Television The Office, US Version

lsd

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Weird when you rewatch the show you realise that they are all pretty horrible people especially Pam and Jim yet you still root for them
 

Alock1

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Weird when you rewatch the show you realise that they are all pretty horrible people especially Pam and Jim yet you still root for them
Are they?
 

lsd

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Are they?

Yes they are, they are totally self centered Jim would be a real dick to work with in all honestly . Pam has dont a lot of bad things too stringing people along Jim included at times.

Dwight though is the one who is really the hero of The Office and at least he puts others first most if the time and cares about people other than himself
 

Alock1

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Yes they are, they are totally self centered Jim would be a real dick to work with in all honestly . Pam has dont a lot of bad things too stringing people along Jim included at times.

Dwight though is the one who is really the hero of The Office and at least he puts others first most if the time and cares about people other than himself
I bet you are loads of fun
 

nimic

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And I'm all out of bubblegum.
Dwight though is the one who is really the hero of The Office and at least he puts others first most if the time and cares about people other than himself
Dwight? The guy who fired a gun in the office? Who immediately tried to fire his co-workers when he (thinks) he's in charge? Who caused his Stanley to have a heart-attack by staging a fire? Who had an affair with a co-worker who was engaged to another co-worker? Who went to a competing branch with the intention of starting a fire?

I love Dwight, but by the standards of "normal life", he's easily the most messed up of all of them.
 

Alock1

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Dwight? The guy who fired a gun in the office? Who immediately tried to fire his co-workers when he (thinks) he's in charge? Who caused his Stanley to have a heart-attack by staging a fire? Who had an affair with a co-worker who was engaged to another co-worker? Who went to a competing branch with the intention of starting a fire?

I love Dwight, but by the standards of "normal life", he's easily the most messed up of all of them.
I assumed it was a troll post
 

lsd

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Dwight? The guy who fired a gun in the office? Who immediately tried to fire his co-workers when he (thinks) he's in charge? Who caused his Stanley to have a heart-attack by staging a fire? Who had an affair with a co-worker who was engaged to another co-worker? Who went to a competing branch with the intention of starting a fire?

I love Dwight, but by the standards of "normal life", he's easily the most messed up of all of them.

He has shown he cares about others rather than himself on more than one occasion and that alone puts him above the rest.

He has also shown he would do anything for the Office and its staff quite a few times as well.

I'm just saying its really noticeable on second viewing that Jim is a jerk and Pam little better.

When it comes down to it if i had to work with any of them i would probably pick Dwight or Creed :lol:
 

lsd

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Dwight being a better character than Jim is quite different to realising all the characters are just terrible people (and even caring to notice)

Hey i like the show I'm just saying they are not people i would want to work with or be around as they do not have a lot of nice qualities.
 

entropy

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Jim is a selfish bitch who lacks any personality or compassion whatsoever. I don’t understand what Pam sees in him. She obviously deserves better but can’t bring herself to make the big step and leave her stupid job. Together both of them will eventually grow old, miserable, and separate just like Pam’s parents did. Rashida’s character was smart to have dodged the bullet with Jim.
 

Sylar

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S1 is an almost 1:1 remake of the original Office, that's why it's much shorter.

I personally prefer Parks and Rec to this, but as American sitcoms go, this is still very good (last few seasons notwithstanding).
Ah that makes sense then
I know for sure the first scene was an absolute copy and it's very strange for a US show to be that short
They sure did rectify that in the second season :lol:
 

Sylar

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five seasons in and I'm loving it so far.

They ended the Karen / jim stuff quicker than I thought and really thought Jim / Pam would be a longer deal to get there but was surprised they did it when they did (not that it was a bad thing so far)

Enjoying the humour especially watching it now and seeing how outdated a few things are
 

Sylar

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Ok so im into s6, almost finished it. Im still loving it. Some of the episodes are especially great. and some of the scenes are still aweseome.

Dwight impersonating Stanley, Kevin and Toby was just amazing :lol:
 

Shane88

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Binge watching it really made me grow a deep hatred for Jim-face. Cnut was at it half a dozen times per episode.

I enjoyed Idris Elba not putting up with any of his shit.
 

lsd

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Binge watching it really made me grow a deep hatred for Jim-face. Cnut was at it half a dozen times per episode.

I enjoyed Idris Elba not putting up with any of his shit.

