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The Office: season 6, episode 11
"Shareholder Meeting"
November 19, 2009 - 09:11p.m.
Hello, Officeianados! Nathan Rabin, well-selling author and man about town, is off leading the lifestyle of a jet-setting ne'er-do-well, so it again falls to me to recap this week's escapades at the possibly insolvent Dunder-Mifflin. This episode ...
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The Office: season 6, episode 10
"Murder"
November 12, 2009 - 09:11p.m.
Every once in a while the cold light of economic reality permeates the hermetic, insular world of Dunder-Mifflin and we wonder anew how exactly a medium-sized paper company that specializes in customer service and hands-on relationships with clients survives in ...
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The Office: season 6, episode 9
"Double Date"
November 5, 2009 - 09:11p.m.
First up, embarrassing confession time. I was once dumped on my birthday. Well, it wasn’t exactly on my birthday; it was about ten minutes before my twenty-first birthday. I could see it coming; it really wasn’t a matter ...
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The Office: season 6, episode 8
"Koi Pond"
October 30, 2009 - 01:10a.m.
"Koi Pond" was not a member of the all-time greatest episodes team for The Office (the plotting was a little too scattered), but it was another damn fine episode in what’s shaping up to be a damn fine season ...
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The Office: season 6, episode 7
"The Lover"
October 22, 2009 - 09:10p.m.
Many years ago, back when I worked at a thrift store, a singularly unpleasant co-worker I’d had a bitter falling-out with ambled up to me and awkwardly asked for the phone number of one of my sisters. I will ...
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The Office: season 6, episode 6
"Mafia"
October 15, 2009 - 09:10p.m.
Hello again, Office peeps! No, Nathan isn't socializing again. He's not that popular, or, if he is, I've asked him not to talk about it because if cry too much I look like Johnny LaRue. He's ...
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The Office: season 6, episode 4
"Niagara"
October 8, 2009 - 09:10p.m.
Hello, Office fans! Nathan Rabin is out enjoying the company of real-world human beings tonight, which leaves me to cover the biggest event in the history of our imaginary friends at Dunder-Mifflin: the wedding of the newly responsible Jim Halpert ...
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The Office: season 6, episode 2
"The Promotion"
October 1, 2009 - 10:10p.m.
Tonight’s episode represented both a return to The Office’s roots and a bold look at what the future holds for the Dunder-Mifflin gang. We witnessed the dawning of the Michael Scott/Jim Halpern era and are on the ...
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The Office: season 6, episode 2
"The Meeting"
September 24, 2009 - 09:09p.m.
The Office has a cast so deep and rich that it can keep things lively and fresh by simply pairing off unexpected members of its cast. Tonight’s episode, for example, featured what I believe is the first-ever pairing of ...
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The Office: season 6, episode 1
"Gossip"
September 17, 2009 - 08:09p.m.
The fifth season of The Office presented a master class in how a venerable sitcom can remain lively and relevant without resorting to wedding after wedding after wedding (though I have it on good authority that Meredith will marry the ...
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The Office: season 5, episode 26
"Company Picnic"
May 14, 2009 - 09:05p.m.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, whenever David Wallace appears on an episode of The Office it is an omen that, in the parlance of the Real World, people are about to stop being polite and get real. Wallace is a ...
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The Office: season 5, episode 25
"Cafe Disco"
May 7, 2009 - 09:05p.m.
I am a sucker for funny dancing. I’m a goddamned fool for it. So it was perhaps inevitable that tonight’s no singing, all dancing episode of The Office would make me borderline euphoric. Tonight The Office finally, definitively ...
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The Office: season 5, episode 24
"Casual Friday"
April 30, 2009 - 10:04p.m.
First off, I would like to apologize for the late nature of this post. I had the second part of a root canal performed today; I guess the part that involves the actual root canal. I have so much Novocaine ...
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The Office: season 5, episode 23
"Broke"
April 23, 2009 - 10:04p.m.
It was a testament to the artistry of tonight’s episode of The Office that it managed to generate a lot of drama and suspense out of what most viewers understood to be a foregone conclusion: that the episode, and ...
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The Office: season 5, episode 22
"Heavy Competition"
April 16, 2009 - 10:04p.m.
Since Idris Elba began his reign of terror as the vaguely android-like new Fuhrer of Dunder-Mifflin the stakes have raised considerably. It somehow doesn’t seem enough to generate the weekly quota of laughs, especially after the wrenching emotional roller ... -
The Office: season 5, episode 20 & 21
"The Dream Team" / "The Michael Scott Paper Company"
April 9, 2009 - 10:04p.m.
Hello. This is Keith Phipps subbing in for Nathan who’s off starting the Nathan Rabin Pop Culture Website. (Or attending Passover Seder, I forget.) Tonight we get two, count ‘em, episodes of The Office split up by the debut ... -
The Office: season 5, episode 19
"Two Weeks"
March 26, 2009 - 11:03p.m.
