The Office (US TV series)

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Yesterday from around 4:30 on was a particularly busy time on the blog. Not only did I have all four NBC comedies to watch and review, plus a "Fringe" I'd seen in advance, but ABC and NBC announced the respective premiere dates and timeslots for "Lost" and "Chuck" right as I was getting ready t...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Once again, I blame David Wallace, who is clearly not remotely as smart as he and the other characters want to think he is. Not only has he (as chief financial officer) allowed the company to get into this mess, but time and again, the man places Michael Scott in situations where Michael Scott...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Now, obviously, Michael Scott is a brilliant salesman, and can occasionally back his way into some clever managerial strategy, but for the most part, he's all hat and no cattle. He talks about being great at things that he's absolutely awful at (comedy, most notably), and the difference b...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) I more or less know what most of the series contenders are - and if you've been reading me for a while, you can figure some obvious ones out, like "The Wire," "The Sopranos," "Freaks & Geeks," "Arrested Development," etc. - and just have to figure out how to divvy them up. But the lists for be...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) And in the end, the murder game provided an opportunity for some silly fun for both the characters and the actors. You could tell how much Helms, Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson and even Jenna Fischer were enjoying that Mexican stand-off at the end, and how much the three guys got a kick out of bein...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Pam's discovery of Michael's relationship with her mom in "The Lover" led to a hilarious episode where Pam got to be loud and irrational while Michael was resembling a voice of reason. Everyone had calmed down by the time of "The Lover," and even Michael's decision to dump Helen on her birth...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) A great episode for an increasingly-great comedy. Some other thoughts: • One other nice Poehler moment: the loud indignation in Leslie's voice as she asks, "What kind of lunatic would rather be Cleopatra than Eleanor Roosevelt?"

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) I do have a couple of ongoing issues, though. First is that Phil needs to start demonstrating that he's not an utter moron in every aspect of his life, and soon. I suppose it would just make the Michael Scott comparisons even more obvious, but I was hoping it would turn out that Phil had conspire...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) I had dinner with fellow TV critics James Poniewozik and Maureen Ryan the other night, and Mo asked me why I was being so hard on "30 Rock" lately(*), especially compared to a show like "How I Met Your Mother," which can offer up its own clunkers and, at its best, isn't in the same comic stratos...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Seems to be at least one Thursday a season where I'm too overwhelmed by a cold or flu to be able to tell if "The Office" was any good or not. I want to say that "Koi Pond" didn't really work, but that could just be the germs talking. (Though I will say that they have not rendered me incapable of laughi...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Spoilers for tonight's "Parks and Recreation" coming up just as soon as I send a peach pit to the lab... "Greg Pikitis sucks and I want to destroy him." -LeslieI didn't have major problems with the last two episodes, but "Greg Pikitis" felt much more like the version of "Parks and Recreation" th...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) • Speaking of Dwight, I didn't like that he was so pumped-up to see Michael do his Blind Guy McSqueezy character (which all the women in Michael's improv class understandably hate). The Michael Scott Paper Company arc seemed to signal a sea change between these two characters, with Dwight...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Though "The Office" was, with Jim and Pam's wedding and the one-hour length, a more memorable episode tonight, "Parks and Rec" has, on average, been the best part of NBC's Thursday lineup since this season began. Based on the two underwhelming "30 Rock" season four episodes I've seen, I'm...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) • Michael wishes he was a bridesmaid; Also happy to see Captain Kirk's real-life father as Jim's kilt-wearing dad, to see Dwight be a plausible playa, and, as always, to see just how sweet John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer are together.

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Over at NJ.com, I explain why I didn't post this morning's Star-Ledger column about "Fringe," and then revisit one of my favorite topics: why keeping will-they-or-won't-they couples apart for too long is stupid, and why I'm therefore glad that Jim and Pam are getting married tonight on "...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) In fact, one of the key stylistic differences between "Parks and Rec" and "The Office" so far is that Schur and Greg Daniels have let their actors improvise more often than "The Office" cast gets to. I asked Schur about this, in something that wound up getting cut from the actual interview pi...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Straw poll: Season two (climaxing with Jim kissing Pam) or season five (Michael and Holly, followed by The Michael Scott Paper Company)? And can anyone make an argument for why seasons one, three or four should be in the discussion?

