The UK version of The Office...

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

...is, much to my surprise, not as good as the US version.

It's got some good parts - David's patheticness is less comedic (and thus somehow funnier) than Michael's, and Gareth is about a million times better than Dwight (especially the quasi-good-guy Dwight we're seeing now) in his role. The absence of any interviews with the secondary characters is IMO also a good thing in some ways, as it gives off the impression that their office might actually be pretty normal aside from David.

But despite that, I like the US version (even if you just take the first 13 episodes or so for a fair comparison) better. I'd need to re-watch it to explain exactly why - I think Jim has a lot to do with it honestly. Also the plot of every UK episode is "ordinary day at work", then maybe they go to the club at night. The US version clearly focuses more on the unusual days - the Christmas party day, the day the new guy starts, that sort of stuff. Maybe my appreciation of irony doesn't go well enough to the point where I like watching what's kind of the same episode over and over the way the UK version is, I'm not sure.

This was a real eye-opener for me...I always thought people who liked the US version better just found Steve Carell hilarious and didn't like the more deadpan comedy, but apparently there's more to it than that.

Anyone want to add to my ramblings?

[METALMAN]

I haven't watched either for ages - so much so I can't actually remember what happens.

I'd say that UK Office is better than the first couple of seasons of the US one, though afterwards the US Office was better than anything the UK Office did. Basically.

[Emperor Fuckshit]

Wrote a 5,000 word blog post about it. Never want to discuss it again.

e: I should say, though, that I've never seen any of the U.S. version. So I can't contribute at all on that score.

Edited November 9, 2009 by Emperor Fuckshit

[RoyWill Rumble]

There was a post here at one time, then I didn't like it anymore.

[Emperor Fuckshit]

Just a thought:

One of the effects of the American-style "big writing team" approach to sitcom production is (often) the diminution of a show's sense of specificity. Obviously the characters and style of jokes and narratives still say reasonably consistent even when complex (see "Seinfeld"). But the "stamp" of individual creators is reduced significantly. That can often be a bad thing: I don't think something like "Absolutely" (unfortunately a sketch show is the first example brought to mind, but there you go) could be produced by that method. But when the personalities being rendered opaque belong to Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, it might well be a fantastic thing.

Edited November 9, 2009 by Emperor Fuckshit

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Pah, even Elmo outclassed Ricky Gervais in an interview.

[ZJ Penn]

Also the plot of every UK episode is "ordinary day at work", then maybe they go to the club at night. The US version clearly focuses more on the unusual days - the Christmas party day, the day the new guy starts, that sort of stuff.

I might be wrong, but doesnt the UK version have both of those?

[Crybaby Bunting]

An argument has formed over facebook after I posted the 5000 word essay on it.

Pro Essay: I don't like it because

Anti-Essay: I like it because

Me: It's personal preference that governs the idea that something is good or not but this is almost always backed up with logical proof that it works. To the outsider there is absolutely nothing that can be used to explain the quality of The Office other than personal preference. This is what annoys them, to understand the joke you need to be unable to explain the joke.

[Emperor Fuckshit]

Me: It's personal preference that governs the idea that something is good or not but this is almost always backed up with logical proof that it works. To the outsider there is absolutely nothing that can be used to explain the quality of The Office other than personal preference.

Roland Barthes: "Neither-Norism. By this I mean this mythological figure which consists in stating two opposites and balancing the one by the other so as to reject them both. (I want neither this nor that.) It is on the whole a bourgeois figure, for it relates to a modern form of liberalism. We find again here the figure of the scales: reality is first reduced to analogues; then it is weighed; finally, equality having been ascertained, it is got rid of. Here also there is magical behavior: both parties are dismissed because it is embarrassing to choose between them; one flees from an intolerable reality, reducing it to two opposites which balance each other only inasmuch as they are purely formal, relieved of all their specific weight. [...] [O]ne no longer needs to choose, but only to endorse."

Look, man, the point of discussing culture is not to reach some kind of unassailable conclusion that ascribes one or another Manichean property to a work. I don't think that anybody argues that, and to glibly make reference to the primacy of "personal preference" as though it's a groundbreaking Maharishi-ish insight is dull, smug and insulting. (Insulting particularly inasmuch as it reduces stances to "pro-" and "anti-" without considering either their merits or peculiarities.) The point of cultural criticism is to encourage the proffering and exchange of worthwhile viewpoints that address salient factors of a work or a medium. That "it's personal preference" is neither worthwhile nor interesting to note -- this is why Theodor Adorno's essay on astrology did not consist of him going, "well, some people like it and some people don't... it's just down to choice, at the end of the day, isn't it? Different strokes for different folks. What you don't realise is that this is an essentially subjective issue..." If he had done that, then Max Horkheimer would have gouged his bollocks out with a rusty tuning fork.

This is what annoys them, to understand the joke you need to be unable to explain the joke.

This, on the other hand, is just bollocks at a basic empirical level.

Edited November 9, 2009 by Emperor Fuckshit

[METALMAN]

Never want to discuss it again.

liar liar pants on fire

[Emperor Fuckshit]

Never want to discuss it again.

liar liar pants on fire

Hahahahahaha.

