The Office - Complete Series One & Two and The Christmas Specials [2001] [DVD]

It feels both inaccurate and inadequate to describe The Office as a comedy. On a superficial level, it disdains all the conventions of television sitcoms: there are no punch lines, no jokes, no laugh tracks, and no cute happy endings. More profoundly, it's not what we're used to thinking of as funny. Most of the fervently devoted fan base watched with a discomfortingly thrilling combination of identification and mortification. The paradox is that its best moments are almost physically unwatchable. Set in the offices of a fictional British paper merchant, The Office is filmed in the style of a reality television show. The writing is subtle and deft, the acting wonderful, and the characters beautifully drawn: the cadaverous team leader Gareth (Mackenzie Crook); the monstrous sales rep, Chris Finch (Ralph Ineson); and the decent but long-suffering everyman Tim (Martin Freeman), whose ambition and imagination have been crushed out of him by the banality of ! the life he dreams uselessly of escaping. The show is stolen, as it was intended to be, by insufferable office manager David Brent, played by codirector-cowriter Ricky Gervais. Brent will become a name as emblematic for a particular kind of British grotesque as Basil Fawlty, but he is a deeper character. Fawlty is an exaggeration of reality, and therefore a safely comic figure. Brent is as appalling as only reality can be. --Andrew Mueller

The second series exceeded even the sky-high standards of the first. Indeed, it ventured beyond caricature and satire, touching on the very edge of darkness. Ricky Gervais is once again excruciatingly superb as David Brent, but in this series, Brent's to-the-camera assertions concerning his management qualities and executive capabilities are seriously challenged when the Slough and Swindon branches are merged and his former Swindon equivalent Neil (Patrick Baladi) takes over as area manager. To compensate, Brent cultivates his pathologically mistaken image of himself as an entertainer-motivator-comedian whose stage happens to be the workplace. Meanwhile, Tim, who can only maintain his sanity by teasing the priggish Gareth, continues to wrestle with his yearning for receptionist Dawn Tinsley (Lucy Davis), a sympathetic character persisting in a relationship with a man about whom she still maintains unspoken reservations. As ever, it's the awkward, reality TV-style pauses and silences, the furtive, meaningful and unmet glances across the emotional gulf of the open-plan office, that say it all here. As for Brent, his own breakdown is prefaced by a moment of hideous hilarity--an impromptu office dance, a mixture of "Flashdance and MC Hammer" as Brent describes it, but in reality bad beyond description. Then, when his fate is sealed, he at last reveals himself in a memorable finale to perhaps the greatest British sitcom, besides Fawlty Towers, ever made. --David Stubbs

The brilliant and devastating comedy of The Office is brought to a satisfying conclusion in The Office Special, originally a two-part Christmas special on the BBC, set three years after the end of the faux-documentary's second season. The former office manager David (Ricky Gervais) now ekes out a desperate existence as an oblivious quasi-celebrity, making awkward, humiliating visits back to the office staff he still believes loves him. Gawky Gareth (Mackenzie Crook) has risen to manager and become a petty tyrant, while the sweet but snide Tim (Martin Freeman) continues to pine for former receptionist Dawn (Lucy Davis), who fled to Florida with her fiance. When the documentary crew pays for Dawn to return for the holiday party, an unpredictable reunion looms ahead. The Office fuses scathing humor and genuine empathy, turning excruciating social discomfort into inspired satire. Fans will find this special rewarding in all respects. --Bret Fetzer

Every episode, plus the two Christmas specials, from the BBC's award-winning, faux documentary comedy series starring Ricky Gervais as David Brent, the manager of paper merchant Wernham Hogg's Slough office, who, in his own mind, is not so much the boss but 'more of a friend'. Unctious and ineffectual in equal measure, he turns the life of his staff into a neverending round of irritating mini-dramas. In the first series, David is informed that company downsizing means that the Slough office might have to close. In a moment of gauche managerial bravado he promises his staff that there will be no redundacies - a promise he might not be able to keep... In the second series, the office has been merged and new staff from the Swindon office arrive to feel the benefit of David's managerial skills. Tim (Martin Freeman) finds himself going out with new girl Rachel (Stacey Roca), whilst still in love with Dawn (Lucy Davis). After a series of mishaps, David is finally told he is to be made redundant - and in the final episode Tim tells Dawn how he feels. In the two Christmas specials, first screened in December 2003, three years have passed since the BBC documentary crew first began filming at Wernham Hogg. When they return for a final catch-up visit, they find Gareth (Mackenzie Crook) in the boss's chair. David Brent has become a travelling sales rep for a cleaning products company, blown his redundancy payout on releasing his own pop single ('If You Don't Know Me By Now'), and taken on a showbiz agent to book him a string of Z-list celebrity appearances. Despite his successful sueing of Wernham Hogg for unfair dismissal, Brent pays frequent visits to his old workplace with his dog in tow, much to the annoyance of boss Neil (Patrick Baladi). In 'Part 1', Tim is flustered to hear of the imminent arrival of Dawn, who along with her fiance Lee (Joel Beckett) is being flown back from her new life in Florida by the documentary crew to attend the office Christmas party. In 'Part 2', Tim's world is rocked when Dawn turns up at the office to say hello, but he tries not to get his hopes up, particularly since Lee is accompanying Dawn to the office party. Meanwhile, David Brent has joined a dating agency and, in between making his celebrity appearances in nightclubs, he meets up for drinks with a disappointing selection of single women. However, he hits the jackpot when he meets his dating-agency date for the office party, a very attractive and intelligent woman, Carol (Sandy Hendrickse), who seems to bring out the best in him. Meanwhile, Dawn, who had left the party early with her insensitive pig of a boyfriend Lee, later returns alone, much to the surprise and delight of her real soulmate Tim.