Right it's weird as first time through it i thought Jim and Pam were amazing people. Second time i kept thinking what really horrible people they both are
 

Oggmonster

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Right it's weird as first time through it i thought Jim and Pam were amazing people. Second time i kept thinking what really horrible people they both are
Why are they horrible??

People always say stuff like this about sitcoms years after they've aired. There's similar stuff about Friends etc.
 

Berbasbullet

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Binge watching it really made me grow a deep hatred for Jim-face. Cnut was at it half a dozen times per episode.

I enjoyed Idris Elba not putting up with any of his shit.
I think in a real office you’d proper hate Jim :lol: spends all his time flirting and doesn’t do anything.
 

Rado_N

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Why are they horrible??

People always say stuff like this about sitcoms years after they've aired. There's similar stuff about Friends etc.
Jim:

- pursues an engaged woman
- constantly pranks his colleagues
- avoids work at all costs whilst making out he should be promoted
- convinced Karen to move to Scranton then dumped her
- tried to steal his bosses job
- bought a house without talking to his wife
- took a job in another city without talking to his wife

I can’t remember any more, but he’s a bit of a dick.

But it’s a comedy show so it doesn’t really matter when it’s funny.
 

Oggmonster

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Jim:

- pursues an engaged woman
- constantly pranks his colleagues
- avoids work at all costs whilst making out he should be promoted
- convinced Karen to move to Scranton then dumped her
- tried to steal his bosses job
- bought a house without talking to his wife
- took a job in another city without talking to his wife

I can’t remember any more, but he’s a bit of a dick.

But it’s a comedy show so it doesn’t really matter when it’s funny.
Well when you put it like that :lol:

But in fairnesss yeah it's a comedy so most characters are ridiculously exaggerated.

I've heard the thing in the past that they're unlikeable (Jim in particular) cos of how he treats Dwight but if you took it on face value Dwight is worse than Jim.

- Affair with Angela and pretty much mocks Andy to his face about it
- Has various weapons in the office, threatens to petrol bomb another branch
- Unproductive at work by constantly joining in Michael's shite
- Tried to steal his bosses job (a few times)

Re the talk of if it was a real office you'd hate Jim. I think people like Dwight and Andy would be far worse....Dwight would probably be in prison in reality, I can't really see why Jim is a dick for what he does to people like that cos they're hardly great themselves.

Like you say it's a comedy so they're all ridiculously exaggerated characters especially by about Series 5 onwards (albeit its still really funny til Steve Carrell leaves.) Compare any of the characters to their British counter part and they are way OTT in everything they do. The British one does get an office environment perfect though character wise.
 

lsd

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I love the show and they are all great characters but Jim and Pam throughout the show thought of no one but themselves.

As employees they were both terrible and as people they were both terrible.

In real life you would hate them.

In real life I can't think of anyone in the show I would want to be friendly with or work with.

Karen perhaps as she was pretty decent. Dwight you could laugh at/with and at least they were good at their jobs
 

Oggmonster

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I love the show and they are all great characters but Jim and Pam throughout the show thought of no one but themselves.

As employees they were both terrible and as people they were both terrible.

In real life you would hate them.

In real life I can't think of anyone in the show I would want to be friendly with or work with.

Karen perhaps as she was pretty decent. Dwight you could laugh at/with and at least they were good at their jobs
Pam always did her job to be fair, I'd imagine as a receptionist of a small paper company there's periods of down time.

Jim was constantly referred to as the second best sales man and always meeting his targets as well. He's equally far more apporachable and "Normal" than Dwight/Andy/Michael.

If it was real then the culture of not working comes from the boss who is constantly having them do anything but work so it makes sense that all of them procrasinate slightly.

If it was real life Andy would of been fired for punching a hole in the wall in the early series, Michael would not get away with anything he does, Dwight would most likely be in prison etc. Jim and Pam are pretty normal in comparison to the other "main" characters.

I never got why Ryan is a main character in the credits at the start, he's not really in it any more than Kelly, Angela, Toby, Kevin etc.
 

Rado_N

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Pam invented a job and lied her way into a pay rise for filling the nonexistent role :lol:

This after strong arming her way into a sales job and making no sales!
 

