A good
sitcom that isn't
Red Dwarf?
Well, it had to happen one day.
The Office is a spoof docusoap about a typical soulless office in glorious, sun-soaked Slough.
Starring:
David Brent - Ricky Gervais
Tim - Martin Freeman
Gareth - Mackenzie Crook
Dawn - Lucy Davis
Xfm's anti-DJ Ricky Gervais (and his best mate Steve Merchant) wrote this fresh comedy show.
The company the characters work for is irrelevant (paper, paper and more paper if you must know), the show is about the characters.
Boss from hell David Brent is the new Alan Partridge. Crude, deeply offensive, pathetic, 'wacky'? Yes. Competent, respected, 'people person'? Er... ;)
If you have ever seen The 11 O'clock Show, or Meet Ricky Gervais or listened to him on Xfm you know what to expect from his character. He is able to be incredibly racist and patronise the disabled, using the same sort of cover as Emimen does with Slim Shady.
For example, while showing a temp around the office he bumped into Asian colleague Sanj. 'He does a wicked Ali G!' introduced him well enough, but the follow up 'Oh no, that's the other one..' slipped up a bit. Sanj says 'The other what?' while the whole office squirms with David avoiding saying 'The other... you know... asian guy, you look alike arghghghghgh'. Many times David will spout a show-stopper leaving him to either vacate silently, or force-laugh his way out of things.
Working alongside David Brent:
Tim is stuck in a job he hates. He makes no secret of this fact. His only pleasures in life are annoying Gareth and chasing after equally bored temp Dawn.
Team leader Gareth is ex army. Sorry, ex Territorial Army. He seems to have picked up all the pettiness, love of rules and the assumption you can be given authority from his past. Unfortunately Gareth commands zero respect and no-one wants to follow his rules.
Dawn is temping. She likes Tim, but she hasn't split up with her boyfriend yet.
David's best (only?) mate is Chris Finch, or 'FINCHEY!!!' to David. Finchey turns up for after-work events and drinks. We discover that Chris thinks David is a twat, but David refuses to believe nobody likes him, so takes it as tongue in cheek. A very one-way friendship. But why does Chris even hang out with him? Pfff.
The Office is one of those programmes that is hard to describe without making it sound a bit crap. But as with the best TV, sometimes having no central plot and just being funny is enough.
First shown in the UK on BBC2 in 2001, it is now (February 2002) getting a repeat run. No doubt the BBC will move it to BBC1 for the next series, tame it down a bit and lead to people slamming it.
No DVD or VHS release details at the moment.