Not long ago, I expressed worry about Chuck’s future now that the will-they/won’t-they romance has been resolved. With one episode down and five to go, I think the writers are on the right path.

So far, at least, the show seems quite content to let Chuck and Sarah just be happy while being spies. And rightly so! It seems odd to me that no show that I can recall aside from the American version of The Office has had the long-term romance solidify and continue telling stories. Emotional connections are perhaps harder to establish with fictional characters when a romance isn’t one of the balls in the air, but conversely, storytelling is not merely the act of introducing sadness to people’s lives.

This isn’t to say that they need to be a perfect couple forever from here on out, but at the very least they have avoided for the time being the trap of the quick and implausible relationship collapse. I can’t wait to see how the rest of this season plays out¹.

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Footnotes

1. Oh, also, the season’s winding down, the ratings are still unremarkable, and the show continues to be one of the best shows on right now. In conclusion… Start Watching Chuck, Dammit! [↩]

Tonight’s NBC comedies were so good, I thought I’d write about them. I love all these shows so much, and yet that rarely gets an outlet here. Let’s change that.

As I just said in my post about tonight’s episode of Parks and Recreation, The Office lives through the eccentricities of their characters. They keep the characters well-grounded but everyone’s a little… more than you’d expect in real life.

Tonight’s episode was more grounded than usual in that its main plot was about a real world eventuality of acquisitions like the one the office experienced recently. Specifically, the redundancy that is the co-manager position. Basically, one of them needs to go back to Sales. Luckily for whoever that is, Sabre has no cap on commissions. Jim and Michael are both famously good salesmen either of whom could make more money in Sales so we end up with a fun situation where they’re both fighting to be demoted.

It’s great though how quickly Michael falls out of love with the idea of doing the actual work of becoming a salesman again. It took less than a day without an assistant and a big desk and the snacks for Michael to stop caring about the boost in his paycheque.

That storyline is fun, but most of the comedy actually comes from the more extreme absurdities of the office’s staff. And really, that mostly comes down to Erin and Andy, both of whom are so strange that you a) can’t wait to see them as a couple and b) can’t help but think they’re more real than any of the other people on the show. That said, as bizarre as those two are, I can’t help but root for them.

The Office is past its prime, but thanks to the time the writers invested into the characters early on it’s still one of the best comedies on television right now.

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Some nice things in this episode:

• The Olympics cold-open was great.
• Words to live by: ‘I have this thing about men cutting or threatening to cut my throat. Don’t try to cut my throat.’
• Erin and Andy’s traffic jam riff was an example of one of those great moments the show does that are so much like something you would do but seem so bizarre when someone else does it.
• Dwight and Ryan’s evil cabal is great. As are the Lord of the Rings references.
• I was almost certain that Dwight hadn’t actually seen Saw until he mentioned legs getting cut off.
• Erin’s smile of pride over Andy’s crotch getting thoroughly sniffed by those massive dogs.
• Erin doesn’t know Peanuts? Again, so weird it has to be real.
• ‘I can’t even go near a cigarette now without thinking of a penis. And vice versa.’
• Oscar’s reading an old issue of The Atlantic, I think the December issue.
• Apparently, The Office has an unspoken rule of not casting known faces for guest spots until this Kathy Bates guest spot, but I think it works since she’s playing a larger than life character.
• ‘It’s not because of the smell, I’m just expecting a nosebleed.’
• I feel like Pam’s reaction to Andy saying his office-mates are his closest friends, is a little much. It’s not like she’s got a bustling social life outside of the office.

Tonight’s NBC comedies were so good, I thought I’d write about them. I love all these shows so much, and yet that rarely gets an outlet here. Let’s change that.

Parks and Recreation has been so much better this year on every level that it’s not surprising it’s not a rating winner, but if this season gets any word of mouth at all, those ratings should start shooting up.

Since this episode was all about Valentine’s Day, it makes sense that it was all about romances.

Ann and Mark’s relationship was a bit of a shock at first but it’s grown on me, primarily because it’s never been the main story of any episode. And it makes it a lot easier to like Mark, who was a bit of a cad and a bunch of a douche last season. It doesn’t seem like this relationship is destined to be long-lived, though. Ann’s comments during her talking head scene sharply demonstrated that a really normal relationship can also mean a really uninteresting relationship. Nonetheless, this little relationship has done quite a bit of heavy lifting by making Mark more likable and by bringing Ann closer to the office environment.

