Ever since I read Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, my mind has rattled itself trying to figure out how a story that starts and progresses so well can finish is such an unsatisfying fashion. It's a great novel sure, but there comes a certain point about three-quarters in where you know it's all downhill from here. I thought it was kind of unique in that respect. And then I watched the series finale of Battlestar Galactica.
That being said, it is one of the best TV shows I've ever seen. Just... beware of the last five minutes.
Last night's post-Super Bowl episode of The Office perplexed me to the point where all the nagging thoughts I've had about whether or not the show is past its peak started to overtake my brain with a resounding yes, it has.
To recap, Dwight (Rainn Wilson) lights a fire in the office because his co-workers weren't paying attention to his lecture on fire safety. It causes panic and pandemonium of the ridiculous kind, including broken windows, the tossing of a cat and Andy (Ed Helms) shouting, "The fire is shooting at us!" It was an inspired, over the top and ridiculous bit, all while Dwight, at his most machiavellian, trying to condescend and take charge. As the scene ends, Stanley (Leslie David Baker) is on the floor, suffering a heart attack.
For some Cardinal fans, it was the perfect bit of hilarity to follow a great game. But something rang false about this scene for me. It crossed a line of insanity that show had only skirted at this point. "The only way for this to end," I thought to myself, "is that Michael or Dwight will get fired. Or seriously punished." I figured that'd be a pretty big plot point to coincide with it being a Super Bowl-following program.
But they didn't get punished. Both Michael and Dwight got a stern talking to from the higher-ups in New York, but aside from a half-assed letter of apology, they're still running strong. In fact, they got sent to New York twice, after Dwight cut the face off of a CPR test dummy.
Of course this isn't the first time a character on this show has gotten away with a fireable offense. It happens at least twice a show on good nights. But this was the point where I think the show went a little too far, with all the humor based on the bit's extremities. It felt like something advertisers would have liked to pitch as "Dwight's biggest office blunder yet!" That the show much more silly than the depressingly realistic British counterpart (which I haven't seen yet...) is one of it's strengths, something that helped it break out of Ricky Gervais's shadow and become it's own beast. But like The Simpsons or Family Guy, when you base your humor on how much batshit crazy stuff you can get away with, you're not saying anything funny. You're just pulling off a stunt. And anyone could do that.
Perhaps I'm taking the show too seriously. This season, there have been moments of clarity, where Michael Scott's bosses have turned a blind eye towards the unethical and inept behavior because their business is somehow profitable. Perhaps this is just an extension of what they're willing to accept in order to keep the company afloat. Or many it's one big homage to Christopher Durang. I suppse that maybe this could be addressed in a few more weeks. But it's getting to the point where I'm beginning to think it all should have ended like Arrested Development - three seasons and finish.
On a lighter and not entirely unrelated note, here's the best Super Bowl commercial of the night.
Superheroes and musical comedy aren't exactly peanut butter and chocolate, but then again, Joss Whedon's always been about making the questionable palatable, like turning a popcorn movie into a thematically layered TV series and then producing a not-too-shabby-itself spinoff from said series. And of course, let's not forget one of the best shows to never make it past one season...
So while I was waiting and waiting for the Whedon to come out with information on the long-delayed Goners project, apparently this little one-off slipped past me. Come to think of it, I first saw Buffy and Angel episodes in their final seasons. And like a lot of people, I completely missed Firefly until it came out on DVD. I suppose not watching Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog until six months after it came out is pretty good considering.
I don't know what you'd rightly call Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. It's only 43 minutes long, cut into three acts and shown for free on hulu.com. It's not exactly a TV movie... It's more like a TV special - on the internet - without any holiday to celebrate.
The awkwardly pretty Neil Patrick Harris plays the title character as he monologues and sings his way towards world domination and into the heart of his laundromat crush played by Felicia Day. The only standing in his way is the chauvinistic town superhero, Captain Hammer, played by Nathan Fillion.
It's got it's got the typical Whedon awkward wordplay humor ("Justice has a name, and the name that it has, besides Justice, is Captain Hammer!") and his "Once More, With Feeling" style musical numbers - which I'd hate coming from anyone else, but let slide when he lets things get cut short by a roommate barging in.
With production values that are clearly below most TV shows - yet exceeding the vast majority of web-produced material - Whedon could be trying to elevate the medium. As you're watching the first two acts, it's easy to slip into the mindset of watching any decent YouTube parody, but in the show's final act, Whedon slips a dagger between your ribs when ... no, I won't give it away. It's just one of those twists that completely warps your expectations of how this silly musical comedy was supposed to end. Like most Whedon shows, the shifting emotions aren't exactly subtle. But it seems like he's always been comfortable with sacrificing that for honesty and for taking nerdly shows like this places they don't typically go.
Andrew J. Mitchell covers city hall for the Clinton Herald in Clinton, Iowa. Prior to this, his work appeared on Westwood One's broadcast wire service, Northern Public Radio and in the Kane County Chronicle, the DeKalb Daily Chronicles, The Northern Star, The Daily Swarm and Pensatos.com. He recently earned a Masters in Public Affairs Reporting from the University of Illinois in Springfield.
