Toby goes hunting for a camera to take a picture with Pam (and comes off a little more creepy than usual)

- Michael attempts to create a mix tape by telling Holly he loves her. Jim talks him down off the wall and recaps his entire relationship with Pam…then gets an idea.

- Jim goes to Phyllis and give her some cash for fireworks at the party tonight. Then confesses he’s going to propose tonight.

- Kevin decides he’s going to bang Holly after she helps him pick chips from the vending machine.

- Jim finally shows some back bone and leaves Ryan a message to let him know that he’s going to fight back, and not take any crap from the little guy

- Michael and Holly share a wonderful moment in the floor of her office while he helps her fix a broken chair.

- Phyllis and Angela go at it over the party. Angela shreds her list of vendors out of spite.

- Michael gets really excited about the exit interview, but tones down his hatred for Toby to not offend Holly…but threatens to kill Toby if he talks crap about him in front of her.

- Then we see that Ryan has been arrested via a YouTube video - because of misleading the Dunder-Mifflin shareholders. Oscar says the real crime “was the beard”. Ha!

- Jim leaves another voice mail sticking it to Ryan for his arrest.

- Michael goes in his office an cries over Ryan’s arrest. Holly is touched and tries to help. THEY ARE PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER!

- The parking lot looks fantastic - and Pam is pretty sure that Jim is going to propose tonight.

- Michael even resists a “That’s what she said” to impress Holly, and lays into Dwight when he puts a raccoon in her car. (I want them to get together almost as much as Pam and Jim)

- Holly is very impressed that Kevin can drive his own car when he leaves for a supply run for the party.

- Michael gets on stage to sing a parody song he wrote for Toby set to “Goodbye Stranger”

- Pam insert interview has her confess that she always thought he was “kind of cute” - poor Toby.

- Holly is impressed with Michael’s performance and tells him that she’d love to hear another one of his songs…then Michael gets a phone call from Kevin saying he has to come to the store.

- Michael gets there…and see’s Jan…who is pregnant.

- Michael is too excited for words. Then Jan tells him its not his. She went to a sperm bank.

- Then she invites him to her lamaze class…which he says he’ll think about.

- Back at the party the mood is perfect. Pam has her head on Jim’s shoulder…he reaches for the ring…and….

- Andy gets up to make an announcement.

- Since the mood is perfect, he has decided to propose to Angela, who responds with a less than enthusiastic “ok”. (Keep in mind they haven’t even kissed yet.)

- The moment is ruined and Jim puts the ring back in his pocket.

- Dwight gets very serious and sad, saying “Well, it’s my own fault.”

- Toby shows up again wanting a picture with Pam, which Meredith takes…many shot of. Pam is trying to not be sad…because she really thought Jim was going to propose.

- Holly is excited to see Michael when he returns. She tries to ask him out to get dessert, but Michael is distracted. Kevin agrees to go with her instead.

- Back in the office Michael has security escort Toby off the premises, then calls Jan and tells her that he’ll go to the lamaze class. He’s excited about being “kind of a daddy”.

- Finally, Phyllis comes in to the office with all the light off and catches Angela and Dwight doing it.

******

I just honestly don’t even know where to start. I loved this episode so much. It was a great rollercoaster (I know I’ve already used that term) ride of emotion from beginning to end. There is not other comedy on television that makes you feel for its characters the way The Office does, and this episode was a perfect way to express that.

I want Michael to realize the mess that Jan is and get together with Holly. They have seriously recreated the Pam/Jim relationship in one episode with Michael and Holly - and I’m totally ready for them to move in that direction next season while Pam and Jim move into a new stage of their relationship.

It’s possible that Andy could be moving to the spin off after he finds out what happened at the end of this episode, or they could go another way with it entirely…who knows.

That’s what I love about this - I have no idea where they are going with this story, but I genuinely enjoyed it and can’t wait for the ride to continue in September.

Season 4 Episode 13

100 Word Review: You know, sometimes and episode is just…”eh”. This episode of The Office seemed to serve a purpose…showing Jim’s commitment to doing his job for Pam, while Pam showed us that she still dreams of something more than Dunder-Mifflin. Michael is still a moron, and there is just might be some chemistry left between Angela and Dwight. Still, nothing particularly ground breaking or really interesting happened. Michael, Oscar, Daryl, and Pam went to Pam’s old school for a job fair. Jim, Kevin, and Andy played golf in the hopes of closing a client. Season Finale is next week.

