Product Description
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Every episode, plus the two Christmas specials, from the BBC's
award-winning, documentary-style comedy series starring Ricky
Gervais as David Brent, the manager of paper merchant Wernham
Hogg's Slough office, who, in his own mind, is not so much the
boss but more of a friend. Unctuous and ineffectual in equal
measure, he turns the life of his staff into a never-ending round
of irritating mini-dramas. Series 1 episodes are: 'Downsize',
'Work Experience', 'The Quiz', 'Training', 'New Girl' and
'Judgement'. Series 2 episodes are: 'Merger', 'Appraisals',
'Party', 'Motivation', 'Charity' and 'Interview'.
.co.uk Review
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It feels both inaccurate and inadequate to describe The Office
as a comedy. On a superficial level, it disdains all the
conventions of television sitcoms: there are no punch lines, no
jokes, no laugh tracks, and no cute happy endings. More
profoundly, it's not what we're used to thinking of as funny.
Most of the fervently devoted fan base watched with a
discomfortingly thrilling combination of identification and
mortification. The paradox is that its best moments are almost
physically unwatchable. Set in the offices of a fictional British
paper merchant, The Office is filmed in the style of a reality
television show. The writing is subtle and deft, the acting
wonderful, and the characters beautifully drawn: the cadaverous
team leader Gareth (Mackenzie Crook); the monstrous sales rep,
Chris Finch (Ralph Ineson); and the decent but long-suffering
everyman Tim (Martin Freeman), whose ambition and imagination
have been crushed out of him by the banality of ! the life he
dreams uselessly of escaping. The show is stolen, as it was
intended to be, by insufferable office manager David Brent,
played by codirector-cowriter Ricky Gervais. Brent will become a
name as emblematic for a particular kind of British grotesque as
Basil Fawlty, but he is a deeper character. Fawlty is an
exaggeration of reality, and therefore a safely comic figure.
Brent is as appalling as only reality can be. --Andrew Mueller
The second series exceeded even the sky-high standards of the
first. Indeed, it ventured beyond caricature and satire, touching
on the very edge of darkness. Ricky Gervais is once again
excruciatingly superb as David Brent, but in this series, Brent's
to-the-camera assertions concerning his management qualities and
executive capabilities are seriously challenged when the Slough
and Swindon branches are merged and his former Swindon equivalent
Neil (Patrick Baladi) takes over as area manager. To compensate,
Brent cultivates his pathologically mistaken image of himself as
an entertainer-motivator-comedian whose stage happens to be the
workplace. Meanwhile, Tim, who can only maintain his sanity by
teasing the priggish Gareth, continues to wrestle with his
yearning for receptionist Dawn Tinsley (Lucy Davis), a
sympathetic character persisting in a relationship with a man
about whom she still maintains unspoken reservations. As ever,
it's the awkward, reality TV-style pauses and silences, the
furtive, meaningful and unmet glances across the emotional gulf
of the open-plan office, that say it all here. As for Brent, his
own breakdown is prefaced by a moment of hideous hilarity--an
impromptu office dance, a mixture of "Flashdance and MC Hammer"
as Brent describes it, but in reality bad beyond description.
Then, when his e is sealed, he at last reveals himself in a
memorable finale to perhaps the greatest British sitcom, besides
Fawlty Towers, ever made. --David Stubbs
The brilliant and devastating comedy of The Office is brought to
a satisfying conclusion in The Office Special, originally a
two-part Christmas special on the BBC, set three years after the
end of the faux-documentary's second season. The former office
manager David (Ricky Gervais) now ekes out a desperate existence
as an oblivious quasi-celebrity, making awkward, humiliating
visits back to the office staff he still believes loves him.
Gawky Gareth (Mackenzie Crook) has risen to manager and become a
petty tyrant, while the sweet but snide Tim (Martin Freeman)
continues to pine for former receptionist Dawn (Lucy Davis), who
fled to Florida with her fiance. When the documentary crew pays
for Dawn to return for the holiday party, an unpredictable
reunion looms ahead. The Office fuses scathing humor and genuine
empathy, turning excruciating social discomfort into inspired
satire. Fans will find this special rewarding in all respects.
--Bret Fetzer