The Office: Series Two
April 22, 2004
Everyone knows someone like David Brent. He is the guy at the party who think he’s the funniest thing since sliced bread (sliced bread being particularly hilarious), but doesn’t understand why nobody is laughing. He is the guy at the office who will horn in on a private conversation because he knows he has something witty to add. And he is the guy that is so obnoxious, so clueless to his stature amongst normal civilians, and so downright uncomfortable to behold, that the world would stop spinning without him. He is an essential, someone to remind us how not to act in public- a jester without much jest. As portrayed by Ricky Gervais on the brilliant BBC series “The Office” (Season Two of which has just been released on DVD), Brent, the man you love to hate, and hate to love, is a bumbling, insecure, sometimes cocky, always witless microcosm of the non-stereotypical office boss; a do nothing, self-promoting, socially awkward motivational cheerleader.
In Season Two (regrettably, the final in a great 12 episode arch), which won Gervais and the series Golden Globes last year, the Wernham-Hogg paper plant in Slough is undergoing a change in personnel as a result of the dissolution of one branch at the end of Season One. Brent’s office is inheriting new co-workers from the defunct Swindon branch, which means a whole new group for him to win over with his charms and stand-up act. But his charms are lacking, and his opening monologue (which seems longer than even a Jay Leno monologue, and just as painful) welcoming the new workers is a thing of astonishingly poor taste. “I’ve always been in paper,” he opens, “my parents owned a paper shop…until it blew away.” The recruits watch in stunned silence (something Brent tends to do to his audiences), as their new manager sweats through a series of bad impersonations before retiring to his chair, fully believing his flop was their fault, not his.
The story arch to Season Two is less structured than the first year. In Season One, the six episodes had the unmistakable weight of doom over it as the office was under pressure, due to persistent rumors of downsizing. In the end, because he couldn’t get his own raise, Brent so graciously accepted the Swindon bunch, saving his office workers from unemployment. There is a funny character trait to David Brent; if he can’t promote his own well being first, he grudgingly promotes that of his underlings, and expects the acclaim for himself. In Season Two, the narrative arch begins with the arrival of the new workers, and the promotion of David’s former equal, Neil Goodwin (Patrick Baladi), to head manager, something David never fully grasps. “He fears my methods,” he says about Neil, to the documentary camera crew that follows the workers around the office, “because he doesn’t understand my methods.” But when those methods involve telling highly inappropriate, racially charged, and sexually bold jokes, eavesdropping, goofing off, doodling, proposing game shows (frowned upon in the paper manufacturer industry), and constantly laughing at the stuffed monkey perched atop the coat rack, observing the office work ethic like a managerial King Kong, it’s hard to understand exactly how this guy became an executive in the first place.
As overwhelming as Brent is to the overall uneasy and hilarious office satire Gervais and his partner, Stephen Merchant, are establishing with their show, it wouldn’t be as good without a strong supporting cast. Back from Season One are Tim Canterbury (Love Actually’s Martin Freeman), the 30-year-old goofball who hates his job, hates his desk partner Gareth Keenan (Mackenzie Crook) even more, thinks David is the worst boss he’s ever had, and harbors a stinging love for the receptionist, Dawn (Lucy Davis), who, in Season One’s best episode, rejected him in the middle of a motivational seminar.
This season, the story line brings about new players, and we get plenty of jealousy because of it. David, for instance, is insanely jealous because everybody loves Neil, and not him (he even starts dressing like Neil in a pathetic attempt to look cool, and not show his age, 39, though he likes to dispel the fact that he’s almost 40- “I’m in my thirties,” is a favorite phrase of his), while Dawn starts to feel regret over Tim when her own fiancée treats her poorly, and Tim acquires a new, prettier girlfriend. Gareth, meanwhile, is jealous of everybody, it’s just his way as the slimy, perverted, and heavily picked-on “team leader”. When you work with people long enough, you begin to notice personal character flaws, and these four know each other inside out, and considering how much hatred runs through their group, there is room for plenty of jokes and quintessentially ribald British humor. I’m curious to see how NBC adapts the Brit-com’s sexually explicit humor into the FCC-friendly climate of American television next season. It didn’t work for “Coupling”, but lets hope “The Office” fares better.
The best way to describe “The Office” is as an uncomfortable satire. The documentary format allows us to eavesdrop on situations that are bitterly funny, but all the same, tough to observe. It’s hard to watch, yet impossible to turn away, when David Brent has to perform to strangers as a motivational speaker, devolving into a sweating lunatic, and leaving his crowd aghast and baffled. He is a buffoon like Homer Simpson, but unlike Homer, he is unsympathetic, and often downright awful to his workers. I won’t even tell you what he does to one poor girl in a wheelchair during a fire drill, but it’s amazing in its rudeness. Yet, for all of his sly nastiness, Brent is a teddy bear, and it’s kind of ironic and sad when Neil makes him redundant (“Please don’t make me redundant, I can change…starting now”), during his “Day of Laughter” fundraiser, while sitting atop a giant yellow bird costume.
The performance of Ricky Gervais as Brent is superb, mastering the stoop, smirk, laugh, and contempt held within a character who is selfish beyond comprehension, socially awkward (“Who says famine has to be depressing”), and believes his wisdom should be shared by all. He is a character for the ages, in one of the best comedies of the past five years. Everybody knows somebody like David Brent; and is that so bad after all?
“The Office: Series Two” has been released on DVD with deleted scenes and a video diary.