SEASON 2 is still very good, but Gervais and Merchant fall into the joke-trap too often. Lots of times you'll cringe and the situation gets so uncomfortable you'll cover your eyes with your hands so you don't have to see anymore of it. The humour comes mainly from facial expressions, nonsense philosophies (Brent & Gareth), sarcastic comments (Tim) and incredibly awkward situations. Most importantly, we are introduced to David Brent, the boss who somehow manages to always say the wrong things and embarrass himself and everyone around him all the time. The two are secretly attracted to each other with Dawn's boyfriend Lee standing the way. We meet Dawn and Tim who are fighting their desperation and dissatisfaction by playing pranks on Gareth. We get to know Gareth, the annoying colleague who has no life whatsoever and makes up for that by taking himself way too seriously. Hands down the best first series in a comedy show ever. Sometimes the laughs are bitter, but they're always cathartic. The fact, that we know most of those truly horrible scenes from our own lives makes us laugh. "The Office" doesn't comfort us, it doesn't tell us that there'll be a happy ending, but it tells us that we're not alone with our situations. And like this crew a lot of us have big dreams that are moving further and further away as we're stuck in dead end jobs getting older. We know colleagues like them, we know those grey days at work. Tim, Dawn, Gareth and Brent (especially Gareth and Brent!) are far from being perfect people, but it's because of their little flaws and personality problems that we care for them.
This show is so popular, because people all around the world can identify with it. "The Office" is tragic, funny, sad and moving all at the same time. Gervais and Merchant, however, managed to pull it off just the way it needed to be done. It could also have gone the other way with stupid and forced jokes thrown in to keep the viewer interested. In lesser hands, this idea could easily have turned boring all too quickly, because what we are being shown is basically just reality. What they did was take "This Is Spinal Tap!" and put it in the context of an everyday working place. would forever be ruled by sitcoms with canned laughter played over the same old jokes (let's face it, even "Coupling" was little more than an edgier version of "Friends"), Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant came along with their accurate observation of everyday life in an office as we all know it. A program like this was really what we needed, but hadn't dared to hope for anymore.
has definitely made a mark in the history of television with this so-called "mockumentary". A group of people completely unknown outside of the U.K. It's got an original concept, the writing is brilliant, and so is the acting. "The Office" is probably the best thing in comedy since Monty Python. They got the best bands AND the best comedians.
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