Office Season 1

Year: 2001

Grade: B+

Country: UK

Director: Gervais

Review

with the american series coming to an end i figured it was a good time to revisit the original.

overall i’d say the original is definitely the weaker series. it doesn’t develop the characters nearly to the same extent that the american version does. to be fair, though, the entire british run is the same length of a single season of the american, so it’s not exactly apples to apples.

the boss in the british version is far less redeemable compared to the boss in the american version. steve carrell brought a sensitivity and humanity to the character that ricky gervais did not. as a result the happy ending of the british version came off as more contrived than the sappy happy ending of the american version. so, while the british version had a contrived ending, the american version had a perhaps overly sappy one. pick your poison.

the jim/pam or tim/dawn relationship always felt better in the american version. pam isn’t a great actress so some of the more heartfelt moments rang a little false to me. overall, though, the american version’s love interest portion of the show was more fulfilling.

the last major component is the dwight/gareth character. dwight is many times more funny than gareth. enough said there. the american version also did better with the pranks that jim played on dwight. they were more creative and more funny. the jokes in the british version were mainly just double entendres about gareth being a military man/gay innuendo.

the british version also had a lot more sexual comedy than the american version. i wouldn’t say it was overly crass, but it relied too much upon that for humor. i didn’t remember that from the first time i saw the series.

Watched on TV