The Office: Season One

Comedy is Reborn
I love this show and I think NBC actually made one good decison this year by renewing it. Steve Carrell is genious as Michael Scott the manager with a little too much enthusiasm. The supporting cast is great and I'm glad that the bonus features are good because a 6 episode season of a half hour show is hardly worth twenty-two dollars but it's worth it. I didn't think the pilot was great but I tuned in again and I'm glad I did. I hope that if you don't watch this show that you decide to try it out because it is brillant. A lot of people say it isn't as good as the British version but it comes close. Check out Diversity Day it's the best in the set.

The Episodes

1. Pilot

2. Diversity Day

3. Healthcare

4. The Alliance

5. Basketball

6. Hot Girl

The bonus features include deleted scenes and audio commetaries. Even though it may seem pricey you'll probably get as much enjoyment out of it as you would any...

Finally, a US production worthy of its UK predecessor
I am and always have been a huge fan of British comedy. The wry sense of humor and the intelligent wit has always held far greater appeal to me than the cheap/obvious laughs that many American sitcoms tend to go for. Sadly, many copies (or attempted copies) of British comedies have been overadapted for the American audience (Coupling is a perfect example) and the result is a weak translation that loses all or most of what made the series so funny/original in the UK.

Fortunately, this version of the original UK show is absolutely hilarious, perhaps because the producers are tied closely and stay faithful to the original version. There was no dumbing down of the comedy - the irony, the facial expressions, the unbelievable audacity of the characters - for the sake of easier/louder laughs. The fact that there is no studio audience here makes it even funnier - the viewers are left to laugh on their own, without canned tracks or cues from a studio audience.

While...

Unexpectedly funny version of a classic BBC original
Like most other fans of the great BBC series THE OFFICE, I was absolutely horrified when they announced that they were doing an American version of the show. Ricky Gervais's show was so perfect, so unique that it didn't seem possible for it to be successfully translated into an American context. Also, the show was unimaginable without Ricky Gervais, who was both the creator and lead performer of the original. And to be honest, when the American show straightforwardly imitates the original, especially in the first episode, it compares rather badly. The jokes were tailored perfectly to Gervais and his cohorts, and they just didn't translate all that well to the new set of actors. However, once you get past the first episode, and the American crew produces original material, it actually becomes a very, very funny show. In fact, if you have seen the BBC version, I would recommend just skipping the first episode of the American version and going on from there. My other complaint...

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