Leslie and Justin’s relationship had a great path and the way it ended, while keeping Justin totally likable, was kind of scary for its intelligence. From the first time we saw Justin he’d been a storyteller, and making that the key thing that makes Leslie realize they’re not right for each other is one of those story touches that less capable shows would screw up.

Tom’s awkward attempts to woo his ex-wife are sweet and very fitting a person as bizarre as Tom Haverford. They didn’t end well, but they continued the work of making Tom empathetic after a season of him mostly being the weirdo. What makes this show interesting is that they’re putting the work in to make all their characters relatable and realistic. Not that The Office is a grab-bag of slapstick tomfoolery but its main comic sources are drawn a bit broader than real life; Parks and Recreation hopes to mine the world of humour and pathos that exists on the other edge of the line, skirting realism in a way that you would think would make the comedy harder to come by, but this show makes it look easy.

One of the most impressive developments of this season is the stealth romance of April and Andy. The undefined age difference aside, their flirtations — and Andy’s obliviousness to it all — are one of the more romantic story lines they’ve weaved into this season while still remaining wildly funny. And of course, it’s led to whole new avenues for April. She’s still basically that deadpan sardonic ironic apathetic chick, but the glimmer in her eye when she dotes on Andy is opening her up to the world beyond the ’15 layers of irony’ her boyfriend (and his boyfriend) revel in.

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Some nice things in this episode:

• ‘It makes The Notebook look like Saw 5.’
• ‘I’m gonna call him poo-pa.’
• Leslie: ‘Think of it this way: these songs are exactly like the songs you usually except instead of modern rock, they’re old jazzy standards from the 40′s.’
  Andy: ‘OK, yeah, you got a point.’
• ‘I never had a chance to get a girl a cliched Valentine’s Day gift before so… I got you all of them.’
• Mark in a tuxedo and red bow tie. Adorbs.
• A timely joke: ‘Stay away from John Mayer.’
• ‘I’m gonna throw up real quick and then we can leave!’
• The people on the show seem to be acknowledging the camera a little more in the recent episodes, I like it so far I just hope they don’t over-do it.
• ‘Uhh… I mean, that sucked, didn’t it?’
• Guitarist: ‘Maybe if you sang it like Louis Armstrong.’
  Andy: ‘Maybe yeah, I mean here’s the thing though… who is that?’
• ‘If I’m not mistaken, that was the old lady version of flashing.’
• Andy is too quotable.

A few people have been talking recently about how depressing The Office is. Put simply, they argue that Jim and Pam’s settling into life at the Office – a common thread running through most of the early seasons was Pam’s desire for success as an artist and Jim’s unwillingness to move on to greener pastures because Pam was still there – turns the show into a lesson in failed dreams.

I’m 25 now, and still have accomplished shockingly little with my life, so I sympathize with this view. Watching Jim Halpert settle into a life that we’ve all been silently (or not) rooting for him to escape is a little sad, wistful perhaps. But depressing? No. Because Jim isn’t settling, he’s settling down.

I don’t know why people don’t see this. From the first moment Jim Halpert graced our televisions, his life’s purpose has been little more than sharing said life with Pam Beasley. Jim didn’t want to change the world, he wanted to be Pam’s world. Mission accomplished. Time to hunker down and start a family. It might be a little banal, but that’s what he wants out of life.

Similarly, Pam wanted to be an artist, but more than that she wanted to not be a receptionist for the rest of her life. Now she’s a saleswoman. Mission accomplished.

They probably could leave the office and become more successful somewhere else, and maybe when the show ends, the finale will be them moving on with their lives, I don’t know. But the last couple seasons haven’t been leading us down that road. The Office seems to be about what a family is.

Last year, when Jim and Pam almost eloped they stopped because their coworkers – their friends – were having a goofy dance party and they realized that they wanted the odd little community they’ve joined to be there, to take part in the celebration.

I think it was the second season when Jim invited the office over to his apartment to have a little shindig of sorts. He had a roommate and there have been references to non-work friends in the past, so to claim that Jim has no friends outside of work is disingenuous. Maybe he’s not friends with most of those people anymore, but to me that’s more an after-effect of growing closer to his office mates.

