Capulets and Romulans: Last Night's Episodes of "The Office" and "30 Rock"

I am feeling really melancholy this morning after watching last night's episodes of The Office and 30 Rock, especially given that The Office's lukewarm offering was the last episode of the NBC comedy that we'll see... until after the WGA strike is resolved.

Last night's installment of The Office ("The Deposition"), written by supervising producer Lester Lewis, was shockingly low-key in comparison to recent episodes, which had Michael driving a car into a lake, kidnapping a pizza delivery boy, and attempting to flee Scranton on a cargo train. But it wasn't the restrained tone that bothered me (in fact, we don't need the histronics of Season Four's one-hour episodes in order to find the funny), but it was so far understated that the entire episode seemed strangely static.

I've been calling for a return to more office-based humor and less field trips (unless they're organic like "Booze Cruise" or, hell, even "Branch Wars") for a while now and while this episode did just that--offering a warehouse ping-pong competition between Jim and Darryl, with warring girlfriends Pam and Kelly talking smack, while Michael testifies in Jan's deposition for her $4 million wrongful termination suit against Dunder-Mifflin--it felt oddly flat and uninspired.

The usage of "That's what she said" was completely mismanaged during the deposition scene. When the joke works it really works (as in last week's episode); here, it was so inappropriate that I had a hard time believing that Michael would really utter those words under oath, even if he was nervous at trying to remember all of his "lines."

What worked? Michael having to sit with Toby, only to upend his lunch tray seconds later, the reading of Michael's diary in which he admits, "Ryan is just as pretty as Jan, but in a different way" and Toby's subsequent laughter, the "Hiya, Buddy" hot dog drawing, and the consequences from that Sandals photo Michael accidentally sent out to everyone at Dunder-Mifflin.

I liked seeing a super-competitive Kelly Kapoor talking trash (or, sorry, smack) about Jim but I couldn't really get behind the entire ping-pong plot, which reminded me far too much of the basketball game from Season One's "Basketball." And not in a good way.

Or was I just so depressed by the fact that this could serve as an unintended season finale of The Office that I glumly overlooked something? On that count, I'm not sure that my mood influenced me too much; the episode did seem rather subpar, as though it were just going through the motions.

Over on 30 Rock, the mood was more convivial, but the series has had its funnier installments. Last night's episode ("Somebody to Love") found Jack falling for C.C. (guest star Edie Falco), a Democratic Congresswoman whom he meets at a conservative mixer and beds without realizing who she is. (Naysayers who wonder if Falco can do comedy have clearly never seen her film Judy Berlin.)

Jack and C.C. soon enter a secret affair while Liz suspects her new Middle Eastern neighbor Raheem of being a terrorist... only to learn that the clues she's uncovered reveal that he is applying to be on The Amazing Race. Oh, and Kenneth attempts to replace a pair of Jack's tuxedo pants that have gone missing by doing odd jobs--such as scaring a sleeping Lutz by wearing an ape mask or eating expired ketchup for money--around the office.

I thought that the Liz story was just slightly more effective than the Jack one, thanks to its brutal third-act twist regarding Raheem. I love the way that 30 Rock subtly paints liberal Liz as progressive in her views but secretly suffering from some racist tendencies; her paranoia was acutely felt but in a comedic way. Elsewhere, in this episode, there was way too much usage of the Lifetime Movie of the Week (A Dog Took My Face And Gave Me A Better Face To Change The World: The Celeste Cunningham Story) throughout. Instead of being a funny aside (loved the fact that the dog shot C.C. in the face with a hunting rifle), the footage soon overwhelmed the entire episode.

More subtle by far was the return of NBC fictional parent company The Sheinhardt Wig Company, here embodied in a series of t-shirts that many of the characters were wearing, following a rather public scandal involving illegal toxic dumping and orange-colored school children. And, um, the news headline about Anne Heche leaving her husband for a pony.

Roared with laughter at the blatant Verizon Wireless product placement gag and Liz's demand for money. As I did with a miffed Jack correcting the bartender that for men his drink of choice was called a Hardy Boy rather than a Nancy Drew.

Plus, how can you not love a series that has one of its lead do a Rerun-style dance (complete with red beret) while two others talk about the smell of maple syrup in the air, possibly caused by a biological weapon with the ability to kill within ten seconds? Even the warring Capulet and Romulan clans could agree on that.

Best line of the night (from either series): "We Parcells are neither wealthy nor circumcised, but we are proud!"