Season 4 Episode 12 “Did I Stutter?”

I’m not quite sure how I feel about this episode. The main plot point of this one is that Stanley crosses the line and yells at Michael in a meeting, shouting “Did I Stutter?”. While several other subplots start coming together. Ryan and Toby team up to give Jim a “formal discipline warning”, Angela is impressed with Dwight when he forces Andy to sell him his car, then turns around and re-sells it for a profit, and Kevin’s “librarian fetish” is revealed when Pam is forced to wear glasses after forgetting her contact solution after spending the night at Jim’s place.

There is a lot happening here, but most of it are little moments. It almost feels like everything that happened in this episode, other than the main plot line with Stanley and Mihcael, is set up for the next few episodes. I have to say I am intrigued by where this is going, but all of this set up left much less time for the usual laugh factor.

The main storyline, however, was very well done this episode - with Stanley having just plain lost it on Michael. After the “Did I stutter?” line, Toby confronts Michael, telling him he needs to address the insubordination issue. Michael doesn’t want to, and tries to dodge it through most of the episode, but when he finally does confront Stanley it gets interesting. Stanley goes off the handle after being “fake fired”, and Michael finally has all he can take and screams for everyone in the office except Stanley to leave.

They try to convince you that Michael is about to man up, but instead, he’s almost in tears and he wants to know why Stanley doesn’t like him. After Stanley tells him that he doesn’t respect Michael, Michael finally does man up a bit, and he tells Stanley that he accepts that he doesn’t respect him, but he can’t talk to him like that in his office. He just can’t allow it. Stanley gives him a “fair enough” and the issue is settled.

Sadly, we only have 2 episode left for this season…but I can’t wait to see them.

It looks like Toby is going to make his way over to “The Office” spin-off which is set to premiere after “The Office” proper this fall. The season finale of the show will run 1-hour and according to TV Guide three of the following six things will happen during the finale.

1) an engagement
2) a death
3) an infidelity
4) a pregnancy
5) a fire
6) a coming-out

My guess is 1, 4, and 5.

Here is the official synopsis for the episode:

4.14 “GOODBYE TOBY”
05/15/2008 (09:00PM – 10:00PM) (Thursday) : It’s Toby’s (Paul Lieberstein) goodbye party at Dunder Mifflin and Michael (Golden Globe winner Steve Carell) demands a huge celebration that matches the joy in his heart. Angela (Angela Kinsey), sick of Michael’s unreasonable last minute demands, refuses, and Michael turns to Phyllis (Phyllis Smith) to take over the party planning committee. Meanwhile, Dwight (Rainn Wilson) and Meredith (Kate Flannery) haze the new HR woman, Holly (Oscar Nominee Amy Ryan).

Season 4, Episode 10 - Night Out

After last week’s amazing episode, it was highly likely that this episode would be a disappointment, but fortunately it wasn’t. Although, it wasn’t quite up to par with the quality of the previous episode, it was pretty good.

Ryan has plans for the Scranton branch to come in on Saturday to input their own sales as if they were sales from the Dunder Mifflin Infinity website, which does not appear have turned into the success that Ryan thought it would be. After giving the gang a pep talk, Ryan mentions to Michael that he “should see” the women that Ryan meets in clubs in New York, which Michael takes as an invitation to join him for a night of club hopping.

So, shortly after Ryan leaves the office, Michael and Dwight are on their way to New York to party down.

Meanwhile, Jim has come up with the brilliant idea to have people work a few hours later on Friday, and not come in on Saturday at all - which sounds great, in theory, but nothing ever seems to quite go right when Jim exerts his managerial role.

In New York Michael and Dwight meet up with Ryan, who is abnormally happy to see him (and hanging out with a man that Dwight is convinced is a hobbit). As you can imagine, a night of hilarity ensues.

Back at the branch the work is complete, and the gang is leaving for the evening…except that Jim forgot to tell the security guard they were staying late, and he locked them all in. The team quickly turns on Jim and Pam. Tobey makes several attempts to impress Pam, including being very proud of having the security guard’s home phone number, and finding a football to throw around (which Pam then accidentally throws into Meredith’s face).

That comes to a head as Tobey accidentally puts his hand on Pam’s knee…and keeps it there just long enough for everyone to notice…utterly embarrassed, he announces that he’s decided to move away and jump the fence to run home…which he proceeds to do.