In the key line of last night’s transcendent episode of The Office Toby compares Michael to “an in-flight movie. It’s not great but it’s something to watch. Then it’s over, and it’s like, ‘how much ... -
The Office: season 5, episode 18
"New Boss"
March 19, 2009 - 09:03p.m.
Within the hermetic world of The Office the new Dunder-Mifflin Vice President played by guest star Idris Elba functioned a bit like The Simpsons' Frank Grimes. Michael is generally surrounded by co-workers and bosses who indulge, tolerate and support his ... -
The Office: season 5, episode 17
"Golden Ticket"
March 12, 2009 - 01:03a.m.
A certain level of soap opera drama is so hard-wired into The Office’s DNA that it’s always a little surprising when an episode shoots solely for yucks. Tonight’s Office was just such an episode. Oh sure, it ... -
The Office: season 5, episode 16
"Blood Drive"
March 4, 2009 - 04:03p.m.
Early in tonight’s episode Michael Scott talks about Valentine’s Day being rough for him since he has a “great capacity for emotion”. Michael feels things, mannnn. That’s a big part of the reason he’s much more ... -
The Office: season 5, episode 15
"Lecture Circuit Part 2"
February 12, 2009 - 03:02p.m.
As the current caretaker of four cats, one of whom will be returned to an ex-girlfriend late in March, I am a sucker for cat-themed humor, which just so happens to be one of The Office’s great strengths. Tonight ... -
The Office: season 5, episode 14
"Lecture Circuit"
February 5, 2009 - 03:02p.m.
Oh, but there was a giddy abundance of The Office this week. First the Dunder-Mifflin gang brought the larfs in a super-sized Super Bowl episode now they’ve returned with chuckles aplenty and mirth by the bucketful in its regular ... -
The Office: season 5, episode 12
"Stress Relief"
February 1, 2009 - 05:02p.m.
Holy motherfucking shit. That was one hell of a game. It was one for the ages, a rollercoaster full of exhilarating highs, agonizing lows and creamy middles. And the plays: sweet blessed Lord! If I were to see that fourth ... -
The Office: season 5, episode 11
"Prince Family Paper"
January 22, 2009 - 03:01p.m.
If I know one thing about the world wide webernet it’s that cyber-surfers would rather talk about just about anything other than the attractiveness of famous women. So I can write this A.V Club post confident in the ... -
The Office: season 5, episode 10
"Duel"
January 15, 2009 - 04:01p.m.
(Nathan Rabin is currently off cavorting with celebrities—okay, indie celebrities—in the relatively temperate environs of Park City, Utah. He’ll return to his regularly scheduled Office/30 Rock blog duties next week.)The last episode of The Office ... -
The Office: season 5, episode 9
"Moroccan Christmas"
December 11, 2008 - 09:12p.m.
Ah, Christmas parties, that special time of year when people blessed and cursed to see each other every day of their endless, interminable lives drink way too much and say and do things they will regret mightily once they sober ...
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The Office: season 5, episode 9
"The Surplus"
December 4, 2008 - 09:12p.m.
Hello, television friends. How were your Thanksgiving celebrations? Didja have any exciting adventures? Though I can't really say too much or be more specific for legal reasons, I traveled to an exotic destination and watched in horror as the ...
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The Office: season 5, episode 8
"Frame Toby"
November 20, 2008 - 09:11p.m.
When we last saw sad-eyed fan favorite Toby Flenderson he was laid up in a hospital somewhere South of the border, his plans to escape the cold grey prison of Dunder-Mifflin for someplace less redolent of romantic heartbreak having gone ...
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The Office: season 5, episode 7
"Business Trip"
November 13, 2008 - 10:11p.m.
Tonight we were treated to another installment of The Office After Dark. Nighttime episodes of The Office tend to rub a lot of fans the wrong way. They find them a little too kooky, dark and twisted. I, on the ...
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The Office: season 5, episode 6
"Customer Survey"
November 6, 2008 - 09:11p.m.
Five years in, The Office continues to surprise us on both a macro and a micro level. As my college professors would say, it is textually rich, a gift that keeps on giving. It began as one kind of show ...
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The Office: season 5, episode 5
"Office Transfer"
October 30, 2008 - 09:10p.m.
Over the last few weeks, I, like the rest of God's United States (USA! USA!), have fallen in love with Amy Ryan's adorably geeky Human Resources gal on The Office. So I was concerned when last week's ...
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The Office: season 5, episode 4
"Crime Aid"
October 23, 2008 - 09:10p.m.
In a bizarre, unheard of turn of events, Michael Scott tonight did something really stupid, then did something even stupider in an attempt to fix his first colossal fuck-up. But at least he fucked up old school for a good ...
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The Office: season 5, episode 3
"Baby Shower"
October 16, 2008 - 09:10p.m.
The Office walks a fine line between low-key, character-based observational humor and big, goofy physical comedy. With a few notable exceptions, it strikes a masterful balance between subtlety and slapstick, comedy and pathos. In the first few minutes of today ...
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The Office: season 5, episode 2
"Business Ethics"
October 9, 2008 - 09:10p.m.
