Breakups and (Creative) Breakdowns on "The Office"

This week's episode of The Office was a masterclass to me on how not to plot a television series.

The latest installment of the creatively flagging NBC comedy ("Employee Transfer"), written by new writer Anthony Farrell, undid all of the creative spark the series had rediscovered by adding Amy Ryan to the cast for a brief time. And while I didn't imagine that Ryan would stick around longer than her six-episode commitment, I thought that the writers would be able to competently plot out her arc much better than they actually did. Why have her and Michael get together as a romantic couple at all, just to have them split up a scant two episodes later when they're confronted (off-screen, I might add) by Dunder Mifflin corporate about their inappropriate relationship?

Ryan has proven to be a wellspring of creative energy and her presence on the series has imbued it with a fresh energy and a new direction for Michael's character. And yet the way in which she was lead off of the series was so uninspired and so awkward (and not in the good Office cringe-while-you-laugh sort of way) that it virtually made her six-episode arc a footnote to the series rather than a positive development. Holly imbued Michael with a level of humanity that we've not seen before on the series and gave him someone to react to that wasn't pathologically crazy (i.e., Jan) but a mirror-image reflection of his own sense of humor and neuroses.

Why bother having anything Halloween-related if it was merely relegated to a painfully unfunny (save Creed's Joker impersonation) cold open that bore no relevance to the rest of the episode? Why bother having Andy and Dwight pretend to be one another when Jim and Dwight have already danced this particular waltz in the past? And while I went to Cornell for my undergraduate degree, I found the entire Dwight-insisting-on-applying to Cornell to be dull and leaden. Plus, wasn't it originally established that Andy didn't actually attend Cornell back in Season Three? (Though I suppose the writers already devalued that fantastic revelation by having members of his acapella group appear on-screen.)

Why bring in Jim's loutish older brothers (who, incidentally, did not seem to resemble Jim Halpert in looks, manners, or behavior) if the entire point of the endeavor was just to make Pam feel bad once again about her art school ambitions and have Jim defend them? The entire restaurant exchange went on for far too long and lacked any remote trace of humor.

Compare the "New York" scenes with Jim and Pam to the fantastic and witty scenes between Jim and Karen in Manhattan back in Season Three and it seems like the NYC setting was completely underused when it could have been a fantastic opportunity to show just how much Pam has changed during her tenure in Manhattan and how much more cosmopolitan and sophisticated she's become. But no. I'm absolutely convinced that the writing staff has grown just as bored of Jim and Pam as I have and are tired of coming up with contrived storylines for the duo.

Ultimately, I was fooled by last week's episode into thinking that The Office may have found its footing once again with Ryan's story arc and last week's improved outing but this week's episode once again proved that things are not well in this office. Can we please get back to workplace-based humor that's real and grounded? Or have the writers so shifted the focus of this series so completely that things like office Olympics and sales calls now seem mundane and lacking in any comedy?

When I think about that, I feel about as sad as Kelly on a bad day.

Next week on The Office ("Customer Survey"), Dwight and Jim get the results of the annual customer survey report and are shocked by the findings; Pam and Jim decide to spend every second together by using their Bluetooth phones; Angela and Andy pick an unusual location for their wedding.