It's not Uncommon these days for a Series to be extended past eight seasons, but The Office, despite its longevity and its British roots, is, in fact, an uncommon series. My initial dislike of the show's first season stemmed from the fact that it was weirdly slavish to the UK series, which was and still is, I believe, a touchstone in the history of television. About a year or so ago, I watched a few episodes of Season 2 of the US version on Netflix, and while the parallels to what Gervais and Merchant had done remained, I was hooked. Characters were becoming their own people, far removed from Tim and Dawn and the Brent-Meister General. Crystal joined the fun around episode 4. We kept going and found we had a new favorite thing. The show is funny on the order of Arrested Development, which is very funny, but unlike the Bluths, its characters are you and me and every other person in America who's ever held a job they can't quite find joy in. Joy, the show seems to suggest, is something we find in our connections to other people: spouses, coworkers, friends, family. The work we do is, in many ways, incidental. As the series progresses, year after year, it manages to stay fresh and interesting, to weather even the hardest of knocks; when Steve Carrell leaves the show, the characters that sweep in to take Michael's place are large and memorable. And Dwight Schrute, for my money, is one of the great characters in the history of American television, idiotic but never dumb, big-hearted and wise (eventually), his own man by the end, not a lackey. And then there's Pam and Jim. Their love is the great love some of us are lucky enough to see play out in our own lives, but the writers never take that love for granted; they trouble it constantly. In the end, what makes the show great is the accumulated wisdom of near ten years. Andy Bernard, of all people, says it best, in what for me is one of the show's most touching moments: I wish, he says, you could know you were living in the good old days, so you'd know to cherish them that much more.
5 BANANAS
2005-2013
