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The Office (UK)---Accept No Substitutes.
Contemporary English comedy makes me believe the theory that laughter evolved as a response to an enemy's defeat and discomfiture. I saw the original (UK) version of The Office [link to bbc website] when I was visiting England in 2002. I watched it with my hands over my eyes, peeking through the fingers. It's so painful. So excruciating. So gut-wrenchingly funny. But not in the good-natured American sitcom way. No, not like that.
I own both 6-episode series plus the final episode (the 'Christmas special'); BBC America has also shown them. At my house, we watch them every 2-3 months. There are sections I still haven't seen because my hands are over my eyes.
If you haven't seen the British version, you haven't seen The Office. The American version wasn't the same show. Don't assume you’re up to The Office just because you saw and liked the American version. If I hadn't seen the original, I might have liked it, and I certainly didn't hate it. But I had seen the original and there is just no comparison. It's like the difference between English and American beer. Both will get you drunk, but the English version tastes better, kicks in faster, and knocks you back on your arse for much longer.
If you saw only the American version of The Office, you probably wondered what all the fuss was about. I like Steve Carrell a lot, but there is just no way that his portrayal of boss 'Michael Scott' compares to office co-creator Ricky Gervais's 'David Brent.' 'Scott' comes across as shallow, socially and professionally inept, willfully oblivious, and as obnoxious as only a coworker who believes he thinks he is funny, savvy, and universally liked and admired when he's not can be. His interactions with his employees are funny and embarrassing---but they are not devastatingly embarrassing. They don't make you flush all over with vicarious humiliation.
'Brent' has all of these qualities, but so much more (a lot of it emerges in the second series). His grandiose opinion of his own abilities (as 'a comedian first and a boss second') are coldly contrasted with the actual response of his employees. He is also fumbling, needy, desperate to be liked, desperately afraid of losing face, transparently envious, ineptly competitive, and so much more. He is also weirdly likable, so that while you look forward eagerly to his comeuppance, it's also with a sinking feeling that you aren't going to enjoy it when it arrives. (With NBC's "Michael Scott," you end up feeling that there wasn't nearly enough of it; there's a feeling of deflation and anticlimax at the conclusion of the 6-episode series).
A lot of fellow Americans I know who have seen the UK version on DVD or on BBC America find it too unbearably embarrassing to be enjoyable. Many of them can't get through the first episode. One person who watched it to the end without laughing once said that it was 'riveting, in the same way an impending train wreck is riveting.' I suppose it must be true that we are predisposed to like shows about people who are successful, as Ricky Gervais said in an interview I read.
The Office is brutally funny in good, cold-hearted, cringe-inducing British fashion. It's not like any sitcom. There's no laugh track to point out the jokes or to guide your reaction. There are some brilliant performances by the other members of the cast, including (but not limited to) MacKenzie Crook (who plays Brent's sycophantic sidekick, Gareth) and also Martin Freeman and Lucy Davies, star-crossed lovers who are as poignant in their way as any television lovers ever . Why is it so deeply riveting, so addictively funny? It's not what people usually mean by a "feel-good comedy". Yet it is.
The Office is not edifying and won't make you a better person. But if you are suffering from pangs of futility, impotence, despair, ennui, helplessness, and failure, I guarantee that it will make you feel better. Because as big a loser as you may be and as much as your life may suck in general, at least you're not David Brent.
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Image drawn by Mr Tenniel; painted by Damozel.
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