Jim and Co are finally free when the cleaning ladies show up, and Oscar talks to them to get everyone out of the parking lot.

Back in New York, it has become clear that Ryan has a drug problem, and he eventually collapses on the dance floor and Michael and Dwight take him home. It looks like Ryan’s life is going to fall apart this season - who know’s where he’ll be next year?

All in all, it was a good episode. If you want to check it out right now, for free, you can do so a Hulu.com.

Season 4, Episode 9- Chairmodel

WARNING! WARNING! Major plot line SPOILERS discussed below! Continue AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Ok, are you sufficiently warned?

Alright, let’s continue.

This week’s episode finally put us back into the actual office, and was a return to form of sorts. It was also a “game changer” of an episode, and the rest of the season will springboard from this episode.

After last week’s dinner party, Michael and Jan are broken up - at least for now - and Michael is back out on the prowl. After becoming enamored with a model in an office furniture catalog, he demands that everyone in the office give him the number of a woman to be set-up with, or they’ll be fired.

Pam, eager to get him to move past this and pick a new chair, so she can get his old one, gives him the name of her landlord.

Meanwhile, Kevin and Andy are dealing with a parking issue that it plaguing the other office workers. Office park neighbors W.B. Jones are renovating their offices, and their construction guys are taking up parking spaces, forcing half of the Dunder-Mifflin employees to park in a satellite parking lot. If you ask Kevin and Andy, this is the single biggest issue facing the world today, and there is no possible way things can continue until this situation is corrected.

It’s a perfect look at what actually working in an office is like, because people really do flip out over stuff like this.

Michael calls up Pam’s landlord, and they meet at a coffee shop. When Michael sees her, and she’s not a super model, he goes into full “Michael Scott” mode, and makes you want to punch him in the face for treating that woman like dirt. They have an awkward conversation that ends with him calling her an old lady, and that’s about it.

It’s really, however, what this meeting sets up that is important. After Michael returns to the office, Jim jokingly goes up to Pam and mentions that she’s probably just been kicked out of her apartment. She jokingly responds that its ok, she’ll just move, then suggests that she should move in with her boyfriend since he’s a slob too. Jim immediately jumps on that with a “yes”, and Pam hesitates, responding that she won’t move in with someone unless she’s engaged.

Now, i honestly couldn’t tell if she was fishing for a proposal, making an excuse for not doing it, or making a general statement of something she believes. Like, that’s just her rule in general, and she has to stick by it for her to stick with her own moral code.

Jim doesn’t skip a beat, telling her that he’s going to propose…he’s just not going to tell her when…but when he does, he says “it’s going to kick your ass, Beasley.” She smiles and jokes with him like she isn’t sure if she can believe him or not.

Then as Jim walks away, there is a look on Pam’s face that is just unreadable. She looks nervous, and I can’t tell where this is going in the long run…the writer’s are either going to screw this whole thing up and break them apart over this, or just keep us hanging with a “did she say yes or no” season finale cliffhanger.

One thing we do know, is that Jim is serious. In his interview segment following the scene, he pulled out a ring and told us he bought it “a week after they started dating”.

Kevin and Andy’s story wraps up when they gather the five bosses of the office park, and demand their parking spaces back…they get them…and Kevin is very proud that he “finally got to win one”…and as silly as it is, I was proud of him too. Go Kevin!

Dwight promises to find the woman in the catalog upon his return…and quickly does some investigative work discovering she’s dead. Got high and wrecked her car. Tragic. Of course, Michael and Dwight have to go to her grave, which is apparently within driving distance of Dunder Mifflin.

There is one more Pam and Jim moment in the episode worth note, where - as they are walking back to their cars - Jim drops to one knee, looks up at a poker-faced Pam and says “Hey Pam will you… wait for me one second while I tie my shoe?” Pam’s reaction is, again, hard to read, because she seems disappointed, but they both laugh it off, and keep walking.

Where will this go? Feel free to speculate below…but if I’m going to keep watching the show, it better go to a happy place for once. I hate it when shows tease the “will they, won’t they stuff” for years, get the couple together for a few episodes, then break them up again…and I seriously hope the writer’s of the this show are more clever than that.

Season 4, Episode 9 - Dinner Party

If there is one word in the english language to describe this episode of ‘The Office’ that word is “awkward.”