Work relationships, romantic or not, are very very common in the real world. Settling down and starting a family is very common in the real world. The Office is about the real world. There’s a bitter taste to that, because not many people have the desire for a simple uneventful life shared calmly with a lifelong best friend. But, quite frankly, if that ending is depressing to you, well that’s just depressing.

I love Pam and Jim Halpert even more.

The Office always manages to take the cliched ‘special event’ episodes old-style sitcoms used to overhype, and subsequently underdeliver, and offer up to its audience a naturalistic tale. And what’s more, they manage to be funnier through that quality.

And while I didn’t like the newlyweds’ stance on that awesome wedding ceremony video, I understand it. I remember when I saw that video thinking it’s the sort of thing Michael Scott would try to instigate. So it’s natural that they’d be averse to it.

I only like it a) because it removes the sedateness of a ceremony I find overly stuffy and b) it’s an abstract event right now.

Regarding the first point, that’s only a valid stance it you find weddings to be an unnecessary event. Clearly, Jim and Pam don’t. Jim has dreamed of marrying Pam for years, and Pam has similarly had that idea of a dream wedding. Maybe I’ll one day meet the person that makes me feel like I need that moment, but the one semi-successful — obviously not wholly successful or it would be an ongoing condition — long-term relationship I’ve had was amazing and I still didn’t have the desire for a wedding.

But, getting to the second point, I’m not in the scenario of going through with a wedding. I talk a big game about ‘being yourself’ but in the real world I’m a huge pussy who never talks to girls he likes, can’t carry a conversation with most people, shies away from virtually all social obligations, and gets almost violently nauseous when heading to virtually any event where people I’m not very close friends with will be. So while I like the idea of a ‘fun wedding’ in principle, in reality if I did end up having a wedding I’m pretty sure I’d totally cop out and do the calm sedate thing.

Regardless, even with the dancing and cavorting down the nave of the church, Jim and Pam had the wedding they wanted. The one where the only people there were the ones that mattered: PB & J. Two great people that go great together.

Three years ago I noticed a bunch of CDs on sale on amazon.ca for 99 cents each. I already had an order that needed a few more dollars to get free shipping and I love music, so I added a few for the sake of curiousity. A few weeks later the order arrived and I immediately started going through the CDs I purchased. The first I opened up to listen to was The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place by Explosions in the Sky. Immediately, I knew that I had discovered something amazing. Hidden in this seeming pile of refuse was an album that from its first echoed notes took hold of me and drew me in to a world I had never experienced previously and left me wanting more.

Eight months ago, I walked into a low capacity hall at San Diego Comic-Con for an early morning panel about an upcoming show from NBC called Kings. After a short discussion of the basic premise of the show — an alternate history drama set in a monarchy named Gilboa inspired by the biblical tale of David and Goliath — they screened the first twenty minutes of the pilot episode, and I experienced that same enraptured envelopment into a brand new world that that amazing album had beset upon me. Now, eight months after that initial burst of interest followed by a relative dearth of new information, Kings has finally premiered and my first impression has only been enriched by the complexities I once imagined were possible now made manifest by the remainder of this amazing premiere.

Over at Ain’t It Cool News, they’ve compiled snippets of the many reviews of this show. Some of them are fairly positive, but it seems as though most of them chide the show for having cheesy aspects, or soap opera trappings, comparing it to shows like Dynasty and Dallas. I’m not sure why any show that manages to tell a serious story is immediately a soap opera. Is Battlestar Galactica a soap opera because of its intense dour depiction of life? Of course not. It’s merely a show willing to deal with things seriously, as is Kings. To call the show a soap opera is to call Deadwood, or other such character drama, a soap opera: it’s not disingenuous to do so, but it belittles the show to use such a pejorative. All of the criticisms, though, are not unfounded. But the good, and more importantly the potential for good, more than outweighs what little there is to legitimately criticise.

The main story of the premiere, and likely of the rest of the series, is of David, played by Christopher Egan. Taking his name from the biblical slingshot-wielder, the show begins with David living the rural life as King Silas of Gilboa — Ian McShane in a typically brilliant performance — unveils the shiny new capital, Shiloh, built upon the ashes of the cities destroyed by the years of war that ravaged Gilboa before Silas united the lands in the unification War, a costly conflict that left David fatherless with a disenfranchised mother.

