The Office

This season of The Office started with a bang last Thursday, and ended with a fizzle. To begin with, it was very exciting to be staring down my TiVo Remote at a full hour of this wonderful show after such a long summer. We were anxious to pick back up with some awkward romantic tension between Jim and Pam, further sycophantic battles between Dwight and Andy, and of course Michael making an idiot of himself. Well, things started off alright, but we noticed some problems arriving at the conclusion of the episode: 1) Jim and Pam are together now...what do we have to wait for now? The anticipation is gone. 2) Apparently Andy is not allowed to talk this season, big mistake. 3) Thankfully, Michael is still an idiot.
Up until this episode I had been nursing a healthy married man-crush on Pam, and for the first time ever, I felt some distance between the two of us. I'm afraid that now that they allowed her to let her hair down, wear a different shirt from the one that she wore the past three seasons, and is openly together with Jim, and even sunk to wearing tight little running pants, the mystery is gone. She may as well have been naked out there, because there is nothing left to imagine anymore. I hope that the dirty harlot buttons it up again in the near future, because I don't roll with smelly pirate hookers.
On a more serious note, Steve Carrell continues to do an amazing job as Michael Scott. His brilliance is found in his ability to screw up everything he tries to do, be more offensive than most of us could dream of being, and yet still manage to be lovable by the end of every episode. Only Archie Bunker and Homer Simpson have managed that previously, and that is some fine company. I guess we could add Alex P. Keaton to that list as well. Whatever the case, he is in some fine company, and certainly deserved the fake Emmy he received from Stewart and Colbert when Ricky Gervais didn't want his.
Unsimplified preliminary rating for season 4 of The Office: 150/200.