TV-Reviewed

The opening for “Koi Pond” lacked a bit when it comes to some of the openings of the past. The whole Halloween concept though felt a little lost when compared to the rest of the episode. They didn’t mention Halloween once in the rest of the episode.

“Koi Pond” had Jim expecting to go off on his own on a business meeting, but finding out that the clients feel more comfortable if Michael comes. It was interesting to see Jim actually be jealous that the clients wanted Michael. Apparently this has been happening since Jim has become co-manager, so it was nice to know that Michael has been looking over his shoulder for a while now.

When they get back, Michael comes in wet and we find out that he fell into a koi pond. This caused the whole office to make fun of Michael. This all seemed like a harmless joke, but Michael was taking it pretty seriously, so seriously in fact that he tried to call a sensitivity meeting to ban certain things that can’t be made from of. The only thing that the meeting did though was out certain things that we didn’t even know about certain people. The idea that someone would make fun of Meredith for having sex with a terrorist was dumb, or Angela eating like a squirrel, even though it probably should have been on the board, because she really does eat like a squirrel.

Jim gives Michael the advice that if he makes fun of himself that it would take the fun out of everyone else making fun of him. It was a good plan until Michael mentioned almost every embarrassing thing he’s done. It just made him feel worse. It was quite sad and this seemed like the point where Michael realized that he’s been the butt of jokes all his life. I liked the little swerve at the end where we watch the security footage and find out that Jim let Michael fall into the pond and didn’t try to help at all. Jim’s new position has made him look like a jerk a couple of times and it’s nice to see him looked at like that now.

Pam and Andy’s outing which had them doing cold calls was hilarious. Andy got mad because Pam laughed when it was suggested that the two were a couple and then when they play it off like they are a couple, Andy takes it a bit too far by kissing Pam’s belly. This felt like a really odd moment, but it wasn’t treated as awkward as maybe it should have been. Pam actually seemed to sympathize with Andy and his yearning for children and a wife, which is probably something he wouldn’t have gotten with Angela anyway.  Pam trying to get things going with Andy was cool and I’m looking forward to seeing something develop between the two in the next couple of episodes.

I liked this episode; the comedy was there, but it didn’t feel over the top like The Office comedy usually is. There were nice quotes through with the most memorable one being Dwight’s enemy of my enemy speech at the end, which makes for two great quotes in a row for Dwight. This was a good episode, the plot was a bit of a throw away and it was a bit disappointing to have Pam and Michael not together after their falling out last episode. It was a decent episode, but great it was not.

Rating: 7.3