Before the inaugural speech is over, tensions are rising with the neighbour nation Gath and two years later the war carries on with David now at the front lines. When the survivors of an ambushed squad are taken hostage by Gath, David defies the orders and, crossing the front lines, rescues the hostages, including the King’s son. This rescue is no small feat given that the front lines of the war are lined by Gath ‘Goliath’ tanks, a menacing visage to all Gilboan soldiers. And so David returns as the hero who slayed a Goliath and saved the King’s son. That’s the first twenty minutes wrapped up in a few sentences. There’s much more there, but I find that the more I like a show the more I want to detail every nuance of the scene (which is why I rarely write about Lost; I don’t want to end up writing 15,000 words per episode) so I’ll leave the rest to the viewer to relish. I will say however, that those twenty minutes are the best and most effective exercise in world building I’ve ever seen.

This premiere has already established that, while this is an alternate history with kingdoms where America once reigned, this world only diverges from ours in the last two centuries. David’s love of classical piano, and more importantly his playing of a piece by Liszt, underscore an implicit history that will certainly get explored as the series continues. How did the world of Liszt change such that not America but Gilboa and Gath were formed? Hopefully, the writers already know the answer.

Perhaps as impressive as the world building is the character building, with every character having complexity and ambiguities which can be developed and exploited over time. The King’s wife, for example, is a quiet but manipulative woman who publicly expresses a distaste for politics while privately and silently ensuring her family’s skeletons stay in their respective closets. Similarly, his son portrays himself a womanizer to the paparazzi to keep up appearances, despite his homosexuality. His desire for power is clear but he is neither the villain nor the brat in this story. At least not yet.

The King’s brother-in-law, the head of a large corporation, Crossgen, which has bankrolled Silas’ rule for years is the most villainous character introduced thus far. His need for war to ensure quarterly profits impel him to push Silas to war despite peace being offered. It’s not until David, once again defying the will of the King, bravely reaches out to their faceless enemy, as the Goliaths stare him down, and brings about renewed peace talks, that his lust for war is sated. Even then, his plots and machinations continue apace to replace the King and continue the profitable war.

David is the archetypal hero. He is a farm-boy turned war hero who doesn’t understand nor desire the world into which he’s been thrown. He quickly falls for the King’s daughter, herself a passionate supporter of improving the nation’s health care much to the King’s dismay. His star rises precipitously, first due the the rescue of the hostages, then later from his part in the reestablishment of peace talks with Gath.

And of course, King Silas himself, around whom all this intrigue revolves, is one of the great draws of this show. Ian McShane, playing a character as conniving as Al Swearengen in a world much more civilized yet just as brutal as Deadwood, is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stale network television environment. Silas is a complicated man, a melange of numerous regal stereotypes. His opening speech, and most likely every speech after that, describes a story from the founding days of Gilboa when a flock of butterflies came upon him and perched upon his head in a ring as if they were a living crown. A sign from God. And yet, he has none of the trappings of the typical religiously driven leaders of our time: he knows full-well that evolution is a truth, and devotes a family breakfast to the topic; he accepts his son’s homosexuality as a part of his nature; he is an eloquent leader, who uses his words for both good and ill; he is a brilliant tactician whose military experience lent itself to the political travails of a King. Of course, his religiosity is tempered by his desire for power, and when the Reverend Samuels disowns Silas near the end of the premiere he is more than willing to abandon God. But despite these two conflicting aspects of his larger-than-life personality, beneath it all is a long dormant desire for a quieter life. He is a tragic yet terrifying hero, one we know will eventually fall away for David to rise.

The two weak points of the premiere are the wartime scenes and the relationship between David and the King’s daughter. That Gath would hold hostages just past the front lines of battle, even temporarily, strain credulity. In addition, David’s impassioned speech to Gath asking for compassion and common ground would have likely ended with David brutally destroyed by the numerous tanks trained on him throughout the speech. But I take both of these points in stride because a) this is a different world, with different alliances and territories, strategies and tactics could be slightly different b) David held a white cloth stained in his brother’s blood as he delivered his speech; had Gath fired upon a white flag, there surely would have been international repercussions and c) it is David’s destiny to become King — the final scene where the butterflies land atop his head to signal his coming reign is a sure sign of that — and so I’m willing to accept a few well-timed mistakes on his enemies’ parts; many of the most successful kings and emperors of the past have had such luck in the ascension to power.