Almost the entire episode takes place at a dinner party at Michael an Jan’s condo - and we really get to see how their relationship is going post “The Deposition”. The verdict? Not well.

The party goers consisted of Pam and Jim, Angela and Andy, and eventually Dwight and his former babysitter. In possibly the most disturbing line of the night we discover that Dwight and the aging babysitter are together for “purely carnal” reasons. ugh.

The real story, though, is the monumental break-down between Jan and Michael. From her playing a CD that her former assistant obviously wrote about a night the two slept together, to Michael stopping in the middle of dinner to hang his neon bar sign - to Jan smashing his very tiny $200 plasma TV - it just kept getting more and more awkward…you know, until the police showed up.

I can’t say that this episode was great, mainly because I don’t consider it great to sit in a chair and squirm for 30 minutes while watching a television show. Like Pam, Jim, and I assume everyone else except Dwight, I wanted to escape from the dinner party. It was uncomfortable, awkward, and disturbing.

Having that said, it was brilliantly written, and its this kind of writing that makes the show so great. I hope, however, that next week we get back into the actual office, and keep Jan away for an episode or two. I don’t know about you, but I really need a break from that crazy woman.

Tonight NBC’s Thursday night line-up is BACK! My personal favorite, “The Office” will be part of the festivities, and NBC has posted a preview of the show by giving us the first 104 seconds to enjoy. You can check it out below.

NBC has given the green light to a spin-off of ‘The Office’. The only problem - is that they don’t appear to know what or how they’re going to do it just yet.

There are dozens of possibilities, of course, for a spin-off show, but I think I have it figured out…tell me what you think in the comments below.

This spin-off has been rumored to be done CSI or Law and Order style, basically just taking the same concept and moving it to a new location. I think that idea works fine, but I’d like to see at least one of the characters from the slightly over crowded Scranton branch make their way over to the new show.

That character would be Andy Bernard. Ed Helms is great in the role, and with just a little tweaking of his character he’d be a great #2 to the manager of the new branch. Just who would that be?

None other than John Hodgman, of course.

This new series is going to depend on its lead even more than the original US show does now…at least at first. It’s also going to be very important that branch manager of this show is distinctly different from Michael Scott, otherwise the show will never fly.

So, it seems that someone like John Hodgman would be a perfect choice.

Now, with Hodgman and Helms on board, the real question is - who would the other regulars be, and what would they be like?

Well first and foremost I think everyone involved should avoid trying to recreate the “Pam and Jim” relationship in this spin-off. I know its entirely possible that they try to do just that, but I really think that’s a terrible idea.

I would create a male lead who had aspirations beyond working at Dunder Mifflin. Perhaps as a writer. Dunder Mifflin would serve simply as a place of employment until his writing career took off. Something to give him direction, which Jim sorely lacks on the main show.

I’d go for something completely different with the receptionist. Either an Angela type, or maybe even doing the old “Murphy Brown” gag of having the receptionist constantly being replaced. This opens up great opportunities for guest stars (just like it did on “Murphy” all those years ago). Either way, I would not want the receptionist to be a major character on the show.

The female lead would be the corporate office HR person. She’d be strong willed and opinionated, but more of a “Lois Lane” type than the slightly off-her-rocker Jan. She’d fill the same role that Tobey fills in the main series, and would be a constant thorn in the side of Hodgman.

If there was a way to logically bring him into the series, I wouldn’t mind seeing Roy return as a worker in the warehouse of this new branch. Perhaps an angle could be worked where he got a second chance at a new branch because of a potential lawsuit from an accident that Michael caused during his previous employment.

Rounding out the supporting cast, and connecting the two shows, would be Ryan, who would serve as Hodgman’s boss as well, and could keep the things stirred up. He would also serve as the single enemy that would bring Michael Scott and Hodgman’s characters together in the inevitable cross-over episode and/or special.

Obviously there is more to creating the show than the summary that I’ve just written - but I think it’s a decent start, and would make for a great ‘Office’ spin-off.

Right now we have no idea what to expect from the show coming from NBC in the fall - but I can’t wait to see where they go with it…even if I have mixed feelings about its existence.

So - what do you think? Did I hit it on the money or am I an idiot? It’s your call.

Any NBC executives that would like to contact me to discuss contracts can do so at michael(at)applegazette(dot)com.