The Office: #22 -- "The Surplus"

22) The Surplus

Season 5, Episode 10

Every Thursday during the final season of The Office, I'll be counting down the best episodes of the series' previous eight seasons. Follow me on Twitter @StiglitzMovies to see my thoughts on the ninth and final season. Below are links to previous entries in this retrospective.

Intro

50-25

24 - "The Deposition"

23 - "A Benihana Christmas"

Pre-Title Sequence:

In the cold open – which ties in with the A-story –Oscar tries to explain to Michael about an office surplus that must be spent at the end of the day or it will be deducted from next year’s budget. Michael, not sure how this actually works (Carell does a great job of looking totally confused), asks Oscar to explain it to him as if he were eight years old. When Michael still doesn’t get it, he asks Oscar to explain it to him as if he were five. Oscar tries to convince Michael that the office needs a new copy machine, but Michael remains confused about the surplus.

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The Office: #23 -- "A Benihana Christmas"

23) "A Benihana Christmas"

Season 3, Episode 10

Every Thursday during the final season of The Office, I'll be counting down the best episodes of the series' previous eight seasons. Follow me on Twitter @StiglitzMovies to see my thoughts on the ninth and final season. Below are links to previous entries in this retrospective.

Intro

50-25

24 - "The Deposition"

Pre-Title Sequence:

Dwight brings in a dead goose declaring it a “Christmas miracle.” Toby’s reaction (“Dwight, we’ve talked about this…”) is great, and I’m always a fan of Dwight when he’s trying to do something nice for the office but remains socially inept as he’s completely unaware of how ridiculous (or in this case, kind of disgusting) his nice gesture comes across as.

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The Office: #24 -- "The Deposition"

 

24) "The Deposition"

Season 4, Episode 12

  

Every Thursday during the final season of The Office, I'll be counting down the best episodes of the series' previous eight seasons. Follow me on Twitter @StiglitzMovies to see my thoughts on the ninth and final season. 

Pre-Title Sequence:

Pam explains that Michael once received a message while he was in a meeting and told Pam that he’d call them back. Since then, Michael has always wanted to relive that moment, so he tells Pam to interrupt him whenever he’s in a meeting with a note so he can say, “I’ll call them right back.” Pam explains that he doesn’t get that many calls, so we get a montage of her bringing Michael random messages on post-it notes (my favorite being the little impressed look Jan gives the camera) until we see the plan backfire when Michael is in a meeting with super jerkass, VP Ryan, and when he tells Pam he’ll call the fake person back (this time in the guise of hot dog saying “hi buddy”), Ryan insists he takes the call. Cold Opens often have nothing to do with the main storyline and feel like little bits the writers pitch and love but struggle to find a place for, and this was a perfect example of one those amusing bits. 

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The Office: 50-25

My countdown of the 50 best episodes of The Office begins with a look at numbers 50-25. Starting Thursday, a new episode will be unveiled in conjunction with episodes from Season 9. Read the intro to this series here. This will just be a quick list with some quick thoughts on each episode listed. A more coherent format will begin on Thursday with individual selections. Enough yakkity yak yak, on with the list!

List after the jump...

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Goodbye, The Office

Blog Note: It’s been hard tracking down a copy of The Electric Horseman since it’s no longer available on Netflix Instant. The Pollack Retrospective will return shortly once I’ve corralled a copy of the film and can continue on. For the three of you reading it, I haven’t given up on it.

When NBC decided to finally pull the plug on The Office and make this upcoming season its final one, I knew I wanted to do some kind of retrospective on the show. However – as you can no doubt tell with all of these blog “projects” I “do” – I don’t really have the time to go through and do a retrospective proper, so I figure I would fall back on the simple list. Since there are a lot of great episodes of The Office, I figured a top 50 would suffice. So, when the new (and final) season starts up on September 20, I will post an episode per week until the series’ final episode. Look for selections 50-25 to be grouped into one post and then I’ll post each subsequent selection in conjunction with the airdate of the new episodes from the final season.  More thoughts on the series after the jump…

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Louie – Season One

Be advised that any links provided should be considered very NSFW

Louis C.K. reminds me of what punk rock bands used to be. Before punk became just another counter-culture movement that the mainstream exploited, it would act as the very representation for the marginalized and disenfranchised; it was more than just a style of music – it was an attitude, an ethos. With the commercialization of punk rock, everything punk represented was now being adopted by the very people it was never intended for. Why bring this up? I feel like Louis C.K. is the type of comedian that still carried the flag for the type of person that feels marginalized and disenfranchised. What sets him apart from the Woody Allen’s and the Larry David’s – other brilliant misanthropes – is that he isn’t whiny (which is not to say that whiny=unfunny); he simply observes and doles out the appropriate, often stinging, observations that come from being an balding, out-of-shape New Yorker (and entertainer). His writing style isn’t always palatable, but it’s honest (and one of the reasons why I think he’s maintained, and gained, such an ardent fanbase), and explicates the dark areas of comedy that nobody else seems to want to touch on. Honesty – especially honesty that gets really dark – is really damn rare in the cookie-cutter world of 21^st century standup comedy where the Chelsea Handler’s and Dane Cook’s of the world have confused sophomoric vulgarity for comedy. C.K. seems to be one of the last remaining standups that doesn’t find his shortcomings to be an asset – his self-loathing to be charming – who doesn’t rely on vulgarity for vulgarity sake, and who will allow himself not to come off as the authority on certain issues or topics – but instead as the dude that simply puts up with the crap hands life deals him.

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Some Quick Thoughts on Justified, Season 2

Note: these are just my quick thoughts on the second season; this is not a recap of the season. So, I will be referring to characters without really going in-depth on who they are in the context of the series. In other words, this is full of spoilers and should only be read by those that have finished the second season.

Graham Yost and company have found their own voice and rhythm in the second season of Justified, and they’ve really found the correct tone and setting for the show, too.  Based on a short story by Elmore Leonard (“Fire in the Hole), the first season felt like Yost and the writers doing their best Leonard karaoke routines. Only a few episodes from the first half of season one really felt fresh and energetic (I really liked the one with Alan Ruck as the dentist), and those were the ones that were more stand-alone, Leonard-esque episodes. But something started to happen with the last four episodes of season one: the show started to find its own voice, and the writers started to realize what they wanted to do with their two great characters, Boyd Crowder and Raylan Givens. Some quick thoughts after the jump…

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