(S04E05) There were a lot of complaints last week that The Office was moving in an unwanted dramatic direction. Whereas I thought last week's episode was brilliant and moving, a lot of the comments asked "What happened to the funny!? I thought this show was supposed to be a comedy!" The writers of those comments then threw their laptops against the wall in anger like the viking from that Snickers' commercial.

I've always told you guys that NBC reads these reviews and reacts instantly to any criticism that we give the show. You want funny? Tonight's episode served it to you like it was Frosted Flakes at an all cereal restaurant...


I've always thought of The Office a bit like The X-Files (and not because the Schrute Farm reminds me of a place that Mulder and Scully would investigate, though one could make that argument). If you were a fan The X-Files, you'll remember that there were "mythology" episodes that moved the over-arching plots along mixed in with stand-alone episodes that just brought the hot Friday Night sci-fi action (that I totally watched because I wanted to and not because I didn't have any dates on Friday. Totally, that was the reason.)

The Office seems to work the same way. Sometimes we get an episode that moves everyone's storyline along -- last week was an example of this, I think -- and sometimes we get an episode that is just flat out funny. Tonight's episode, though not without its story moments, existed primarily for the funny.

Corporate decides that it's going to produce a local commercial that will star the Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin. Though it's pretty obvious from the start that it's only going to be one of those cookie-cutter ads with the Scranton gang pasted on at the end, Michael misinterprets the presence of producers in his office as an excuse for him to be "creative."

I love when Michael gets into this mode. When Michael's character is at his best, he works as a great satire of American Romanticism. That is, he's such a creature of the worst kinds of pop-culture claptrap that of course he believes if he's just given the chance, he'll be able to produce a tremendously creative and touching commercial that would outdo anything that the corporate drones could come up with. Michael believes this because if you've ever seen a syrupy movie, that's exactly what would happen. Like Homer Simpson's views on college, everything Michael knows about the world has been filtered through a string of terrible, terrible movies.

Consider his recollection of the unicorn that he "created" when he was five. He just had a vision a a horse flying over a rainbow with a spike stuck in its head. And this was before anyone even told him about unicorns (or, indeed, before he could even talk). That bit works because it's funny, but also because it mocks all of the scenes we've ever watched where "the chosen one" does something particularly creative or special for the first time. Michael, like pretty much everyone on the planet, wants to be that chosen one so badly, that he's constantly creating his own fiction where he can play that part.

Michael's need to have control over the project annoys the producers and they leave. Corporate isn't thrilled about this, but when they call, Michael convinces them to let him take a crack at making the commercial himself. He's so convinced that he can do a better job that he's willing to stake his reputation on it (one of the nicer ironic moments of the season so far).

While this is going on, Jim discovers that Dwight has created for himself a hyper-realized Second Life character. If you're not aware of what Second Life is, it's essentially like a big visual chat room that exists pretty much so that Web 2.0 pundits can produce articles about "The Future of the Internet" whenever there's a slow news day.

Dwight's obviously spending so much time on the computer because he's drowning in sorrow over the fact that Angela is dating Andy. I was initially annoyed at this -- I thought that the old Dwight was back at the close of last week's episode -- but I gave it a pass when we discover that Andy, unaware that Dwight used to date Angela, is constantly telling him stories about his "conquest" (more on this in a bit) of Angela. That would be hard for anyone fresh off a break-up.

The Second Life plot wasn't really implemented all that well. I thought they were going to do a bit more with it but other than one or two scenes, it just kind of disappeared from the story. The one thing that we did get from it, though, was the first inclination that, save for having Pam in his life, Jim isn't necessarily happy. His avatar screamed disenchantment with his current life in Scranton-- he was a well-built sports writer from Philadelphia that also played guitar (and not a mussy-haired paper salesman from Scranton).

It was funny -- both in how Pam reacted to it and in the idea that there'd be a sportswriter from Philadelphia who was actually in shape -- but it was also, I think, a sign of where future conflict is going to come from on the PB&J front. Both Pam and Jim are people who have dreams to pursue outside of Scranton. Right now, they're supportive of each other, but who knows how that support will fare in the face of one of them wanting to make a major life change. This is a plot to watch.

We end 10 days later with corporate rejecting Michael's commercial in favor of their own. The gang gathers at a local pub to watch the spot and Michael is understandably bitter. Jim has the bartender put in Michael's version of the commercial. Even though the narration was a hilarious string of meaningless catchphrases (almost like Ryan's discussion of the website last week), the commercial itself was actually very well done. It was understandable why corporate would have rejected it (Kelly dancing in front of the Taj Mahal!), but between this video and "Lazy Scranton", you get the sense that if it wasn't for a complete inability to produce anything that would actually work in the real world, Michael might have a future in local TV production.

That being said (and satire aside), I thought it was a sweet moment to see a smile creep across everyone's face when they watched themselves in the commercial. Sometimes Michael's childishness actually crosses over into legitimate child-like wonder and the rest of the office can't help but be caught up in it. And that includes us, the viewers: I defy anyone not to have ended out this episode without smiling along with the show.

Favorite moments:

-- Darryl and the gang singing the Dunder-Mifflin song. Was Darryl always this good? Every single time he comes into the scene, I know I'm going to laugh.

-- Pam's "clearing Michael's phone lines" by going "boop-boop-be-boop." Seriously, I'm in love with Pam. I really am. I think I might have to move to the Hartford branch to try and get a grip on my emotions.

-- Andy and Angela's "necking." They don't kiss each other's necks, they just rub their necks together. Does it make me weird that I find this oddly intriguing? You get the feeling that Angela is only four margaritas away from some seriously kinky stuff.

-- Ohhhhhhhhhhhh Deeeeeeeeeeeee!

-- Michael's racism. Before you get all angry and call for AOL to bury me in a "Free 40 Hours of AOL" CD landfill -- I'm not a proponent of racism, I just love it when a show nails something satirically. Michael is not a racist, but he talks to people at the point where political correctness and cluelessness meet. Calling Stanley "urban" (and his response, "what, exactly, is urban about me?") was just so spot on.

-- The bartender hitting on Pam by asking her if "she's ever been on a motorcycle."

And that's it for this week, kids. Hope you liked the episode as much as I did. I'm happy that I was able to write a good review this week because I'll be covering The Office convention in Scranton this coming Saturday and I would have hated going there after saying something negative about the show.

If you're going to be there, by the way, please come up and introduce yourself. (If you're trying to pick me out of the crowd at the convention, I look like this and am very tall and move with the grace of an extra from one of the Revenge of the Nerds movies.) Let me know in the comments if any of you are going!