This season of The Office has been all about geek love. Jim and Pam, the Sam and Diane of the Youtube generation, totally got engaged, sour-faced scold Angela ditched Poindextrous fiancé Andy for clandestine trysts with Dwight. Most adorably, Michael ...
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The Office: season 5, episode 1
"Weight Loss"
September 25, 2008 - 10:09p.m.
Hola Amigos, I know it's been long as a camel's dong since I last rapped at ya, but I've been busier than a hooker at a Shriners convention. Besides, our television friends at The Office have been ...
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The Office: season 4, episode 14
"Goodbye, Toby"
May 15, 2008 - 09:05p.m.
Well, sports fans, we have officially come to the end of the line. Tonight marked the very last episode of the strike-shortened fourth season of The Office and oh sweet blessed Lord was it the season finaleiest of all season ...
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The Office: season 4, episode 13
"Job Fair"
May 8, 2008 - 10:05p.m.
Your trusty tour guide through NBC must-see (or mustest-see, anyway) comedy Thursday, Nathan Rabin, couldn’t be with us this evening due to unforeseen circumstances, so you’re stuck with me. Apologies in advance for being a poor substitute for ...
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The Office: season 4, episode 12
"Did I Stutter?"
May 1, 2008 - 09:05p.m.
In terms of both quantity and quality The Office probably has the best deleted scenes in the history of television. Does any other television show even come close? I recently picked up the third season DVD of The Office solely ...
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The Office: season 4, episode 11
"Night Out"
April 25, 2008 - 11:04a.m.
First an apology for posting this TV Club entry so late: yesterday was my birthday so I was all like "I'm going to be a rebel and not post until tomorrow morning". Sorry bout that. I know I shouldn ...
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The Office: season 2, episode 10
"Chair Model"
April 17, 2008 - 09:04p.m.
Judging by the comments here on The Office blog it seems like the biggest question this season is "How dark is too dark?" For me the answer is "really fucking dark". I think it's safe to say that both ...
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The Office: season 4, episode 9
"Dinner Party"
April 10, 2008 - 10:04p.m.
Oh, the agony! The sweet, sweet comic agony! For me the best episodes of The Office in both its British and American incarnation, are also the most excruciatingly uncomfortable. On that level, tonight's episode ranks alongside "The Deposition" for ...
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The Office: season 4, episode 8
"The Deposition"
November 16, 2007 - 12:11p.m.
Finally, a half-hour-long episode as weird, dark, and resonant as some of the show's hour-long excursions into personal and professional despair. Tonight, or rather last night's episode, poignantly echoed the Monica Lewinsky scandal as the mundane, pathetic details ...
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The Office: season 4, episode 7
"Survivor Man"
November 8, 2007 - 09:11p.m.
Just about the only upside to the writers' strike is that it more or less coincides with the sinking feeling in my stomach that I might just be running out of new and/or interesting things to write about The ...
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The Office: season 4, episode 6
"Branch Wars"
November 1, 2007 - 09:11p.m.
Tonight's episode saw the semi-triumphant return of Karen and the introduction of the Finer Things Club, a collection of prance-about girlymen and dainty ladies devoted to the fine art of eating finger sandwiches, wearing effete bow ties (is there ...
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The Office: season 4, episode 5
"Local Ad"
October 25, 2007 - 10:10p.m.
Like a lot of Office fans, I've been eagerly awaiting the return of half-hour, filler-free, gleefully non-padded Office episodes all season long. But tonight I found myself wistfully pining for the emotional heft and tragic-comic tone of the show ...
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The Office: season 4, episode 5
"Local Ad"
October 25, 2007 - 10:10p.m.
Like a lot of Office fans, I've been eagerly awaiting the return of half-hour, filler-free, gleefully non-padded Office episodes all season long. But tonight I found myself wistfully pining for the emotional heft and tragic-comic tone of the show ...
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The Office: season 4, episode 4
"Money"
October 18, 2007 - 09:10p.m.
Last week, a reader commented that Michael Scott seemed headed for a full-on nervous breakdown this season. After tonight's episode, I'm considering transforming this blog into an unofficial Michael Scott suicide watch. In both its American and British ...
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The Office: season Four, episode Three
Launch Party
October 11, 2007 - 09:10p.m.
I'm still not entirely sold on these hour-long episodes of The Office, but there was a pleasing symmetry to tonight's episode. The first half was very funny in a low-key, observational way. I thought the cold open with ...
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The Office: season Four, episode Two
"Dunder Mifflin Infinity"
October 4, 2007 - 09:10p.m.
Throughout both the American and English versions of The Office, certain nagging questions have persisted. Namely, how do operations as poorly run, wasteful and anachronistic as the titular businesses manage to stay in business in a competitive world? And how ...
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The Office: season Four, episode One
"Fun Run"
September 27, 2007 - 11:09p.m.
Well, sports fans, it appears that Sprinkles, the most beloved fixture of The Office is officially dead. Long live Sprinkles. But that's hardly the only bad news on the Office fourth season premiere. It's a veritable badluckapalooza as ...