The other weak part, the love story, is weak because it happened too easily. There’s no real conflict there, they both seem to already be smitten with each other and in a relationship. I was hoping for it to take a while for their bond to grow before all that happened, but this is a minor quibble as the show could easily still get those things done over the course of the season by introducing conflict. It’s also very daring that the show took what appears to be the only romantic relationship on the show and resolved it so quickly. It’s like if the writers of The Office got Jim and Pam together in the first episode. So I’m willing to believe, for now, that they’ve thought about this and are subverting the stereotypes again for effect.

It’s been a couple days now and the ratings have been tallied and they’re atrocious. Kings had a horrible opening. Kings has already finished filming for the season and I used to think that networks wouldn’t cancel a show with complete episodes ready to air, but Firefly and Daybreak shattered that misconception, so I have to hope that the word of mouth on Kings spreads fast and the ratings improve week-over-week, because this show is a real adventure. It’s an adventure in storytelling, it’s an adventure in world-building, and perhaps most importantly it’s an adventure in broadcasting. It’s the sort of high concept high drama story that’s been relegated to cable television in recent years, and yet here it is on a Big Three network (admittedly the smallest of the Big Three). If Kings becomes a ratings success, as it deserves to be, it could be a catalyst for the networks to reinvigorate the increasingly conservative and middling television they produce.

I loved the premiere. I’m  deeply impressed with the show so far. It’s an achievement in storytelling, and I’m sure the subsequent episodes will be as good if not better.

The cool thing to do now in TV and film is to go “dark.” That is, to take a character down a turbulent, depressing, and possibly disturbing path to bring greater depth to them. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but there is something wrong with the idea that merely having “dark” stories brings character development or that it improves the quality of your stories. (There is also the implied assumption that to bring depth to your character you need to take this darker path; if you need an example of excellent character growth without the trappings of “dark” storytelling just watch The Office.)

Of course, dark stories come in different shapes and sizes. The Dark Knight was a much grimmer and darker look into both Batman and Joker’s psyches, and it delved into their interdependence on each other. That’s good dark. In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the characters endure a crushing war which drastically changed many of the characters and it explored the complex relationship between politics and religion and science. That’s good dark. Oldboy is the story of a man imprisoned for 15 years for reasons unknown who is given a week to discover why; Oldboy examines solitude, the influence others have on you, the monsters inside everyone, and many other disturbing and difficult questions. That is good dark.

But there’s a very bad trend, which seems most pronounced among sequels and spin-off shows, with a very different, and lazy, technique of telling darker stories: the deal with the devil. In Stargate Atlantis, the Atlantis expedition will on occasion tentatively join forces with the Wraith, the enemy du jour of the Pegasus Galaxy. On Star Trek Voyager, the crew reluctantly joins forces with the Borg to stop a common enemy more powerful than both.

The deal with the devil isn’t necessarily bad, but it needs to make sense. Team Atlantis wouldn’t join forces with the Wraith, or at least they shouldn’t because it doesn’t make sense; the Wraith are not a morally ambiguous group, they were designed to be essentially pure evil. The Atlantis team, and similarly the crew of Voyager, are bastions of sanctimonious self-righteousness and to have them coordinate with these evil groups reeks of story superseding character.

The point of dark stories is not to be cool. It’s not to be dangerous. It’s certainly not to tell dark stories. As always, it’s all about the characters. If your characters have inner demons requiring exploration of inseemly qualities, or they aren’t portrayed as a paragon of propriety, then their story can naturally progress toward those darker stories and possibly come back from it a stronger person and a richer character. But TV shows, and obviously movies as well, shouldn’t use it as a crutch to sustain their weak plots by sacrificing their characters, and viewers shouldn’t accept it.

Each new season, most shows get at the very least a cursory glance on the tv blogs and sites I read, but every year a few shows slip through the cracks. There might be more exhaustive sites out there but I don’t know them, so as far as I’m concerned, this is virgin territory.

It’s perhaps not a surprise that both of the shows I’m looking at today are on the CW, a network that has done nothing to engender the support or interest of the internet since killing off the much loved Veronica Mars. It’s also fifth in a three-car race when it comes to network television, but being in last place doesn’t stop a network from having spectacular shows. Just look at early 90′s Fox.

