Cold open? What cold open? Last night’s episode of The Office pretty much stunk from start to finish. I thought the cold open was going somewhere funny when Dwight mentioned a shelter in the face of an office-wide blackout. Instead the group pulled together to recall the server’s password. Awesome.
Whenever Ryan’s on screen The Office is scraping the bottom of the barrel. So a Ryan-centric plot is about the worst thing the show could do, short of a Kelly-centric one. One of the worst things about Michael is his puppy dog love for the idiot intern, and I cringe every time he gushes over him. After seven seasons it’s enough.
I was happy to hear Pam attempting to shatter Michael’s Ryan blindness, but more for the fact that someone was finally stating the obvious than for the impact it might have on Michael. I know we’re meant to think that Michael was smart to let Ryan admit his own defeat, but their relationship is long past the point where Michael should have told Ryan off for taking advantage of him for years. Anything short of that isn’t worth our time.
I can’t even begin to imagine how Ryan (and Michael) convinced Stanley, Pam, Andy, and Darryl to invest in an asinine business like wuphf.com. But the investment pitches is something I wouldn’t have minded seeing — it would have been funny to see how the pitches were altered for each personality. Oh well.
But at least we got to hear why Stanley made such a bad financial decision. Apparently he wants to own a decommissioned lighthouse that he can live in … and eventually launch into space. Oh yeah, that’s Stanley’s dream. That little piece of Stanley trivia is gold.
Dwight’s in a whole new place this season as the owner of the office building. Creating what he calls “Hay Place” in the parking lot? I was stunned that he got so many people to bring their kids, but as funny as a few things were — I knew Kevin would get lost in the maze, and I enjoyed the hayride in the closed Dunder Mifflin delivery truck — I’m left wondering what the hell he’s doing a lot these days.
I’ve never been much of an Angela fan, but I liked her meeting no name (Jack Coleman) outside the maze. I’m not sure if she processed that he has a kid, but she deserves to get out from under the yoke of Dwight. I don’t know about her deserving to find ultimate happiness, considering how she cheated on Andy, but she definitely deserves to realize that a sex contract with Dwight isn’t something she should resign herself to.
I’ve never worked in sales, so I don’t know if there was any truth to Jim’s plot, but talk about terrible business decision-making by a sales-based company. Capping salesman commission for a year is a horrible way to cut costs — without an incentive to sell, sales will always stagnate at the point where the salesman reaches their cap.
Now, as for Jim, he should have given those sales to Pam and the problem would have easily been solved, but the fact remains that he shouldn’t have had to. I’m shocked that Sabre ever managed to grow large enough to acquire another company.
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Nov 19, 2010 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
Pam’s not in sales anymore. But that’s a good point, he could have flipped it to say, Andy and they could have divided the commish somehow. I’m sure the company would not have liked that either. (That is if they found out about it.)
I’ve never experienced a commish cap in my travels, but I’ve seen the sales commish structure “change” when then top decides the that sales is making too much. That usually starts a mutiny. I don’t know about now, I think people are just happy to be employed at all.
*POST AUTHOR*
“Pam’s not in sales anymore”
Really? I thought she picked up the admin job as a way to ensure that she got a salary, but that she was still in sales. I wonder what she does all day if all she focuses on is a fake position. :)
I was expecting Jim to use Jo’s audio book to compile a message that would tell Gabe to remove the salary cap. Speaking of Gabe, I f***ing hate him completely. I can’t decide who I hate more him or Ryan.
I spend the whole episode wondering if Angela’s new love interest was HRG from Heroes. I think that distraction helped me get through the episode without hating it completely. Though I did enjoy Michael’s way of punishing Ryan for taking advantage of him. Hopefully the man crush has been finally extinguished, but who knows with this show.
*POST AUTHOR*
I’m with you on Jim’s project with Jo’s book. What he eventually did just left me scratching my head.
I miss the Season 1-3 Ryan. I liked that he was cold, but really the most normal person in the office.
*POST AUTHOR*
I’ll say that I didn’t hate early, pre-corporate Ryan. He wasn’t the best, but his character’s role was a perfect fit for the office place. Now he’s just stupid.