Sorry. But as someone who spends a lot of time discussing the (de-)merits of music/TV/books/films/etc, I don't think there's anything I dislike more than people who wade into debates by noting that "it's just down to personal preference." I even wrote a post about it shortly after the piece on "The Office." Especially since people only do it when arguments get lengthy/passionate/nuanced/negative. I mean no-one would burst into YI's music mega-thread and quote every passing opinion on an album, band or song (positive or negative) and say "yeah, well... that's just your opinion!"

Seriously, try it with your friends:

"So, what did you think of the movie?"

"It was OK, I guess."

"OH YEAH???? But the quality of all culture is INHERENTLY SUBJECTIVE!!!!!!!"

Edited November 9, 2009 by Emperor Fuckshit

[GoGo Yubari]

Pah, even Elmo outclassed Ricky Gervais in an interview.

Please, that's not an insult. Any Muppeteer who was doing it while Jim Henson was alive and kicking is sharp-witted as fuck, Gervais never had a prayer.

Also that video was awesome. "It's called professionalism, Mr. Gervais!"

[Emperor Fuckshit]

Yeah, so my above post is probably unnecessarily ill-tempered. It's a major bugbear of mine. But there you go. More helpfully:

The General -- do you really believe that the "two sides" of this debate (I don't think that's a fair presentation in any case... as I say in the article, I know plenty of people who think that TO is just "mediocre") are necessarily and intransigently locked inside a kind of solipsistic prism? That people couldn't respond to my arguments about, say, TO's lack of originality by saying, "well, actually, I think you've missed elements x, y, and z, which are all unique to the show, or at least represent significant innovations -- and these manifest themselves in that bit in episode 2.3 where Brent burns a Pentecostal church down..." or whatever? And then that I couldn't respond by saying, "hmm... well, actually I think that those aspects have forerunners in "All Gas and Gaiters..."", etc.? This is the way debate -- good debate -- works, isn't it?

A "weak" version of your argument might say that the two sides (again, simplifying) have too much invested in their positions to concede, or are already entrenched in their existing positions. But that's a radically different way of putting it. And I don't think it's true in any case -- I was basically agnostic about the show until someone made some very good arguments that convinced me it wasn't up to much.

And the idea that one has to be "unable to explain" a joke in order to "understand" it is just pretty mad. I guess it's a slightly odd formulation of the hackneyed old "deconstructing comedy destroys it" bon mot. Well, I'll say -- I can explain why the joke about Elton John wanting to "feel mercury up his arsehole one more time" is funny, and also understand it. And, to the general idea that I think you're gesticulating towards: I once wrote a 500 hundred word analysis of a "Shooting Stars" sketch on a message board. It still makes me piss my pants. I find it fascinating to discuss the way that humour works, and do not think that this in any way erodes my enjoyment of comedy. It may make me more "discerning", but that's quite different.

And what, ultimately, do you think will be the benefit of noting that "it's just personal preference" or whatever?

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Pah, even Elmo outclassed Ricky Gervais in an interview.

Please, that's not an insult. Any Muppeteer who was doing it while Jim Henson was alive and kicking is sharp-witted as fuck, Gervais never had a prayer.

Also that video was awesome. "It's called professionalism, Mr. Gervais!"

Absolutely. Gervais just can't keep up with the banter.

[hackerjack]

The US version SHOULD be better to be honest.

Remember that when it hit the UK it was something completely off the wall, no-one had ever done such deadpan humour in a sitcom before. There were definate hits and misses which the American version learnt from. It is a little less experimental in that sense.

Also the UK version was basically two men's play thing, the storylines are not as deep and intertwined as te US versions can be.

I'm not a huge fan of either to be honest, I (dont kill me) just dont like Gervais that much and Carrell's version is just irritating in a bad way. But if I had to pick one to watch as a show it would be the US oe, even if the UK version was more interesting due to its different-ness at the time.

[Numbahs]

The UK version is far superior, IMO.

The US show peaked with the Season Two Finale.

[Stevie B]

Since I was ill for the past couple of weeks, I managed to watch all of the UK version, and all the way upto the start of Season 5 in the US version.

I just don't think the two can realy be compared. The UK version was never designed to run very long, where-as the US version looked like it had a long term future after Season 1, thus both versions taking different directions in Season 2.

The UK version was good for what it was. A unique comedy that got the nation talking due to it's new creative style of dry humour and simplicity that people could actually relate too in their office lives.

The US version seems to be designed to whack out as many episodes as possible, and turn it into a long term running sitcom. This seems notibale in Season 2, as in UK version it was all based around the merger of the two branches. The US had the same story line, yet they whack a whole load of episodes in between, with only brief refrences to the possible merger.

Nowadays, you can't compare the two. The US Office has gone into a totally different direction and has evolved into it's own unique show. All the under study characters have been developed, and we know at least a few interesting facts about their lives.

The UK version was good for what it was, and ended when it needed to be ended. I guess it just love the UK version for what it was, and the US version for what it has become.

Of course, a biased reason I loved the UK version is because I live in Slough, and used to drive past The Office building regularly.

Edited March 3, 2010 by Stevie B

[Skummy]

There was only one genuinely funny moment in the UK version; "they've put my stapler in a jelly again".

[apsham]

I liked how they did THAT on the US Office better too.

[Souf_Auckland]

The "Chasers" scene was absolutely brilliant from the UK version.

I'm a big Gervais/Merchant/Pilky fan, so I'm incredibly biased, but much like alot of American comedy, I just can't get into it.