That’s what I call a brilliant cold open! The best thing about The Office’s first few minutes last night was how it built a great idea on top of another, and even better how it revolved around Jim pranking Dwight yet again. Remember the desk in the bathroom? This brought the goods times back.
Okay, so first of all, Dwight is hilarious for not realizing that many of the things on his team’s schedule could be done simultaneously. Instead, he added the necessary time together, and aimed to wake everyone up at 4:50am for a 9:00am meeting at Sabre. His allowing thirty minutes for the drive, twenty minutes for everyone to shower, fifty minutes for Jim to style his hair, twenty minutes for breakfast, forty minutes for Erin to get lost between her room and the lobby, and ninety minutes for Ryan to do his morning ecstasy, led Dwight to wake his team up in fun and interesting ways.
His screaming Cathy (Lindsey Broad) awake got the same response from her; I loved when Erin kicked him in the face because she had fallen asleep upside down while reading her mattresses label; suffocating Stanley was the obvious way to go; and Ryan was super creepy thinking Erin was looking to join him in bed.
But the best — and likely the best cold open this season — took place in Jim’s room. With time on his hands after waking up even earlier than Dwight, Jim devised an elaborate murder scene to scare the hell out of Dwight. It was awesome … and then he fell out of the closet. Loved it!
The episode itself didn’t do as well. Nellie Bertram (Catherine Tate) returned as president of Sabre special projects … so basically Dwight is not project manager? Seems to me that, at best, we could call Dwight team leader of a bunch of Scranton employees who are joining a whole team already assembled for this purpose. Again, surprised that Dwight didn’t sniff that out.
Instead we had to endure what was an embarrassing display by Dwight, fighting through appendicitis and an appendectomy to show Nellie what he could do. I know that was classic Dwight, but given the health scare nature of the story I didn’t find it so funny. HE was oftentimes funny, but I think I would have rather seen him loopy in the hospital than trying to climb atop a human pyramid before collapsing to the ground.
Meanwhile, back in Scranton a ringing phone helped Andy find his true calling: receptionist. It probably would be better for him to stay there. First for productivity’s sake, but also because, can you imagine how hilarious he would be as the receptionist in the office? Was it all so he’d see that picture of Erin and realize that he missed her? Because if so Andy will never discover what he’s really good at. And that would be a shame.
Some other fun stuff:
What did you think of The Office’s first sojourn down in Florida?
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Feb 17, 2012 @ 10:44 EST5EDT
Agreed on the murder scene cold open. Probably my favorite ever, especially the way the camera whipped and zoomed to focus on every incriminating detail. “It was Dwight.” :)