Office Watch-"Costume Contest"

This marks the beginning of my weekly (at least through this calendar year) reviews of half of NBC’s comedy Thursdays (sorry "30 Rock" fans, your show’s funny enough but I’ve just never really gotten into it, & anyone who actually watches "Outsourced"). Hopefully I won’t be overly inept, & can provide some insight into "The Office" & "Community" however if you want a professionals take I recommend Alan Sepinwall at hitfix.com, James Poniewozik at time.com, & the reviewers from the avclub.com.

It would be inappropriate for my first review to be off anything but "The Office". It’s my favorite sitcom of all-time (I own each season & have seen each episode from the first 3 seasons, the show’s apex, a half dozen times), & I was one of the early converts (props to Cody Johnson & Alex Van Guilder for being the only people I know to have discovered it before me), having started my weekly viewings in its 2^nd season. Quite simply no show has given me more enjoyment over the years (even you "Lost").

Now before I get to this episode I’d like to lay some ground. In my opinion "The Office" was the best sitcom on tv from the start of the second season through last year’s "Niagara" episode, then it immediately nosedived with the following episode (“Mafia”, probably the worst episode of the entire series) & the rest of the season was largely second-rate* as it failed to take full advantage of certain storylines (most notably Dunder-Mifflin going bankrupt), couldn’t find an emotional heart for the series in lieu of the JAM wedding, & took disappointing character turns with Michael (regressing from his time with Holly as he had an affair with a married woman) & Dwight (who became more cartoonish & for the first time failed to killed me each & every episode). For those reasons I was actually more intrigued than horrified upon learning this would be Steve Carell’s last season. It gave the show a chance to revive itself by providing it real direction.

*I personally believe the primary reason "The Office" has gone down hill is the loss of showrunner Greg Daniels ("The Simpsons", "King of the Hill") to "Parks and Recreation" (the best sitcom of last season). Daniels was the guy who first developed "The Office" for American television & he directed or wrote some of the shows all-time great episodes including "The Dundies", "Booze Cruise", "Gay Witch Hunt", "Beach Games", "Fun Run", & the aforementioned "Niagara". As seen in his previous work on "King of the Hill" (a seriously underrated show) Daniels is a master at mixing satire with heart & indeed the balance between the two was the key to "The Office"’s brilliant early years.

So far this season has continued last year’s tendency to be up & down, though at least this year the ups ("Andy’s Play" & "The Sting") weren’t spread too far apart & actually contained as many laughs as the best episodes of previous seasons. According to the show’s writers we won’t see any great movement forward in finding Michael’s replacement, & his relationship w/ Holly, until late in the season, I just hope it doesn’t take that long to his stride. Now onto this week’s episode…

Costume Contest was a solid episode, it had some great moments but it also felt once again like it could’ve been much better (Alan Sepinwall of hitfix.com suggested it would’ve worked better as an hour long episode & I tend to agree).

As for the major storylines I wasn’t a huge fan of the Michael-Darryl one. While I always enjoy Darryl (he’s overtaken Jim as the most competent & purposely funny character) Michael’s childish antics have grown quite tiresome. I found the idea of Michael being worried that Darryl wasn’t getting the credit he deserved to be enduring & true to character, it’s when he found out Darryl had gone behind his back that things didn’t work as well. I understand Michael would be upset by this (most boss’s would be) but his childish responses were far more annoying than they were funny (though the funniest scene of the episode was Michael wrongly confronting Kevin for going behind his back leading to Kevin breaking down into tears). His dressing up as Darryl didn’t work at all for me & the scene was only saved by Kelly, of all people, being the one to finally call him out (“Can you for once just let us enjoy a party without making it all about your issues?”). Then came the wee gee board scene which was notable only for it’s failure to make me laugh. Thankfully their storyline improved at the end the end when Darryl laid out the fact that Michael has actually never helped him at all & then they made peace by mildly undermining Gabe (always funny).

The Jim & Pam storyline started off simply enough with Jim refusing to wear his Popeye costume to match Pam’s Olive Oil. This did a great job showing their contrasting Halloween styles, Jim’s costumes always being excessively low key (3-hole punch Jim was a classic) & Pam having once been the only person at corporate dressed for Halloween with her Charlie Chaplin costume. It then continued with a plot involving new traveling salesman Danny (Timothy Olyphant! of Deadwood & Justified) that carried over from last episode from when we found out Danny & Pam had dated about 4 years ago & that their relationship had apparently ended when Danny failed to call her back. In this episode Jim, because he’s both amazed that someone wouldn’t call his wife back (& who honestly doesn’t love Pam?) & realizing it matters a little bit to Pam too, sets out to find the reason why. Danny originally attempts to kindly deflect Jim’s queries by saying Pam talked too much about Jim on their dates but eventually is forced to admit that he simply found her a little dorky, with the Olive Oil costume deftly proving his point. This set the stage for the emotional highlight of the episode when Jim asks how anyone couldn’t love that dork & proceeds to show up dressed in his Popeye costume with baby C.C. in a Swea’Pea costume as well. That ending may have been a tad obvious but I’ll be darned if it didn’t make me feel good.

The costume contest worked well, as did most of the costumes. Kelly as Snooki & then Katy Perry from the California Girls video was brilliant. Ryan as Justin Beiber would’ve been better if I’d gotten it while watching the episode (part of me is glad I didn’t). Andy & Meredith as Bill & Sookie from True Blood was fairly funny, & there’s probably a very funny deleted scene that fleshes (pun intended) that story out. Kevin’s Michael Moore costume would seem a bit dated but worked quite well & was well explained by Kevin’s, “The point is I look like Michael Moore.” Angela’s sexy nurse outfit was entirely out of character (then again Angela Kinsey’s never looked so hot). Gabe’s Lady Gaga outfit was ridiculous for someone in the office who’s struggled to gain respect as well as redundant if you watched Community beforehand. While Oscar’s being the only person to realize how little worth the coupon book truly had, thinking his “rational consumer” “costume” was far cleverer than it was, & then winning the coupon book due to his lack of effort in trying to win it was amusing throughout.

All in all I enjoyed this episode but can’t help but wish that it had been a bit more.

Episode Grade: B-

Other thoughts:

• Darryl’s conversation with Andy set up the idea of his wanting to move up in the company & while he may very well do that I don’t see him as Michael’s replacement simply because he would be to competent.
• Speaking of that conversation any time Andy talks about Cornell I laugh, & as Alan Sepinwall pointed out Andy mentioning there being a “Walter Bernard Hall” at Cornell explains a lot about Andy.
• The opening involving Stanley’s complete un-awareness of the rest of the office was amusing however I felt like it went a little too far out of reality & the rest of the episode continued to only leave me mildly satisfied.
• Always fun to see Todd Packer & hear one of his repulsive lines with today’s highlight being his asking Jim if he was “looking for someone to bang your wife?”
• Erin eating apples with her head under water instead of bobbing for them once again pushed her stupidity level up, still made me laugh though.
• Loved Ryan’s explanation for why he voted for Oscar in the costume contest, “I like to shake things up-I’m a Nader guy!”
• & Dwight’s “Does anyone remember what her Dad smelled like?” as well as his answer to Michael as to what Gabe & Kevin could be talking about, “Mmm, Kevin and Gabe? Probably about the extremes of the human physique.
• Can we get Pam in a sexy nurse’s outfit?
• Also I apologize for the length, future reviews will only talk about that week’s episode & thus be much shorter.

Now what were your thoughts on the episode?