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Welcome to Wernham Hogg, a suburban paper company where "life
is stationery." Critics and fans alike have lauded this hilarious, biting look
at everyday office life, told in the mockumentary style of cult comedy classics
such as This is Spinal Tap and The Larry Sanders Show. The show revolves around
David Brent, (an instant classic character widely compared to Basil Fawlty of
Fawlty Towers) the oblivious general manager who instigates petty office
rivalries. The wince-worthy Brent still considers himself "a friend first and a
boss second...probably an entertainer third." It feels both inaccurate and inadequate to describe The
Office as a comedy. On a superficial level, it disdains all the conventions
of television sitcoms: there are no punch lines, no jokes, no laugh tracks, and
no cute happy endings. More profoundly, it's not what we're used to thinking of
as funny. Most of the fervently devoted fan base watched with a discomfortingly
thrilling combination of identification and mortification. The paradox is that
its best moments are almost physically unwatchable.
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