The Office: Promos (9x18)

This was a pretty fun episode! Given that it's a sitcom, I won't write too much about it, but overall I found it to be a success. As The Office winds down and prepares to end its final season, I really admire the move towards nostalgia and all the tie-ins to earlier parts of the show. It's really funny to see the fall-out centered around the documentary finally being released. This show, more than any other mockumentary I've seen, really plays with the formula and it makes for some great comedic and dramatic moments.

For one, I enjoyed Pam's wistful viewing of the promotional footage. It showed her relationship with Jim in a different and better light, and maybe made her realize once and for all that things are not alright between them. It all culminated in a pretty intense exchange with Brian, where she realized the extent to which their privacy had been violated over the past ten years. (A side note - it feels a tad unrealistic to me that they could have so much footage without these people's consent. Especially people like the Senator and other visitors who probably never signed anything or were aware of the cameras. Oh well. It's a television show).

There were two minor plot threads in this episode that I thought fell a bit flat. One was Jim in Philadelphia. I was not at all captivated or amused by his and Daryll's awkward exchanges with an unreasonable client. The other was the beginning of the episode, where we saw Phyllis getting a bit too enthusiastic about the 50 Shades of Grey audio-book. Okay, first of all, this topical reference is several months too late. Secondly, eww. Just... no. It went too far in my opinion.

I loved seeing the promos, because it gave us an opportunity to see Michael and Ryan, although I didn't notice any footage of Kelly, which was too bad. It really reminded me of the good ol' day without making me feel too dissatisfied with our current cast of characters. 

Dwight and Clark have a pretty hilarious relationship, and their scenes together are very funny. Dwight's relationship with the beautiful Esther is actually pretty compelling, as is Angela's jealousy about the whole thing. Erin had one of the funniest lines in the episode when she announced that Esther and her family had arrived: "Dwight, you have some guests. I think they're from the forest where we harvest our paper." Oh, Erin. You are adorable.

Speaking of Erin, I am continually annoyed by this show's decision to drop off plot threads with no warning. There has been no continuation of the drama between Erin, Andy, and Pete. I was actually interested in Erin and Pete's relationship, and I'm a bit peeved that I haven't been able to continue watching it unfold. Andy was relegated to pure comic relief this week, which is fine, except for he is never as funny as Michael Scott was, and sometimes it shows. His reactions to the promo and comments were pretty funny, but maybe not quite enough to hold up his part of the episode. The emotional stakes with Erin were really helping his character, and his comedic presence is suffering with out the drama to support it.

The most hilarious moments in the episode were centered around Oscar and Angela's horrified discovery that the Senator was going to be outed because of the documentary. Their hushed conversation in the stairwell was great. Oscar commented that the cameras had caught him kissing the Senator on Halloween. Angela gasps in outrage. "He was dressed like Ronald Reagan!" Oscar replies, "Well, he kissed like Jack Kennedy!" I honestly find their storyline one of the most compelling parts of the entire show. It is lovely to see how Angela has - sort of - come to accept Oscar for being gay, despite the awkward circumstances surrounding it. Their phone message to the Senator had me cracking up. They both start with "hi honey!" together, before Oscar tells him that he's going to be outed, and Angela admits to her affair with Dwight. It was deliciously awkward and I really enjoyed it.

So, as always with this show, there were some great moments and some lackluster ones. Not an episode that will go down in history, but a perfectly entertaining one nonetheless.

7/10