TV-Reviewed

A lot of people think The Office has gotten stale with this last season. I still enjoy The Office and admit that there have been a couple of missteps this season, but The Office still continues to be a funny show. With this episode, it’s nice to have focus on Dunder-Mifflin and not worry too much about the characters themselves. This episode puts Dunder-Mifflin in a very interesting position that I’m looking forward to see play out.

I’m definitely glad that everything is back to normal in the office. Pam seems like she’s back to her old self after a couple of bad episodes for her.  The office is alerted of Dunder-Mifflin facing hard economic times, which could mean that everybody might be losing their jobs. Michael doesn’t want to scare the employees so he tries to distract them by having them all participate in a murder mystery game. This gave us some funny moments, which included Creed having one of the funniest scenes of the whole episode. We also got to hear some fake southern accents as everyone pretended to be the characters they were given.

This actually seemed to work as everyone really did start to take their mind off of losing their jobs. Jim didn’t think it was a good idea and thought it was a waste when they could be doing work. Jim has become slightly unlikable since taking this co-managing job and while getting back to work is actually a really good idea, it’s starting to make him look like he doesn’t care.

It was funny watching Dwight go around and interrogate people like he was in an episode of CSI. We even had a nice romantic storyline involving Andy and Erin who have been edging closer together gradually since she started working together. Andy asked her out, but did it in character, and he thought Erin thought he was just asking, because it was part of the game. This all played out in a rather sad tone as we find out that Erin thought it was a real date, but Andy backed out at the last minute when he was asked. While not as fun as watching Jim and Pam, this is a rather cute storyline to watch and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with it. I’m also wondering if this might make Angela a bit angry when she sees Andy pursuing Erin.

The interesting part came at the end when we discover that Dunder-Mifflin really is in trouble and that by the end of the year they could be bankrupt. There are a couple of shows that have already put a “bad economy” storyline. The Office doesn’t do too much different; in fact, I don’t think it rolls as well as other shows. I don’t get how they’re just now finding out that they’re running out of money. I also wonder how long corporate has known this, especially considering how they came close to buying out Michael for a large sum for his company or having the big family business party. Then again that is realistic with corporate tycoons spending money they don’t have.  This could still turn out to be good. I look forward to seeing how the characters react to this and seeing how this plays out for the company this season.

Rating: 7.5