In addition to being on a D-list network, these two shows are both a part of the new deal between the CW and Media Rights Capital which outsourced Sunday night programming to MRC, so the odds of anyone giving these shows more than a read through of their synopses before moving along were already pretty low. So, let’s take a look at two lesser-known television shows premiering this year and their odds of survival.

Valentine

Valentine is a dramedy that focuses on modern day love stories. So far each episode deals with a pair of soulmates who have come to a crossroads in their lives and if not pushed in the right direction their love will not come to be, which typically means bad news for all involved. And at those crossroads are a team of love specialists who are actually Greek Gods. Headed by Aphrodite, now known as Grace, the team consists of Aphrodite, Eros (AKA Cupid, AKA Danny Valentine), Leo (AKA Hercules), and Phoebe who mans the Oracle at Delphi (no longer at Delphi) which helps them gain intel on the love struck soulmates they’ll be helping that week. And since every show needs an outsider who needs expositing at, the first episode introduces a mortal romance novelist to the fray because the God Gang is losing their touch when it comes to Love and they needed a fresh pair of eyes.

Beyond the basic “couple needs some love” weekly story, there seems to be an ongoing story related to the greater mythology of the Gods. In the first episode we learn that as Gods become less relevant they become weaker until they become mortals. Aphrodite demonstrates this by cutting her son with a blade and showing him the blood. Clearly, love doesn’t have the sway it once had in our cynical world. It seems as though this show intends to argue for a few related issues in its overarching themes: What the world needs now is Love, sweet Love; War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing; and finally, that our modern lives are eliminating romance and intimacy from the world and replacing them with instant messages and twitters. That last one doesn’t have a snappy song lyric to go along with it. Sorry.

On the mythology front, Ares, the Greek God of War and Aphrodite’s husband, who now goes by Ari — which by the way is a really clever renaming, because Ari is a Jewish name and the middle east is basically the centre of war in the modern world — makes an appearance in the second episode and extols the power of War in the modern world and the uselessness of Love. There are other aspects to the God dramas but let’s not get bogged down in those details.

I’m going to let you in on a secret. The worst kept secret in the universe. I’m a sucker for a love story. Note that I didn’t say a good love story. A mediocre love story might not make my heart leap quite as much as a good love story, but it jumps nonetheless. Beyond loving Love, I also love mythology and the Greek and Roman mythologies in particular. (There’s a reason I watched six seasons of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and it wasn’t Kevin Sorbo’s brilliant acting.) So this show has the double whammy of mixing Love stories with Greek mythology.

That said, based on what I’ve seen so far it’s focusing far too heavily on the Greek God side of the story. It’s not that I don’t like that story line: it’s fairly interesting. But so far the love stories they’ve cooked up are more interesting and sorely underdeveloped, and given that each episode is unrelated they could really be milking that format and letting their serialized arc stretch out longer.

Easy Money

Easy Money is about a family-run loan shark company. It reminds me of Sons of Anarchy, though I’ve still only seen the pilot of SoA so I really don’t want to stress that comparison. The main character is middle child Morgan Buffkin, who is being represented as the smart one in the family. In the first episode, he buys a book and argues with his friend, who’s selling him the book, that Einstein invalidated Existentialism by showing that everything is connected…

Clearly the writers don’t have a strong grasp of either philosophy or physics (or want their audience to understand that their main character isn’t quite as smart as he thinks he is) but at least they’re trying.

Despite his bizarre understanding of physics and philosophy, he really is the smart one of the family. While virtually every customer they have tries their best to get out of repaying their debts, Morgan manages to get it out of them, whether by pretending to be the manager to a ventriloquist, or by uncovering adultery to cajole payments out of people.

There are quite a few disparate threads in the two episodes I’ve seen: there’s a new loan shark business in town is run by thugs who are not above forcing competition out of business through threat and theft; the husband of the ditsy sister seems to be getting into money troubles; and a few different customers have been introduced with varying degrees of grudges against the family.

In addition to these, the main story revolves around Morgan’s origin. He’s always felt out of place in his family and at the end of the first episode he learns why: he’s not related to them. This seems to be the mystery that the show wants to develop over the course of the season, but it’s not nearly as intriguing as they’d like it to be. It’s possible that these threads are going to align very smartly and give a really good pay-off to the progeny mystery, but at the moment it’s not really drawing me in.

