Episode 11 - Trivia
13 January 2012
Synopsis: Dwight wants a new job managing printer sales so he heads to Florida to see Robert California. Andy is desperate to meet Robert's sales quota even if it means raising it outside of the office. When Oscar tells him about a thousand dollar prize at his bar trivia contest Andy drags the whole office there to win the money.
The Good: The idea of the office's "just having fun" team actually winning a trivia competition was just fine. There wasn't much attention paid to it so it never became a proper underdog story. I did like that the closing sequence made it explicit that it had been a fluke.
The Bad: There was a sort-of running joke in the Bill Lawrence comedies (Spin City, Scrubs) that the cheesiest sit com plot was when "the band gets back together" to win the big competition and save the day. The trivia contest wasn't particularly cheesy but it did underline the movement of The Office from workplace sit com to just generic sit com. I'm not happy with the idea that Andy uses personal money or winnings from a trivia contest to increase sales revenue. It's unprofessional and illegal and yet the whole office happily goes along with it.
I really disliked the moment when Andy encouraged everyone in the office to divide up into three teams based on self awareness. I didn't see much comedy benefit to everyone (except Kevin) knowing how intelligent they were. I did see damage done to reality though by everyone being so self aware. Real people would never divide up appropriately and would be confused or insulted by the suggestion that they could be so easily pigeon holed.
The Dwight-Gabe-Robert stuff was a great example of poorly conceived characterisation. Each man is meant to be an exaggeration of the kind of person you might meet in an office today. But because there is no normal person to contrast with them the humour all falls flat.
The writers try to show us that Gabe is delusional (about his lowly status) by having him talk up his bagel ordering as some sort of corporate problem solving. Yet he is talking to Dwight, who is in the building unannounced to make an overblown sales pitch about destiny when all he is doing is applying for a job. How can we find one man's delusion funny when everyone is delusional?
Later we watch Robert California wrestle a friend on his living room floor. We are supposed to laugh at what a strange guy he is for choosing this unconventional cardio workout. But he is performing this act in front of Gabe the toilet and Dwight the destiny man. How can one man seem eccentric if everyone in the room is crazy?
Comic Highlight: Dwight going all Jack Bauer on Gabe was an unexpected way to move the story forward but I can't say it made me laugh.
That's what I said: The trivia stuff was bearable, the rest didn't work.
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