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11/11/2006: Spoiler warning: The Office


Okay. So now I look a bit silly. I posted an entry, not too long ago, about how it would be shmuck-baity, and therefore bad, to write a spec episode of The Office in which the threat was the closure of the Scranton branch. I made this claim, I believe, on the basis that "taint gonna happen." And yet, and yet... that was the initial threat in the last episode of the show itself.

This leaves me with two points to make in my own defense:

1. This particular threat was actually removed fairly early in the episode, as the story moved on to what it was really about, which was, as it should be, the characters. The A-story was about Michael's genuine loyalty to his team, which totally trumped his douchiness in this episode. And the B-story was about whether or not Jim and Pam would be re-united.

And...

2. As I have also pointed out recently, the writers of a show can do things that the writer of a spec cannot. This was one of those episodes that shakes up a show, that changes the status quo. This is a very difficult, and generally discouraged, thing to attempt in a spec of an existing show.

So now I'm only feeling a little bit silly. And totally psyched about Jim and Pam.

Lunch: two hard-boiled eggs, cheese and crackers