Episode 3 - Launch Party
4 January 2009
Review
Synopsis: Ryan launches Dunder Mifflin Infinity with an online party linking all the branch offices to the main party in New York. When Michael realises he wasn’t invited to the main party he sulks and ends up taking a pizza delivery boy hostage. Dwight attempts to sell more paper than the website and Jim and Pam play a prank on him by trying to convince him that the website has artificial intelligence. Angela tries to show Dwight that she has moved on by asking Pam to set her up with a man. Andy hears this and begins trying to woo her.
The Good: There are lots of good ideas here, even if they don’t pan out. Ryan trying to look and sound cool back in New York is fun. The shot where someone bursts in and kicks him out of their office is amusing and it’s generally a fun development that he now thinks of himself as a big shot.
Meanwhile both Michael’s kidnapping and Dwight’s contest with the website are interesting stories. Michael is so obvious taking out his frustration with Ryan on the pizza delivery boy that it is almost funny. Dwight has a couple of nice moments too as he so clearly enjoys being in an action situation. His contest with the website allows him and Andy to jump around like geeks and generally annoy the rest of the office.
The Office does a pretty good job balancing Michael and Dwight’s terrible behaviour with occasional sweet behaviour in order to make the audience care about them. Dwight’s broken heart is played out well here and Pam taking pity on him is a sensible way to make the audience feel sympathy for him. Speaking of which, despite his idiotic behaviour generally, Andy’s speaker phone serenade of Angela is clever and a nice moment.
The Bad: There is a lack of logic and a lack of humour throughout the episode.
Phyllis tells the camera that she is going to try out techniques for dealing with difficult people on Angela. However each time she tries one Angela just doesn’t react and puts her down until the point where she throws paper at her. Was the point meant to be that Angela is so unkind that even clever psychology can’t break her out of her contempt? It’s an odd story which just doesn’t seem to make a real point.
The kidnapping is a pretty dumb story. There is no reason that the pizza boy should go into the conference room as instructed. And then if he so chose he could have kicked up enough of a fuss to get the others to let him out. Instead they flap around like cowards looking up the jail time they will get for kidnapping. That is meant to be a big joke but instead just makes them look ridiculous. There is no excuse for sane people not to get up and let the kid go or have a whip round and just pay him for the pizzas.
Similarly Dwight shouldn’t believe that the website is a sentient being. Perhaps a more intricate story which took advantage of Dwight’s love of science fiction could have made this funny. But because what Pam and Jim write is so obviously human and silly, it just makes Dwight look implausibly gullible for believing it.
Comic Highlight: The opening scene is fun for anyone who has ever seen those DVD screen savers. The reactions of the office are fun to see and Michael reacts to them pretty believably. However the whole office just gets up and leaves in the middle of a meeting. They don’t have the authority to dismiss themselves, so the joke ends with an unconvincing moment.
That’s what I said: As with the first two episodes, this just doesn’t need to be a double length show. There are enough good ideas here to make one decent episode but not two. The lack of good jokes hurts what are generally entertaining stories.
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