Oggmonster

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Pam invented a job and lied her way into a pay rise for filling the nonexistent role :lol:

This after strong arming her way into a sales job and making no sales!
True...but she did always work. That kind of stuff shows how ridiculously managed the company was (hence it almost going bust.) I'm not saying they're perfect but they weren't really terrible people or terrible at their jobs. When you think that the show is an extreme exaggeration of an office environment if you tone it down they are probably the 2 most normal people there maybe with the exception of someone like Stanley or Karen. The obvious comparison being the British Office with Tim and Dawn being shown as pretty normal and down to earth compared to Gareth and David.

She didn't really strong arm herself into it did she? I've not watched it for a while but from memory she goes and works with Michael and asks for a certain job, when they come back it's Michael who insists she goes into sales. If anything that whole arc shows her and Michael in a positive light. Michael especially being loyal to her and helping her (and Ryan) with the takeover. There's obviously something wrong with making up a job but getting yourself a better career is perfectly fine which is what she did with the sales stuff.

Obviously as we keep saying it's all OTT comedy as are a lot of American comedies but I do find it interesting how people don't like the 2 of them I've never quite seen it that way. I somewhat understand it with the Friends one cos they are all quite selfish people but The Office writing for me did get them as being decent people if not very flawed.

The one thing if it was real though is there's no way anyone would film 9 series of a paper merchants and then sit on it for that long without releasing it with some of the stuff they filmed. Equally and off an a tangent somewhat but I never quite got the Parks and Rec "documentary" style, they lean into it but never fully commit like The Office do, hard to explain but it's almost like they use it when it suits them.
 

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Pam always did her job to be fair, I'd imagine as a receptionist of a small paper company there's periods of down time.

Jim was constantly referred to as the second best sales man and always meeting his targets as well. He's equally far more apporachable and "Normal" than Dwight/Andy/Michael.

If it was real then the culture of not working comes from the boss who is constantly having them do anything but work so it makes sense that all of them procrasinate slightly.

If it was real life Andy would of been fired for punching a hole in the wall in the early series, Michael would not get away with anything he does, Dwight would most likely be in prison etc. Jim and Pam are pretty normal in comparison to the other "main" characters.

I never got why Ryan is a main character in the credits at the start, he's not really in it any more than Kelly, Angela, Toby, Kevin etc.
He's a writer/producer for it so that is probably why.
 

The Corinthian

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Yeah his constant change of character is funny as feck I think. The hipster phase is his best for me albeit the episode where he's off his head on coke and Michael and Dwight are oblivious to it is good.
Also his constant belittling of Pam in the Michael Scott Paper Company and in later seasons made my day.
 

Rado_N

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True...but she did always work. That kind of stuff shows how ridiculously managed the company was (hence it almost going bust.) I'm not saying they're perfect but they weren't really terrible people or terrible at their jobs. When you think that the show is an extreme exaggeration of an office environment if you tone it down they are probably the 2 most normal people there maybe with the exception of someone like Stanley or Karen. The obvious comparison being the British Office with Tim and Dawn being shown as pretty normal and down to earth compared to Gareth and David.

She didn't really strong arm herself into it did she? I've not watched it for a while but from memory she goes and works with Michael and asks for a certain job, when they come back it's Michael who insists she goes into sales. If anything that whole arc shows her and Michael in a positive light. Michael especially being loyal to her and helping her (and Ryan) with the takeover. There's obviously something wrong with making up a job but getting yourself a better career is perfectly fine which is what she did with the sales stuff.

Obviously as we keep saying it's all OTT comedy as are a lot of American comedies but I do find it interesting how people don't like the 2 of them I've never quite seen it that way. I somewhat understand it with the Friends one cos they are all quite selfish people but The Office writing for me did get them as being decent people if not very flawed.

The one thing if it was real though is there's no way anyone would film 9 series of a paper merchants and then sit on it for that long without releasing it with some of the stuff they filmed. Equally and off an a tangent somewhat but I never quite got the Parks and Rec "documentary" style, they lean into it but never fully commit like The Office do, hard to explain but it's almost like they use it when it suits them.
I’ve never given it this much thought (!) but I suspect the reason people highlight Jim and Pam being kinda assholes is because they’re presented as the loveable good guys we should all route for, where the others are never really presented positively, their flaws are acknowledged.
 

Oggmonster

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I’ve never given it this much thought (!) but I suspect the reason people highlight Jim and Pam being kinda assholes is because they’re presented as the loveable good guys we should all route for, where the others are never really presented positively, their flaws are acknowledged.
Yeah to be fair this is the most I've ever thought about it :lol: don't give my actual life this much thought come to think of it!