TV Review: The Office 9.21, "Livin' the Dream"
rating: 2
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While this double episode of The Office allows for a couple laughs, ultimately its a case of too little, too late, which betrays its own weaknesses more than anything else. As Ive mentioned before, the last couple seasons of this show have suffered from overcrowding, subsequently producing episodes which feel rushed and hectic without any substantial payoffs. Consequently, whenever theres been a double episode in these seasons, theyve each benefited from the extended time length by at least feeling more evenly paced. Livin the Dream is no exception, however, its also never been more obvious how far the series has fallen. Basically, this episodes tragically relative success in a slightly irregular format only demonstrates its typical limitations. The thing is, theres very little actual story in Livin the Dream. The Jim and Pam marital crisis has apparently been solved completely off-screen by Jims realization that he had been spreading himself too thin and his decision to go all-in on the only thing that truly matters, his family. While Im happy for the Halperts, as a viewer I cant help but feel cheated a bit. After witnessing so much of their conflict, I expected to actually see some of the resolution, how Jim finally came to his conclusion. I expected the dramatic bulk of this episode to consist of Jim mourning his dream job, but that did not happen and as a result the couples arc feels off-balance. There was the next to final scene of the episode where Daryl reveals (because, oh yeah, we all forgot hes been pulling the double-duty career thing too) Jims company has been offered a significant buy-out, but Jim refuses to take part in a three month sales pitch tour which is apparently a deal-breaker condition. The circumstances of this deal are unclear because we only heard about it for about forty seconds. Im not saying its not a potentially interesting plot development, but sneaking it in at the end of a forty-plus minute episode, which mostly consisted of Andy being an idiot, Angela falling apart, and Dwight accepting promotions, feels inadequate as opposed to intriguing. As I commented last episode, the whole pity party for Angela angle is an utter failure. This episode did a much better job of attempting to elicit sympathy for this character, and I found her interactions with Oscar to be sincerely affecting, but I still dont actually care one bit. Livin the Dream wants its audience to root for Angela and Dwight getting back together but its just been too damn long since these characters were any fun to watch together to bother having any interest in their potential future. Theyve each gone too far beyond the limits of taste and plausibility (as has the series itself) for there to be any real pathos left to milk. Oh, and if you thought Andy couldnt be more useless and obnoxious to watch flip-flopping between major life decisions (since apparently thats all the character has been good for since Michaels departure), you were wrong so, so wrong. Andy literally says he is, pursuing fame of any kind, officially killing any likability he once had as a part of Here Comes Treble. As mentioned, the rest of the episode consisted of Dwight earning his black belt from Christopher Moltisanti (who, to his credit, worked well as the straight-man to Dwights proud martial arts master), being promoted to manager by David Wallace, Jim and Pam being irritatingly cute (as Clark, Toby, and Erin wonderfully demonstrated), and a few other random contributions from Kevin, Phyllis, Stanley, Nelly, and Creed, mostly on how hopeless Andys prospects for not becoming a homeless man are. Look, Im not saying the smaller bits didnt make me chuckle Ive clearly let go of the hope that The Office would ever be what it once was a long time ago, and once you get over that sad truth, the show is still capable of isolated moments of comedy but theyre like the silverware on the Titanic: impressive on their own, but absolutely useless otherwise. Unfortunately it seems the bottom line is that The Office can still be enjoyable as long as you abandon all hope of there being any quality story-telling left and are fine with cheap gags, watching Andy flail, Angela spiral, Dwight inherit that which hes always coveted, and Jim return to his ambitionless roots in a last ditch effort to bring the series full circle.