The Office catch all.

The UK version works better because it tells a complete story, from episode 1 to the specials. US Network TV, especially comedies, have not figured out how to do that and still be ongoing. Which is why you get stuff like babies.

Honestly, they should have wrapped it up around last season. How many times is Dunder Mifflin going to threaten to close the branch?

In terms of sheer realism, it's odder--in my opinion--that an office of, roughly, 20 people has only produced 1 child in the 5 or 6 years we've been following them.

Rath, do you not like the plot device of some characters having a baby or the manner in which it's being marketed? Because I'll happily grant that the PBJ and Baby Makes 3! marketing makes me want to gag.

As far as the show going on too long, I'm glad that it continues because it's given the writers an opportunity to reflect and play with the bizarre economic climes we face today. I might agree with you if I felt the show just didn't bring the funny, but I think it still does so.

I don't like the marketing, and I think it's lazy writing.

I find it hard to believe ANYONE could prefer the US version over the UK version. The original, apart from having sharper humour (I've watched the series three times and certain moments still make me wanna gag), actually has real characters. The US version has charicatures. I've met several people like Gareth, but if I met someone like Dwight Schrute I might be forced to call the police.

That's not to say that I hate the US version, it's entertaining enough, I just find that it pales in comparison.

I loved the British Office, and tried the first few eps of the American version, astonished to see that it wasn't complete and utter crap (see Amanda's, Coupling, Payne, etc.). I didn't like it enough to stick with it, but it certainly seems a cut above the typical American sitcom.

It's no Better Off Ted, though.

Really? The entire show has been reworked around the idea of making it appeal to a much wider audience. Way more people would prefer the US version.

UK Office is one of those great things I don't suggest to people. It's so dark and niche and unpleasant that I find a lot of people actively don't like it.

I know more people prefer the US version. Doesn't make me any less amazed.

Where else do you go? They're a married couple in their early 30s, and married couples in their early 30s tend to have babies. The alternatives:

• Breakup that's not true to the arcs or previous portrayals of the characters.
• Contrived loop of breakups and reunions.
• Despite the fact that these two totally seem like parent types, they decide not to have kids.
• End the show. Yeah, not going to happen.

The marketing is terrible, but the writing about the pregnancy has been virtually non-existent this season (until tonight, apparently). It's background.

My experience with the British Office was surreal. I had this boorish, self-absorbed boss who coincidently just raved and raved about the show. I purchased it just to see what he was so ga-ga about. I was genuinely surprised that someone so obnoxiously 'Brent-like' could be such a huge fan of the show. Of course, how can someone like that be expected to last at a job? Enter Michael Scott, essentially my boss. Annoyingly over the top, screened movies to the sales staff (Boiler Room, Wall Street, Glengary), King of the 90's references (Austin Powers, the Jim Carrey canon, all the annoying tropes). Somehow though, he can sell. He can get the numbers, close the deals. Scott’s mutant selling ability is a real thing, and it is the foundation this ridiculous show is based on, and allows it to continue beyond a few seasons and then the company realizes “This ass needs to go.”

As to Rath’s question “How many times is Dunder Mifflin going to threaten to close the branch?” Well, the economy sucks, and it continues to suck more and more. These characters are constantly worried this is their last day at work, which makes Mike’s ridiculous behavior even more annoying to them.

Isn't the answer, essentially, just once. There was one threat that the branch would be closed and it lasted through two seasons (one of which was the 6 episode first season). That threat culminated and ended with the Stamford branch being closed and merged into Scranton. Since then, the threat was not simply Scranton closing, but Dunder-Mifflin--as a whole--declaring bankruptcy and dissolving. This threat has culminated and ended with the corporation's acquisition by Sabre. And I've read that tonight's episode is the best of the season so far.

I've got a friend who saw a screener of tonight's episode. She has been forbidden from telling me anything about it, but she agrees with what you've heard, Mattioli.

And, yeah, I fail to see how writing an accidental pregnancy for a happy couple in their early 30s is lazy. That's what happens. Though the ads do annoy - I feel like they miss the point. Too cute, too pat.

Jim Diapering a cat is awesome, but not too cute.

I like the US "Office", but it's really gone up and down.

