Anyone who has regularly followed the American version of The Office, will remember how in the second and third seasons the script drew you in and told the whole story just with glances, micro-expressions and an implicit understanding, and how totally unique that made the show. You had a banal story on the surface about something like a girl coming into the office selling handbags, while the real story in every episode was found by reading between the lines of the dialogue, catching the tiniest inflections in a character's voice, or noticing a brief moment of unspoken pain on the face of Jim. It connected with its watchers by relating to the social undercurrents we all experience everyday, and drawing us into an underdog love story without words. No other show did that, and the hilarious, tragic empathy the watcher felt with the characters back then in the invisible storyline was what made the show great and impossible to stop watching.
By Season 5 things were going downhill coherent-plot-wise, Steve Carrell left in season 7, and the current season 8 is just not great. The writers appear to have lost sight of that magic which made seasons 2 and 3 so brilliant, and lost the thread of an underground unspoken narrative, instead just constantly rambling down dead-end red-herring directions which either end abruptly or peter out into nothing. The show used to have a unique selling-point in making the main stories of the episodes meaningless everyday office busywork and the underlying implied narrative a consistent thread throughout a season. It has now reversed somewhat, and instead contains no secret script, has a very random 'going nowhere' storyline on the surface, and abandons interesting storyline ideas everytime it wanders more than 5 minutes in their direction. The show has now come to reflect the dull and random nature of everyday life with it's lack of meaning or overarching narrative, and we all have everyday lives, and so why would we want to watch more of the same? The pleasure at the heart of watching a show ultimately boils down to enjoying good storytelling - its the modern day equivalent of sitting round the campfire as an elder in the village talks about an ancient myth - it is supposed to be unreal, exciting and unexpected! If he told a long rambling tale about hunting for deer, not getting any, coming home and having a fight with his family, putting wood on the village fire, then going to bed, I expect he'd have no audience left by the end. That's what's happening with the Office.
Greg Daniels and Michael Schur from the Office writing team have also started Parks & Recreation, another awesome show which seems much more 'in its prime', but is starting to show some of the same symptoms on a smaller scale. People enjoy a clever plot! Stop randomly developing genuinely really good ideas which are just never ever picked up again. What happened to the Scranton Strangler? That plot idea could have been awesome, but it just dissolved and was never seen again. Who cares whether or not that would happen in real life? If a show becomes social observation/commentary with a side of humour and plot, people won't fall in love with the story line or characters, but if a show doesn't get too pretentious and manages to be fun and interesting, there is no limit to the social comment which can be made when plot and humour come first, and commentary second.
By Season 5 things were going downhill coherent-plot-wise, Steve Carrell left in season 7, and the current season 8 is just not great. The writers appear to have lost sight of that magic which made seasons 2 and 3 so brilliant, and lost the thread of an underground unspoken narrative, instead just constantly rambling down dead-end red-herring directions which either end abruptly or peter out into nothing. The show used to have a unique selling-point in making the main stories of the episodes meaningless everyday office busywork and the underlying implied narrative a consistent thread throughout a season. It has now reversed somewhat, and instead contains no secret script, has a very random 'going nowhere' storyline on the surface, and abandons interesting storyline ideas everytime it wanders more than 5 minutes in their direction. The show has now come to reflect the dull and random nature of everyday life with it's lack of meaning or overarching narrative, and we all have everyday lives, and so why would we want to watch more of the same? The pleasure at the heart of watching a show ultimately boils down to enjoying good storytelling - its the modern day equivalent of sitting round the campfire as an elder in the village talks about an ancient myth - it is supposed to be unreal, exciting and unexpected! If he told a long rambling tale about hunting for deer, not getting any, coming home and having a fight with his family, putting wood on the village fire, then going to bed, I expect he'd have no audience left by the end. That's what's happening with the Office.
Greg Daniels and Michael Schur from the Office writing team have also started Parks & Recreation, another awesome show which seems much more 'in its prime', but is starting to show some of the same symptoms on a smaller scale. People enjoy a clever plot! Stop randomly developing genuinely really good ideas which are just never ever picked up again. What happened to the Scranton Strangler? That plot idea could have been awesome, but it just dissolved and was never seen again. Who cares whether or not that would happen in real life? If a show becomes social observation/commentary with a side of humour and plot, people won't fall in love with the story line or characters, but if a show doesn't get too pretentious and manages to be fun and interesting, there is no limit to the social comment which can be made when plot and humour come first, and commentary second.
