(no subject)
I have finished the third season of the Office.
A funny series! There's a sequence where a long series of Jim's pranks on Dwight are read aloud, and Jim comments "They don't sound quite as funny in a row like that," which I think is opposite the truth. As soon as I find an opportunity I'm encasing someone's something in Jello.
But it's not really enough, is it, for a series to be funny. We'd quickly get tired of Michael's ineptitude and insensitivity if that's all there was to his character. What's the point if he's just a caricature, a nitwit in every way? The Office manages the difficult task of giving us something to care about in a character so reprehensible. Maybe it's just that, when it comes down to it, Michael really does care about what he does, it's just that he happens to be retarded. "Say what you will about Michael, he would never do something like that," Jim says about his boss in Stamford. Michael is an exoneration, or maybe a redemption, of incompetence.
What I first liked about the series was the way we got little shots of Pam and Jim's developing relationship/friendship. In the first season their relationship is set up as inevitable: at some point they had to get together. And the inevitability gave it a slow, steady drive that was pleasurable to watch. It felt like real life, in that it's a series of small constructive steps towards something valuable and lasting.
But now that they're more or less going to be together, where will the writers go with it? I almost would say that they should get married and leave the show for another office. The new characters from Stamford provided a lot of material, and the thought of enduring Pam and Jim breakups and "Will they ever be together for good?" rather bores me. So let's give them their sunset and bring on someone new!
That said, I think the writers in the third season really came into their own; I thought it was the funniest so far.
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As to Lost, I guess I'm sortof getting bored. I liked Charlie's death, and the season finale. But it's dumb! Any reasonable character would have asked a few pointed questions of either Locke or the Others or Ben, but they don't! Jack never goes "Why don't you explain why I shouldn't make this call?" And it's all just to keep the viewers in the dark, which feels rather shallow. The excitement of the early episodes was the action, the decisions in the face of limited information, the questions of faith faced by Locke. But now characters seem to be acting on blind faith alone, no one stopping to say "EXPLAIN YOU DOLT."
And Rousseau's reunion with her daughter was classic hardcore. First words: "Help me tie him up!"