- Lowest point: the pilot episode is still pretty atrocious. That the show generated enough goodwill to get to Season 2 anyway is still impressive to me.
- Season 2 is all pretty great, particularly "Booze Cruise" and "Casino Night", although I have always thought that they let Carell write it just as a favor, and what he came back with went way farther than the writers had intended to go at that point. I have always hated the decision to start Season 3 months later. Such a prime example of chickening out.
- I haven't watched Seasons 3 and 4 in awhile, but I remember feeling the fatigue. There were some good episodes in there, such as "Benjamin Franklin", "Money", and the one where Dwight goes to Staples, but the writers let Michael and Jan go on for far too long, and Ryan's asshole status was getting out of hand. My friend and I also agree that there isn't much justification for the hour-long episodes, which just drag on and on.
- Season 5 really turned it around for me. Jan vanishes, Jim and Pam proposing is wrapped up, and the "Michael Scott Paper Company" thread is one of the show's best arcs. The pregnancy finale is a big red flag, but I've yet to see any of Season 6 (I always wait for DVD).

The UK "Office" is better overall, though, just because it's so biting and so streamlined. Some of Jim's pranks on Dwight are as good as Tim's pranks on Gareth, but none of the Michael Scott stuff has ever quite equaled the funniest David Brent material. There's no "Freelove Freeway" of the US version. And the two-part Christmas Special finale is some of the best television out there.

"Extras" is great too.

I love both versions for very different reasons. In fact, in my brain I barely even associate them anymore. But the one aspect of the UK version that I'd call a clear advantage is its consistency.

That last comment is fair enough, at his worst Carrell is only boring, whereas Gervais makes you want to backhand him across the chops. But at his best Michael Scott's never reached the comedic heights David Brent did because he's always felt like, as Evi put it, a caricature. The original show more often felt like a true documentary of some cringing situations while the US Office has always felt more like sitcom writing shot doco style.

The fact that the original version had those two short series with specials also meant the writers never ran out of different things for the characters to do while still remaining true to the character, and the fact they could remain true to the characters made them and the situations they were put into feel more real. The US Office has suffered from too many moments where a new bit of knowledge was introduced about the character that felt tacked on instead of part of who the character was at the beginning.

The most obvious example for me that illustrates what I think Evi is talking about is that while Brent is a social ass he displays just enough intelligence to be believable as someone who would be promoted to run a company branch. Michael Scott, as well as being a social ass, is a complete fucking moron. And that's funny, just not as comedically powerful as Brent, who's formed in the Christopher Guest mold of characters.

And English comedy is riddled with superbly unlikeable characters like Basil Fawlty, The Young Ones, Blackadder, League Of Gentlemen ... and the reason the original Office is my favourite is because those horrible edges aren't shaved off like they are in the US Office. On balance you're not supposed to care about them like you do with sitcom characters. You're supposed to laugh at them like you do in a mockumentary, and to me, while the US staff have had some great moments in earlier seasons, the UK team is significantly funnier overall. To put it another way, if the UK Office is Nirvana, the US Office is at its best Stone Temple Pilots and at its worst Bush. In fact since the Michael Scott Paper Company episodes it's been nose-diving for Nickelback territory. In short, it's the easy listening version of the punk original.

That's not to completely trash the US Office though, season 1 sucked balls but in season 2 and 3 I was right on board, and was even convinced that at times it was level pegging and even pulling ahead of the original. But I've since watched the glorious original again and subsequently suffered through the crap that's followed what seems more and more like the Us Office Shark Jump to me - the moment Michael quits Dunder-Mifflin two thirds of the way through through season 5. That's where, more than ever, Michael's business incompetence was showed in its full effect. He was stealing customers just fine, any idiot can undercut, but his company was fucked. By that point it was no more "real" than 30 Rock, and only about 1/8th as funny.

What I need is to go back and watch seasons 2 and 3 again and hope the shitty taste in my mouth is washed out by them instead of having it contaminate something I once enjoyed a great deal.

Well that's much easier to accomplish in a 12 episode run (plus specials) than 150 episodes.

Of course... though I guess that makes it a bit unfair to consider it an advantage. So obviously it's the brevity that leads to the consistency that I really like. But that's only if I have to compare them; in theory I don't think one approach is inherently better, it all depends on the execution. The indefinitely running US version has it's ups and downs but so far I still like it overall.

It always seems like the British know when to end a series before it's been run into the ground. I can't imagine seven American seasons of Fawlty Towers having the same impact as the twelve perfect half-hours we got, even if they were consistently funny.

Disagree completely. I felt that the Christmas Special ruined the whole show, in fact. It's why going back to a classic series is always such a bad idea. They had to tie up every goddamn loose end worst of all, let the guy get the girl. I try and pretend it doesn't exist- the ending of the show as it was fit in much better with the vibe of the series.

Having the same impact? Probably not, although that's sort of nebulous. But if it was consistently funny, I'd be fine with it.

And it's true, they don't run their shows into the ground, and I'd like to see more American shows take that approach (though not necessarily all of them). But for me the ideal might be somewhere in between preemptively limiting yourself to 12 episodes and going on forever until you suck. Run for several seasons, even without a set limit, just know when it's time to stop creatively speaking, even if that means stopping when you're doing well. But where that point is is obviously quite subjective, so easier said than done.

