Okay, so as has become very obvious, I really like The Office. But...why do I like it so much? It's very funny, yeah. So are many other shows that aren't nearly as good. So are many other movies that I don't like half as much. So, why do I like The Office? Well, Jim and Pam, obviously. At first, I thought that was too simple a question and only driven by the fact that every sane person attracted to men is ludicrously attracted to John Krasinski, but that's not it. Pam makes that show what it is, too. After all, those scenes where she breaks down in tears (the two that are coming to mind are the one with the terrace/the drawing classes, which OMG is the saddest moment in the entire series [at least "Casino Night" had (more than) hope], and the one where she's sitting in the hallway after Jim agreed to let Karen live near him, after she'd talked to him) just kill me, and when she has that smile at the end of "The Job," I really felt absolutely ecstatic for her.
That's when I realized it, though I think it's pretty obvious: Jim and Pam are the humanity, the beating heart, of The Office. The show, as I said, is absolutely hysterical. The jokes are always firing on all cylinders, both outlandish physical comedy and more subtle laughs. But merely being hysterical week after week wouldn't keep me coming back. In a two-hour movie, fine, I can deal with it just being very very funny and not particularly having characters I am intensely invested in (Airplane!, I'm looking at you. Though you're amazing.), but not in a TV show that needs to go somewhere week after week. That's why we have Pam and Jim on The Office. We want them to be together; we want them to be happy. Dunder-Mifflin is, undoubtedly, a nest of characters. It's not like Pam and Jim don't have their schtick (Jim's faces, Pam's self-deprecation), but they are, undoubtedly, the most human figures on the show. An episode like "The Injury" is what makes you think "I gotta watch this show;"* an episode like "Casino Night" is what makes you keep watching.
* no offense meant to "The Injury." It's awesome. I mean, Michael grilled his foot. And his talking head explaining how/why he did may be the best talking head ever.
That's when I realized it, though I think it's pretty obvious: Jim and Pam are the humanity, the beating heart, of The Office. The show, as I said, is absolutely hysterical. The jokes are always firing on all cylinders, both outlandish physical comedy and more subtle laughs. But merely being hysterical week after week wouldn't keep me coming back. In a two-hour movie, fine, I can deal with it just being very very funny and not particularly having characters I am intensely invested in (Airplane!, I'm looking at you. Though you're amazing.), but not in a TV show that needs to go somewhere week after week. That's why we have Pam and Jim on The Office. We want them to be together; we want them to be happy. Dunder-Mifflin is, undoubtedly, a nest of characters. It's not like Pam and Jim don't have their schtick (Jim's faces, Pam's self-deprecation), but they are, undoubtedly, the most human figures on the show. An episode like "The Injury" is what makes you think "I gotta watch this show;"* an episode like "Casino Night" is what makes you keep watching.
* no offense meant to "The Injury." It's awesome. I mean, Michael grilled his foot. And his talking head explaining how/why he did may be the best talking head ever.
