Last week I finally got around to watching the entire first season of the BBC's comedy show The Office. I thought it was very funny. My enjoyment was marred only by the fact that I had to turn up the volume really high since the sound quality is poor and I can't understand British people when they talk quickly.
I confess that I might have enjoyed the episodes even more if I had watched them over a longer period of time, but I rented the DVD and so felt an (idiotic) urge to watch them all over the course of 24 hours when I had other things to be doing. I thought the first season peaked at the fourth episode, which contained one of the funniest scenes I've seen anywhere in a long time. (The scene is the one in which David and the visiting staff trainer role-play a customer's interaction with a rude hotel clerk.) Episodes 5 and 6 were either weaker, or I was, from so much watching.
My wife was less enthusiastic about the show, and I had to pout a bit in the video store to clinch its selection. She enjoyed the first two episodes, but then her patience wore thin. By the final episode, she was well and truly ticked. (We didn't watch them all in a row, but we've got a small Brooklyn apartment, and she was sort of involuntarily along for the ride.) She's also has the same feeling about the show Curb Your Enthusiasm, for which I have a boundless appetite. I find the socially uncomfortable scenes in Curb Your Enthusiasm painful, but in a good way. The first time my wife saw Curb Your Enthusiasm, she found the socially uncomfortable scenes painful, but that was because she got a migraine from watching it.
Thanks, by the way, to all you Brits (roughly 20% of my readership, according to my site meter) for paying for "The Office" through your BBC dues (or whatever they are).
Posted by Chris at July 21, 2004 07:26 PMHa, in Ireland we can watch on the Beeb AND avoid the tiresome business of the license fee.
The Office is marginally better than Curb but they're both f**kin' marvelous. Both, as you say, are painful and hilarious in equal measure. That "training day" scene is fantastic ("There's been a rape upstairs!").
The second series is just as good - though maybe even more painful/sad. It also contains the greatest moment of physical comedy in history - David Brent dancing. Has to be seen to be believed.
Posted by: DC at July 22, 2004 04:21 AMIt's only fair we paid for the office mate, since you yanks gave us soul-crushing corporate job mentality and vacuous management talk.
Posted by: Matthew at July 22, 2004 04:55 AMAw, c'mon, Matthew... you just need to readjust your synergy paradigm and think more proactively! Ha. "Go and get the guitar."
And, yeah, the gang and I here in Japan are eagerly awaiting the second season, supposedly mailed by someone's brother, in DVD form, just the other day. Brilliant stuff.
Posted by: chefyamabushi at July 22, 2004 05:02 AMCame here via 'General Bad Taste in Music' - sorry 'General Theory of Rubbish' blog. I must insist that anyone watching the second series of the Office that they watch it two times before passing judgement on it.
Watching the second series first time round, I could only watch it through my fingers - when I wasn't actually looking away in horror; the levels of embarrassment that Gervais and his writing partner, Merchant, inflicts on Gervais's character is such that you must have the stomach of a surgeon or a coroner to watch without flinching. Watching it the second time round meant that I was able to pick up on the visual humour that I largely missed watching it first time round.
Another couple of brilliant - but inpenetrable to the overseas viewer - British comedies of recent years are Phoenix Nights and Shameless (which is more of a comedy drama). They occasionally appear on www.suprnova.org if anyone wants to check them out.
Posted by: impossibilist1904 at July 23, 2004 04:11 AMI agree with impossilist on his 'Pheonix Nights' and 'Shameless' party line. However, his take on my musical taste deserves to be rubbished. Are you trying to cause a split? Splitter.
Posted by: Will at July 23, 2004 06:34 AMSorry Will - still smarting from the fact I couldn't in good conscious supply a Top Ten of 'Rawk' acts for Normski's blog - it ails me so.
Glad that you like Shameless - a comrade of mine can't watch it 'cos it resembles life on his estate too much. He is missing out.
Whilst I'm on a tv tip, the first series of 15 Storeys is also excellent - didn't watch it on tv first time round but found it via suprnova. God bless the internet - and some people have nothing good to say about the military industrial complex and its schemes and inventions for its self perpetuation - spoilsports, I say.
Posted by: impossibilist1904 at July 23, 2004 07:08 AM