The problem for American TV is that selling ad space is much easier when you've got something with a proven track record, and can run it on for years and years until everyone loses interest (then dump it and sell it into syndication where the real money starts). You can't come to an American network with an idea for six episodes, possibly twelve-- they won't even come close to making back their production costs on a run as short as that. Advertisers would rather put money into what was working last year than what might work this year.

I actually think I prefer it, mostly because of Merchant and Ashley Jensen (one of the great unheralded supporting turns in TV history, IMHO).

I disagree, but completely understand what you mean. The only real difference between us is that the Christmas Special simply felt SO GOOD despite the fact that I knew the closure it provided in the last 5 minutes was a bit of a betrayal of the 2 series. Suddenly, an acidic show had gotten soft and sentimental as a Hollywood movie.

But I couldn't help myself. Tim and Dawn deserved some happiness and quite frankly, so did David. I say this because it just got so ridiculously bleak in the first half of the special that it was hard to bear. Betrayal or no, I think Gervais & Merchant earned the happy ending.

I also see Alex's point (and in most contexts, I would agree), but you're right, it works better than it should.

I suspect that anyone seeing it on its own would find its story arc satisfying (as you say, it starts out almost unbearably bleak before ending with its little victories); it's only as a capper to the series that it feels in any way like a betrayal of what's come before.

The fact that Tim and Dawn deserved some love and didn't get it is part of the reason I loved the original show by itself, though! The whole time you really want to see these two people get together but it ends up as unrequited love, something they'll always wonder about the rest of their lives.

It's frustrating but it's something that's everyone's been through, and for a show that's supposed to be a documentary this felt way more realistic than everything being tied up all nice and neat at the end. You just have to admire the balls of a show to do something like that.... and then they go back to it and give the audience what they want, just so everyone can go "Aww, that's so nice." It's cheap and I hated what it did to the series.

To continue along those lines, the Christmas Special pulled a bit of a cheat when it came to the Tim/Dawn story by making Lee an outright dick/villain in the whole thing.

As Jeb says, it's ok as a stand-alone special. But in the context of the series as a whole, it's a cheap shot. Lee was a dick in the show previously, but he was always an ok guy, I thought. He was simply a person who was the reason Tim couldn't be with Dawn.. In the special, he pretty much became a blatant 'obstacle' to Tim and Dawn getting together and was written as such.

The same thing was done with Neil, for the most part. A person in the series. David's obstacle in the special.

The only thing I don't like about "Extras" is that it becomes repetitive in the second season. Jensen is still great, but Gervais' character starts moving in circles, and some of the celebrity cameos are a bit "samey". He gets meaner, too, which continues through into the special, which is outright brutal in parts. I had never considered this before, but that's very interesting. One of these days I'll get out my DVDs and watch it all the way through again (it's been awhile since I've seen them).

Personally, I think that you can tell, throughout the series, that David is not an intentionally bad person, and thus, there is that part of me (and presumably, most people) that wants to see him come to terms with reality and finally succeed, at least a little. And, like the "Extras" special, the first half of the Christmas Special really brings David to an all-time low in the back of that bar.

As for the Tim and Dawn thing, I appreciated that Tim didn't really sweep her off her feet. Even if Lee is an asshole, you get the impression that Tim has mostly moved on, and he sort of thinks it's a lost cause. If he'd put on a big spectacle or something, I probably would have felt more like it was a corny Hollywood ending, but she makes her own decision to come back, based on a pretty simple act of kindness.

I definitely think the "Extras" special is clumsier at trying to find that kind of storybook ending, even though I have to admit I like that too (which I credit wholly to Jensen's endless charm). The last episode of the first series of "Extras" (at least, the way they aired in the US -- I forget how out of order they are) is a smoother finale than the actual one.

Anyone that doesn't know a Dwight hasn't posted on enough message boards or been to enough comic conventions. Stanley, Phyllis and Meredith are very real, and my dad has said he's known several Michael's when he worked at Chase Manhattan. John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer have amazing chemistry and I've loved how their relationship has progressed.

I understand why the UK Office is so critically acclaimed, but I like the US version so much more. I don't like Ricky Gervais at all and found Martin Freeman irritating.

I think that's part of what I liked, though: series 2 is all the various "stages" of "be careful what you wish for", and you can actually watch Andy's descent into a defeated bitterness. In series 1, he's sure that he's better than the idiots he works with: in series 2, he's finding it harder to hold onto that notion.

And I will forgive the Extras Christmas show any of its flaws for the glorious scene of Merchant at the cell phone counter.