All told, these two shows aren’t half bad. They’re nothing special, but they’re good enough for me to keep watching at least for the remainder of the season to see where it’s all going. As for their odds of survival? Well, seeing as both of these shows have already stopped production, to give the writers time to catch up, it doesn’t look great, but I’m cautiously optimistic about the prospects for both of these shows, primarily because of this: their ratings aren’t stellar, but MRC is an independent producer and its requirements when it comes to ratings might not be as grand as networks. And it seems to me that MRC is working towards establishing itself as a producer of quality television programming. They might not succeed, but the very fact that they have that goal means to me that they’ll give their material more of a chance than an established network. If the CW were calling the shows, these shows might already have been canceled.

A few weeks ago, Entourage returned and True Blood premiered. I’ve enjoyed the former for a few years now so I was glad it was back, and I was waiting with a fair amount of anticipation for the latter, which I’ve enjoyed so far. But it’s fair to say that neither of these, nor any of the other shows that have premiered this year, has been as highly anticipated as what came back tonight: The Office came back tonight; it was back, it was backer, it was back with a vengeance. (Slight spoilers ahead)

There are few shows that excite me as much as The Office and with good reason. Not only is the show that perfect combination of dry hidden humour and outright slapstick, but it has one of the most compelling and engrossing romantic stories to ever grace television. Squee is usually meant to refer to the excited squeal that fangirls make, but I squee. The genius of this show is that the romance between Pam and Jim, ranging from a simmer to a full boil over the last four years, has never been the butt of the joke.

On any other sitcom, the people the writer’s want you to cheer for have stupid and unrealistic situations thrown at them with Hilarious Consequences and the pratfalls that ensue when one of them tries to hide their feelings are usually the heart of the show for many years. Ross and Rachel started off as a series of jokes and it wasn’t until they were together that the show developed any serious attachment to the relationship as a relationship and not as the source of humourous situations. Similarly, with Monica and Chandler the relationship began as a drunken one night stand and subsequent series of sexual escapades leading to an ultimately fulfilling relationship.

Never has a comedy dealt with unrequited love so earnestly. And from the beginning, the humour comes from elsewhere. The humour is the way they react to the mad world we share with them. The humour is the absurdities of the workplace that we all experience, whether we’re software developers or paper salesmen. The humour is never that Pam is engaged to a lazy man who doesn’t appreciate or understand the woman he’s managed to ensnare. What is the core of most sitcoms, an overweight man with a smart and beautiful woman, is handled with the gravity of the real world. And the show doesn’t suffer for it but rather it succeeds because it never laughs at the people in it. (I’m sure some of you think that the show laughs at Michael Scott but I don’t think you watch the show carefully enough.)

This show might not be the funniest show out there, though this premiere was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time, but it is one of the best shows right now. It’s better than funnier shows because the laughs come puncuated by a story that many have experienced before and the rest wish they had. It’s better than more dramatic shows because it doesn’t have to rely on introducing drama to its world, forsaking the characters for the sake of the show.

I guess what I’m trying to get at here is that I really liked the premiere. Every note hit perfectly.

Holly’s geekiness and her hidden yet patently obvious affection towards Michael is opening up Michael as a person. Somehow, this episode made what would normally be a cringe inducing scene, when Michael encourages the whole office to judge Kelly by her physical appearance, into a slightly charming almost effective comment on eating healthy and accepting people’s appearances. And Jim’s advice during the finale of last year seems to have paid off because Michael is steadfast in the friend zone with Holly. Maybe it’ll take him five years and an engagement for him to tell her how he feels too.

Angela’s ongoing illicit yet amazingly drab affair with Dwight was hilarious, but the show was smart enough to show Angela regretting it and devoting herself Andy… at least until Andy decided that not having his college (he went to Cornell don’t you know) acapella groupas the wedding band was a “deal breaker.”

The second biggest surprise was Ryan returning to the Office. I half expected him to be in Jail for at least a portion of the season, but it appears some community service and a stern firing of was enough to set him straight. So now he’s back working reception, and quietly plotting revenge against pretty much everybody.

Being now spoiler free, I had no idea what was going to happen this year — though The Office is pretty good at keeping its secrets; last year I went into the premiere knowing remarkably little given how much I knew about Lost, a show known for its secrecy regarding future stories — so all of these moment were delightful and funny and all around awesome. But none of them could have prepared me for that final scene. Toby’s back! I’m kidding obviously. As much as I love Toby and am sure he’ll make it back to the Office at some point, the scene that made my day, night, week, and month was that penultimate scene in the rain. It was simple and powerful and managed to avoid all of the cliches by playing it as realistically as every other moment in that relationship. Oh and it made me squee. I’d missed that.