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) NBC's "Parks and Recreation" has its second season premiere tonight at 8:30, and the two episodes I've seen so far feel very much of a piece with "Rock Show," the capper to the first season and by far the strongest episode of that uneven batch.

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) • Rolf's scenes also set up an apparent Dwight/Angela reconciliation, based on the look on Angela's face after Dwight told Rolf to stop calling her a whore. And perhaps this will let Dwight allow Andy to pursue Erin, to whom he's obviously still attracted.

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) • The opening montage of the Michael Scott Paper Company staff tossing cheese puffs into each other's mouths -- which either required a lot of practice from Steve Carell, Jenna Fischer and B.J. Novak, or else is something the cast was already doing between takes -- was amusing enough (parti...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) That said, "Michael Scott Paper Company" did have the hilarious Dwight/Andy competitive duet on "Take Me Home, Country Roads," Kelly's plan to make Charles want her, and Michael stewing as he listened to Toby talk in the bathroom about "Damages." There were definitely funny things ther...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) But back to "Two Weeks" itself. A drunk Michael wandering through the office and being more disruptive than usual was hilarious, as was one of the best collections of talking heads I can recall from a single episode: Oscar's dreams about quitting; Charles recognizing the effect he has on w...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Now this will be very interesting, won't it? Obviously, Steve Carell isn't leaving the show, so eventually we're going to reach a point where Michael returns to Dunder-Mifflin -- possibly once David crunches the numbers and realizes how much business they're going to lose without the c...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Dare I call it the greatest "Office" moment of its kind since Pam had this reaction to Jim asking her out? In fairness, very few "Office" scenes ask their actors to show as many emotions in so short a period of time as Carell did here, and as Jenna Fischer did a couple of years ago. But still... wow.

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Spoilers for tonight's super-special Super Bowl episode of "The Office" coming up just as soon as I save a cat..."Stanley! Barack is president! YOU ARE BLACK, STANLEY!" -Michael ScottI spent a long time deliberating on what quote I wanted to lead this review with. There were just too many to c...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) The Shield""The Wire""Mad Men""Chuck""Lost""The Office""Battlestar Galactica""In Treatment""Breaking Bad""Burn Notice" & "The Middleman" (tie)To read the full column with flowery praise of each choice -- plus embedded video of memorable moments from each show -- click he...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) The Office" didn't do a Christmas episode in its brief first season, which debuted in the spring, and it didn't do one last year because of the strike. But man oh man oh man, the three times that they've been able to do a Christmas episode, they killed it.

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Business Trip" was a very melancholy episode, the sort the show does a few times a season, as we saw Michael, Andy, Jim and Pam and even Ryan struggle to come to terms with a lousy personal development: Michael grieving for the end of his relationship with Holly, Andy briefly (and drunkenly...

By asepinwall@starledger.com (Alan Sepinwall) Spoilers for last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I mix up several gallons of guacamole... • Is Dwight, like Michael, watching "The Wire," or is it just that the show's writers can't stop dropping references like "juked the stats"?

By asepinwall@starledger.com (Alan Sepinwall) And it's not like the episode was somber or maudlin or anything. There was still plenty of funny: Morgan and Lester's pathetic imitation spy mission (complete with special hand gestures and dive rolls) to chase away Michael Strahan and his pals, Chuck getting fed up with Bryce's condesce...

By noreply@blogger.com (Alan Sepinwall) 9-9:45 a.m.: An Olympics panel, with Dick Ebersol, Bob Costas and company appearing via satellite. 11:15-11:45 a.m.: Executive session, where I imagine far too much time will be devoted to parsing the exact nature of the "The Office" spin-off/non-spin-off with Amy Poehler.

By Alan Sepinwall ALEC BALDWIN / Jack Donaghy “30 Rock” (NBC) STEVE CARELL / Michael Scott “The Office” (NBC) RICKY GERVAIS / Andy Millman “Extras” (NBC) TONY SHALHOUB / Adrian Monk “Monk” (USA) 30 ROCK (NBC) DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES (ABC) ENTOURAGE (HBO) THE OFFICE (NBC)

By Alan Sepinwall A long time ago (in TV years), there was "Seinfeld," and within "Seinfeld" there was "The Boyfriend," an hourlong episode so consistently brilliant that it cemented the show's status as TV's next great comedy. Now there's "The Office," and not so long ago there was "Casino Night," an hour...