The Office – Special 10TH Anniversary Edition (BBC/DVD/2011)
Has it really been ten years since Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant gave us their brilliant take on contemporary business, THE OFFICE? Yup, a decade since the show debuted in Great Britain, completely unheralded by BBC, which (not unlike the Beeb’s reaction to MONTY PYTHON in 1969) didn’t quite understand what G and M had wrought. Until the public grew and grew and awards followed, which meant foreign sales of the original show, or local versions purchased from BBC. (The American version, starring Steve Carrell, sans Carrell, is still airing.)
And what did they do that took the world so by storm? Placed their show in a simple setting: a dull office of a major paper-producer, Wernham/Hogg, in a dull London-bywater, Slough. Headed by a seriously-flawed office-manager-out-of-water, David Brent (Ricky Gervais) who is desperate to be loved and willing to take that over being honored; who manages in two seasons to get himself fired for being a liar, completely out of touch with his own innards, and for misreading his workers’ opinion of himself. He thinks he’s a comedian – but isn’t funny; he leads and no one follows; he’s prickly about criticism and attacks rather than listens.
In short, a brilliant take on contemporary corporate offices, funny because of the totally inadequate way Brent is allowed to lead, until he’s allowed no longer. What truly set it off was almost an accident: due to a low budget, the script came up with an astonishing idea of putting this office environment in front of a (fictitious) documentary so that our Mr. Brent plays to the camera, makes poisonous comments about everyone around him, exposing his every neurotic tic to the unblinking eye of the documentarians. And it works like magic. Every time he thinks he’s clever and has pulled the wool over everyone else’s eyes, he’s exposed. To great hilarity.
The concept worked brilliantly and continues to a decade on. The creative team made a smart decision to limit the show to only two seasons, then filmed a catch-up Christmas episode (in two parts). All of it is extraordinary television, making semi-stars out of the cast – most of whom were completely unknown at the time.
The collected box-set has first-rate bonuses: documentaries of how it was conceived and executed and why it ranks up there with John Cleese’s astonishingly-funny FAWLTY TOWERS. And, unlike American television, in which the audience must be protected from foul language, lest matrons run amok in the supermarkets, the strategically-placed swear-words are shocking and all the funnier for that shock.
Gervais and his supporting cast are all gems. My favorite of all is Martin Freeman, who is currently Dr. Watson to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes in the BBC franchise. But Mackenzie Crook, an Ichabod Crane look-alike, plays off the subtlety of the others. And the office romance between Freeman and Lucy Davis is nicely explored in the Bonuses. And even a one-step-above-extra, Ewan Macintosh as Big Keith, has as many standout moments as the leads. The show is often hysterically funny, mostly because of great writing and directing and the intelligent concept of no laugh-track to bluntly tell us what that joke-just-past was.
This is extraordinary television – miles above the competition – and thus deserves a place on your shelf (as well as in your DVD player).
Bravo to producers Ash Atalla, Anil Gupta, and Jon Plowman, as well as to Merchant and Gervais for their sterling writing and directing.