Now I don’t think anyone who has watched and enjoyed both series could say that the history and connection between Tim and Dawn is equivalent to Jim and Pam, if only because of the 12 episodes they had for the UK version and the 40+ episodes already for the US version. But let’s discuss it for a while. The differences between the two romances remind me of the differences between British and American culture; Tim and Dawn with their obscenely subtle mating ritual which could have been easily unnoticed on first viewing of many episodes shows the quieter more restrained nature British society represents. Someone viewing the show for the first time could go through the season with very little idea of how deeply Tim feels for Dawn until that heart stopping moment when the mic goes silent. This too shows the more private nature of their relationships. There are no grand gestures here, this is not John Cusack holding up a boombox, this is a real man wanting to express his love but not to everyone: only to the one who matters.

On the other hand, Jim and Pam represent that exact aspect of American culture I just derided and, when acted out by them, it seems perfect and sublime. From the first episode of the US version of the Office you see the close relationship Jim and Pam have and when the second episode is finished you are already well informed of Jim’s feelings and Pam obliviousness. Over the next two seasons, their connections grow deeper, and their mating dance, moving much more swiftly that Tim and Dawn’s but in an elliptical fashion, played out as they grew closer. Everything about them was much more obvious, much more indicative. Tim and Dawn are the people who flirt silently with nary a coworker’s knowledge and Jim and Pam are the people you see together and, in the real world, want to scream at to get a room. But when you see those grand gestures you can’t help but appreciate it. He pours his heart out and even if the camera is looking over it all, he doesn’t care. It matters more that she knows than anything else. His declaration and rejection break your heart and seem more powerful than Tim’s, though this could be a side effect of the greater amount of time invested in Jim and Pam’s relationship.

These moments of transition in their respective lives are both very powerful and comparing the two seems and intractable task given the diametrically opposed manners in which they reach for love. The success of both of these shows and the power both romances have only reminds me that I really need to go back and rewatch the UK version.

The writers of the show have been sliding this in very subtly as they’ve shown Roy trying to get Pam back. With last night’s episode “Business School” it came to a head in the viewer’s mind and in Pam’s as well I think. Roy is still just as self-centred as before, but instead of not thinking about or caring about Pam he now only thinks and cares for her to demonstrate how much he has changed. You can see it through David Denham’s brilliant portrayal: every aspect of what Roy is doing is counter-intuitive.

He has to fight every bone of his body to say that he prefers Pam’s artwork to strippers, but says it all the same to maintain the illusion; all to show how much he’s “changed.” He doesn’t want to go to Pam’s art show, but he’s more than willing to state how great it is that he was the only person she knew that came. Rather than comfort her and stay with her during the remainder of the show, he decides to leave since “he’s seen all the pictures.” It doesn’t even occur to him that she could possibly feel bad about the general dismissal her artwork is receiving, especially since he’s showing how good a boyfriend he is by being there.

What’s worse is Pam knows this and doesn’t seem to care. She has been as non-committal as you can be with a former fiancé. Returning the “Love ya” with a “You too.” Rebuffing Kelly’s claim of her stronger love for Roy now that they’re back together. Claiming that now that they are back together she is more mature. Perhaps she associates maturity with accepting the intolerable cruelty of the world.

Roy doesn’t even realise that that this isn’t the girl for him and this makes him all the more pitiable. In the nine years they’ve been together, they’ve gone from high-school sweethearts to a real world couple which is hard enough when you both truly love each other. So much has changed about them and between them that anything they once had is gone and all they have left is nostalgia. And so Roy goes through motions with the muscle memory of his body unaware of the meaning behind the actions. And Pam, having given up on what she really wants, settles for what’s easy. She doesn’t see Roy as her future. She sees what she has and with a sigh of resignation, and perhaps a glance towards Jim, accepts her current situation and prays it doesn’t become her fate.

With every new episode, I empathize and pity Roy more. The writers have done a fantastic job turning his world on its head and showing a man lost in his past expectations doing his best to make sure they come to fruition, oblivious to the slowly receding face of the one he feels he should love.