| Meaningless office drudgery was never so entertaining |
Another great season of "The Office", though initially I experienced some trepidation when discovering, upon watching the first episode in this set, that the perfect little snowglobe/microcosm of comic perfection that was season two of "The Office" had apparently been scattered to the winds. You see, there was just something so, well... perfect about that small group of characters permanantly on display in that small office set, playing off one another. Here- horrors!- we start off with Jim up in Connecticut interacting with a bunch of strangers, with the comic dynamic back in Scranton not having the same familiar flavor due to that change. Ah, but it soon becomes clear that there is a method to the creators' and writers' madness. Amid the funny stories (happily, just as weird and entertaining as usual), we slowly get to know and enjoy Jim's new colleagues, watch with interest as Jim's office slowly merges with the Scranton office, and watch with even more interest as the Jim/Pam dynamic slowly picks up again. In other words, by stirring the pot a little and throwing some new seasonings into the mix, we still get the show we know and love but with a new freshness and a complete lack of repetitiveness.
Also enjoyable is that the character of Michael is allowed to further grow, with new complexities being added to the first glimmers of complexity seen in season two. Happily, Michael is still given his moments of cluelessness (usually when he's talking about women), but it's fun to see him get one up on Dwight and new office buffoon Andy on occasion. And it's also nice to see Pam and the other women in the office side with Michael when they feel he's being mistreated by Jan. Good stuff, and- again- a nice combination of familiar and fresh.
The special features on these discs remain quite agreeable, too, especially the deleted scenes attached to most of the episodes. Each deleted scenes segment runs from a few minutes to almost the length of an entire regular show, with each segment feeling like a polished, parallel, (as just as funny) version of the episode you just watched, letting you see the many hilarious scenes that happened in between the scenes of the "official" episode. Don't miss 'em!
And now for the long wait for season four of "The Office" on DVD. Sigh, I really should just start to watch these things on regular TV, commercials or not. But these DVD sets, including this one, are just wonderfully entertaining ways to watch these great episodes.
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5 Rating
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