Thank you PBS Programming!

[araminta18]

So I'm sitting on the couch, mindlessly studying for my midterm on Tuesday and it's not going well (perhaps 'cause I'm doing it sans mind? anyways).  Studying consists of vainly trying to memorize a bunch of irrelevant powerpoint slides.  I'm rather fed up with studying.  So I turn on the TV to see if there is anything good on, and what do I see

Comments

[araminta18]

Yea, I heard that about the DVD! Made me so grateful that I inadvertently already bought one (it was in a 3 pack with Seven Brides for SEven Brothers and Meet Me in St Louis--I bought it for SEven Brides, but was please to have Music Man too...and now I'm really pleased!). Sad though.

Ooh, Music Man museum? They have one? Did you take pics? I wanna see! These are the kind of museums that I want to work in.... :) And I'm glad it will help your writing--not that you need it. And I'm doubly glad your power/water is back! I hate going without power for more than a couple of hours--when Irene hit we were without power for about 16 hours and I couldn't deal with it...8 days is crazy!

Yea, I still watch the Office, but I'm not really "into" it. I really like Andy as the manager, but the whole Jim/Pam thing does make me sad...they hardly have any screen time together anymore, and when they do they don't seem to be so much in love as tolerating each other. Makes me sad. But I'll end up watching to the bitter end...I always do...absurd loyalties, I suppose. But I don't consider it a show I actively follow anymore--I follow Castle and White Collar (and recently discovered Scarecrow and Mrs King, which while not currently running, is still awesome. :D)

[sarita29]

I will definitely be posting some stuff about Iowa once I get settled into a normal routine again - been going back and forth to my father's (he lives about 40 minutes away and has power, so we've been staying there). Fortunately, I managed to get the house back in order and complete most of the laundry today, so I've had a great start!

Regarding The Office, I was really enjoying the new season until they started messing with the Jim/Pam relationship. Now I'm just irritated to the point where it's no longer fun to watch the dysfunction anymore. The show needs some people to be the "straight men" and maintain a really solid relationship; otherwise the show devolves into the idiocies of a bunch of quirky, rather unlikeable people!

I especially did not like how Jim and Pam fought during the Halloween episode - Jim was quite a jerk about Pam's supernatural experience. The writers did say in interviews that "nothing serious" will happen to their marriage, but that they "have to go through things" like all couples do. I get that (how often do I have Harold and Marian go through things!), but I don't like how they're setting up this terribly dismal arc. Pam and Jim were such a great couple not only because they were cute together, but because they were each other's best friend. You're right that they don't seem to have that connection anymore - it's implied that parenthood has eroded that aspect of their relationship, which is depressing and furthers the fallacious trope that children ruin even the best of marriages. What makes this even more depressing is that Pam was put on the "loser" list by Robert California while Jim was deemed a "winner," so she is taking hit after hit to her self-esteem as each episode seems to put one more wedge between her and Jim.

Unfortunately, I probably will also follow The Office to the bitter end as well, since I've been such a big fan of it. I am also curious about what will happen with the other characters - such as Angela (my theory is that her baby is really Dwight's and her marriage to the senator is a sham because he's gay and needs a "beard" to make him appealing to the "family values" voters).

However, as I await the impending Jim/Pam fiasco this Thursday, I have been perusing fanfiction.net for more positive storylines, and found the perfect fic. Eerily, this fic was begun before season eight, but this writer also came up with the idea that Jim and Pam get pregnant again shortly after Cece's birth. And unlike the writers on the show, this particular story portrays the two of them as still very much in love and each other's strength, all while keeping J/P and everyone else perfectly in character:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5830913/1/

[araminta18]

Thanks for the fic rec! I'd actually found it a couple months ago, before I knew that Pam was pregnant again...it's a lot better in light of the bizarre turn the characters have taken this season. And I like your Angela theory--hadn't thought of that! They've written her so unlikeable this season that I've pretty much written her off...

And I can't wait for your Iowa posts! :)

[sarita29]

Yes, Angela was always an infuriating hypocrite, but this season she is so unpleasant that I can only cringe when she shoots one of her barbs. But I am eager to see how her pregnancy plays out!

