They could've done a lot more with this premise.
Don't get me wrong, Kathy Bates has been great in her limited amount of screen time, not so much a foil for Michael Scott -- the way Idris Elba's Charles Miner was last year -- as a force of nature.
Where Miner was a buttoned-down company man (and a character who might not have worked without an actor of Elba's intensity), Bates' Jo Bennett is larger than life. She's also not someone who seems to care all that much about who does what job at Dunder Mifflin -- or what questions the employees might have for her -- as long as it's done her way.
So when Bennett decided that the branch (is it still a branch, or the only remnant of Dunder Mifflin left?) only needed one manager, Michael and Jim have to decide which one of them does what job, and after some wrangling, Michael ends up back on the sales staff, while Jim moves into Michael's old office.
This sort of change might have been really good for The Office -- if not the actual office -- the same way Michael starting his own paper company did so much for last season. We got a glimpse of what could've been when Jim cracked down on Michael: "You actually have to do something."
Instead, it was simply a plot device to re-establish the status quo: by the end of the episode, Jim was a salesman again (albeit one who'll be making a lot more money due to Sabre's new commission rules), and Michael was back at his larger desk, free from Phyllis' unpleasant "side effects" and Dwight's casual dismissal of 1992-era sales traditions.
Bennett could still shake things up in Scranton, seeing as how Bates is supposedly appearing in a few different episodes. But tonight felt kind of like a wasted opportunity, and I'm hoping the show has a little more up its sleeve for the rest of the year than Pam and Jim's baby.
Other thoughts:
- The slow, slow courtship -- if it can even be called that -- between Andy and Erin has been unfailingly sweet, even if she doesn't know who Snoopy and Woodstock are.
- "Yours in professionalism, Nard Dog." Favorite line of the episode.
- No one really expected Dwight and Ryan's plan to bring down Jim to work, but I hope the show will team them up again in the future.
- Of course, I may have been soured on The Office because of how excellent Parks & Recreation was tonight (like it has been nearly every week). This was the first Thursday in a long time where I watched all four of NBC's sitcoms in a row, and it was easily the best of the group. (I'm still not sold on Community, and 30 Rock needs to wean itself off celebrities for awhile, although the montage of Jenna discovering her stalker's handiwork and screaming made me laugh out loud.) At any rate, when these shows return after the Olympics, I'll be adding Parks & Recreation to the blog. It's easily the best comedy on TV right now.
Tom Coombe
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