Channelup

I love a good rumor. I love spreading said rumor. I like embellishing it and I especially enjoy telling everyone within earshot. In this way I can 100% identify with one Mr. Michael Scott. Everyone hates being the last to know. Jim and Pam are pregnant. We discovered this at the end of season five (a truly great moment of television). They have decided to not tell the rest of the office in an effort to avoid the annoying questions and inevitable over emphasis on the situation. I can identify with this thought. I dreaded telling my coworkers about getting engaged to be married. It wasn't that I didn't want to share the joy. I just knew the next couple of months would be an incessant barrage of wedding questions and comments. It will be the same when Mrs. Channelup gets knocked up. I'll never hear the end of the oooohs and aaahs. Michael strives to become the center of the rumor mill. Unfortunately, he sits around the periphery of the office gossip. But when he...

No one does a barbecue like a mid level paper company. This episode had a little for everyone: Volleyball, Rolf, and branch logo t-shirts. (Spoilers ahead) Season 3 ended with Pam and Mrs. Channelup crying. This season ended with Jim and Mrs. Channelup crying. We'll get to that in a second. First, the company picnic gave a chance for the writers to find doppelgangers for some of the characters. We met Dwight's friend Rolf, Toby's HR compadre, and the obvious Buffalo branch version of Jim. I talked last week about writers apparent goal to make each character as ridiculous as possible. I thought Company Picnic scaled it back to classic-Office sensibility. (Is it too early to call something "classic Office?" Its been around long enough I suppose.) Tonight we saw the characters little flaws more on the periphery rather than throwing the absurdity right in our faces. Where I thought last week the cafe disco was over the top, the volleyball game offered the ...

The Office hasn't been the same since Michael came back. At least that's his claim and it precipitates the inception of the "party room." Who wouldn't love this in their job? A room where they played techno music and everyone raved all day? Scratch that, I would hate it. Michael doesn't have the same connection with the larger staff at Dunder Mifflin as he had with his workforce of three at Michael Scott Paper (Pam and Ryan). He yearns for the same connectivity and tries to achieve it through exxpresso (sic) and house music at annoyingly loud decibels. He turns the old Michael Scott Paper into a meet-and-greet disco type place for office workers to kick back and relax. Unfortunately, no one can take it easy with Michael around. Nor do they want to. It isn't until Michael gives up all hope of the space that the two Kelly's (secretary and customer service) take it over and make it into the party atmosphere Michael dreamed off. I loved how th...

You knew the much-anticipated massive corporate merger between Dunder Mifflin and Michael Scott Paper Company would not be without its problems. One could argue the biggest problem is allowing Meredith to participate in casual Friday, but other issues abound. The salespeople mutiny begins and I can't say I blame them. Everyone feels hurt. Michael wants an apology from the salespeople at Dunder Mifflin who didn't leave one sinking ship for an already sunk ship. The salespeople want their clients back. Secret meetings and urine soaked memos aside, the DM sales staff have legitimate complaints seeing as how their clients should never have been snatched to begin with. In addition, Michael's reemergence as the head of the office has brought out a completely different Dwight. Where Dwight's past self fawned over and acquiesced to Michael's every whim and demand, the new Dwight has begun to feel his subordinate oats a bit more. I actually like this new Dwight even ...

You knew the great Michael Scott could never be fired. You knew that right? We all knew that. He is too radical. His rag-tag group of over/under-achieving salespeople managed to parlay a shit business into a literal Scranton goldmine. A legitimately great episode playing on all of our expectations by making Charles the zero and Jim the hero. It is about time. The "Jim as the slacker bad guy" bullshit was getting a bit old for me. When he literally showed Charles the door Mrs. Channelup and I gave a little cheer for all the good guys out there. The negotiation scene symbolized everything I think is great about Michael's character. He is a master salesman: that is for sure. What he usually lacks are the subtleties. Tonight he lacked nothing. He did every single thing right. One thing The Office has been consistent with is when Michael's back is against the wall: he steps up in big ways. And we finally understood everything about the wiki entry on negotiations...