The last truly sweet Jim/Pam moment was the first episode in season eight, when Jim made his own "winner" list and left it for Pam to find. That's the last time one got the sense they were deeply devoted to each other. After that episode, they started to disagree nearly all the time - I just watched a deleted scene from Doomsday where they had a teasing but uncomfortably strained exchange about whether or not Jim was around to fix Pam's laptop. Their banter feels different; they no longer seem like relatively sane allies amidst screwballs - now they give off the vibe of being just as unhappy and ridiculously dysfunctional as anyone else in the office. :(

Then again, even as cute as Jim and Pam were together, if you take a hard look at their personalities, they really aren't all that laudable. Jim might be charming and a good salesman, but he is also immature, passive aggressive, and kind of a wuss - he never apologizes to the people he's hurt when he is confronted by them (Karen, for example - he had a great opportunity to say sorry for abandoning her in NYC when he found himself sitting in her office, and he just went all silent). One of Jim's most redeeming qualities was how thoughtful and devoted he was when it came to Pam, but now that the writers are planning to show he doesn't want to go home all that early after baby #2, he is becoming an inconsiderate flake. What was the point of all that magnificent build-up to their finally getting together if they are just going to drift into a passionless and dreary state barely two years into marriage, saddled with two young children and feeling irrevocably trapped?

As for Pam, she might be sweet, but she is also passive aggressive (though she's gotten a lot better in later seasons about figuring out what she wants and standing up for herself), insecure, and now she is turning into thin-skinned harpy/shrew. I can't help comparing pregnant Pam to pregnant Marian in The New Arrival - Marian, too, had her hormonal outbursts, but at least she and Harold ultimately talked things out - and without the annoyingly cliche red herring of Marian fearing a love triangle!

Tomorrow's episode will be revealing as to the direction the Jim/Pam arc is headed - will they start repairing their relationship, or will this incident just be another "each night, they slept one inch farther apart" as Robert California quipped in Spooked? I hate to be cynical, but my hunch is that even if we are treated to a nice "JAM" moment, the episode is going to end on an unsettling note - Pam's fears about Jim's devotion will be assuaged for the time being, but the camera will then catch Jim sneaking a furtive glance at the temp, indicating that things are definitely in trouble. Hopefully, this dismal scenario will not come to pass, but I expect anything could happen at this point!

Regarding the other characters, it is interesting how much several of them have changed over the seasons - whereas Andy was initially an annoying blowhard, he has now become a rather sweet underdog. And whereas Oscar seemed like a decent and intelligent guy at first, he has now morphed into an insufferable, sanctimonious prig. But overall, I think you are absolutely right - the characters have become bizarre caricatures of themselves, and this show needs to end before it goes completely down the tubes. :/

On a more cheerful note, I am hoping to post about Iowa sometime this weekend! :)

[araminta18]

Ok, I was worried about tonight's episode of "The Office", but can I say it's one of the ones I've enjoyed most this season? I can chalk the whole Pam using Dwight up to pregnancy hormones, and it was hilarious! And I love how it did bring them together, and while it ended on an unsettling note, it wasn't about their relationship. I really liked it--it felt a bit like a return to the old office. Pranks and awkward stuff, and cute Jim/Pam stuff. And the whole thing about the bands? Awesome. :)

[sarita29]

Unfortunately, this episode fell rather flat for me. Both plots were amusing, but they felt as trite as something out of a run-of-the-mill sitcom. By the time they got to the "lie detector" bit where Pam and Dwight had dragged poor Jim to a pharmacy blood pressure machine, I was throwing my hands up in disgust - the scenario just felt *too* absurd even for pregnancy-addled Pam to go along with. However, I suppose that because Michael is no longer there to drive the whackiness, the character(s) being featured in an episode are now forced to become more absurd and off-kilter to compensate for the lack.

Although there were definitely encouraging aspects on the JAM front - even as Pam went along with Dwight, there were glimmers that deep down, she knew her suspicions were baseless. I was also gratified to see that Jim was wonderfully tactful and shrewd in his handling of Pam's insecurity/insanity - he has tremendous patience and truly loves her to put up with that level of nonsense. Also, there were no sly innuendos that Jim was indeed harboring a secret attraction for the "objectively pretty" temp - the "fake out" confession at the end, aside!

Still, I'm starting to wish they'd ended the show with season seven, because the exit of Michael Scott and the entrance of Robert California has kicked up the cruelty levels of the show to unpleasant. Michael might have been a tactless buffoon, but he had a good heart and you could root for him even as he made you wince. However, Robert California is a callous and manipulative man who alternately toys with his employees and disdains them. And speaking of cruelty, it was heartwrenching to watch Pam sadly believing all the terrible things Dwight was feeding her about her alleged loss of looks - which was nuts, as she is lovely, pregnant or not!

Still, I'm holding out hope that overall, season eight will redeem itself as it continues. The season opener "The List" was great, and I also enjoyed "The Garden Party" immensely.

LOL looking at all the encyclopedias I've written on this subject, I'm thinking I've really got to get a more constructive hobby! ;)