The Office (Season 5) (spoilers)

[abomb]

Happy Office Day!

 

[Mike Olbinski]

Woooo!!!!

 

[Kel Varnsen]

There was an article about BJ Novak in yesterday's paper. I bolded the best part.

September 24, 2008
A Major Promotion at ‘The Office’
By EDWARD WYATT

LOS ANGELES — When Greg Daniels began developing an American version of “The Office,” the critically acclaimed British television series, the first person he hired was not Steve Carell, who would go on to become an international comic star, or any of the up-and-coming actors who would form the unrequited-love pairs known to fans as Dwangela and Jam.

Rather, his first hire was a stand-up comic who, although he was a rising star on the West Coast comedy scene, was also just a few years out of college and had done little more than write for a quickly canceled situation comedy and play largely improvised roles in a handful of episodes of the MTV reality show “Punk’d.”

That male ingénue was B. J. Novak, who was for much of the last season at the center of the on-screen action on “The Office,” while also serving as a co-executive producer and one of the senior writers for the series.

Mr. Daniels said even before he had a specific role in mind, he knew he wanted someone who, like Mr. Novak, would be able to fill the dual roles of writer and actor. “I had worked on ‘Saturday Night Live’ with a lot of writer-performers, and I wanted to have a writer-performer on ‘The Office,’ ” Mr. Daniels said recently in a telephone interview. “He was a rising stand-up who I thought had a bright future, and I wanted to snap him up.”

Mr. Daniels soon cast Mr. Novak as Ryan Howard, a temporary worker who happens to begin work on the same day that a documentary film crew begins following, for a not entirely apparent reason, the goings-on at Dunder-Mifflin, a midsize regional paper distributor.

While the temp character lasted only one season in the two-year run of the British “Office,” Mr. Novak and his co-stars will begin their fifth season on Thursday night on NBC, where the series is the anchor of the network’s comedy lineup. Mr. Novak’s character has evolved well beyond the temp, first joining as a full-time paper salesman, and then, in the third-season finale, vaulting over a few office mates to win the vice president’s post that the others had assumed was theirs.

Last season Ryan proceeded to hoist himself by his own petard — he was last seen in the Season 4 finale being dragged out of corporate headquarters in handcuffs after being caught double-booking sales to make his pet project, the company Web site, appear viable.

For both Ryan and Mr. Novak, it has been a rapid rise that looks effortless. But in Mr. Novak’s case, at least, it’s been fueled by hard work and long days.

“I certainly haven’t felt invincible in my time here,” Mr. Novak, 29, said over dinner earlier this month in Studio City in the San Fernando Valley. He had come at 8 p.m. from the set of “The Office,” roughly two hours earlier than he usually left and more than 12 hours after having arrived that morning.

“We work in an industrial cul-de-sac in a scary, God-forsaken corner of the valley,” he said. “It is across the street from what appears to be a lot where they strip cars for parts, which is guarded by a pit bull, and next to a bunch of crematoriums, where they cremate bodies. We’ve been in that unglamorous location since before anyone ever gave us a compliment on the street. It fosters a lot of humility.”

Mr. Novak grew up in Newton, a Boston suburb, the son of an author who helped to write best-selling autobiographies of Lee Iacocca, Nancy Reagan and others. Applying to Harvard, he submitted a satirical article he had written as editor of his high school newspaper, noting that he hoped to write for The Harvard Lampoon. He went on to do just that.

But Mr. Novak said that he no longer stockpiled milestones to reach. “The most exciting thing I aspire to do is to write something new that I know is going to work, or perform something that I know is going to make people laugh,” he said. “I have a stack of notebooks of every idea I’ve had for the past five years that I am dying to do in some way. And to translate those into something that people actually like — that one of those ideas could be somebody’s favorite movie or favorite TV show — those are my ambitions.”

As both men recall, it was an early attempt by Mr. Novak to make people laugh that first got Mr. Daniels’s attention.

“Greg happened to see me at the Improv in L.A., and I had a very good night,” Mr. Novak recalled. “I remember he liked a line I had: ‘I spent four years in college. I didn’t learn a thing. It was really my own fault. I had a double major in psychology and reverse psychology.’ ”

Mr. Novak said he knew that he and Mr. Daniels thought alike when, during their first meeting, Mr. Daniels drew a Venn diagram to illustrate his definition of comedy.

“One circle was truly innovative, quality comedy, and one circle was what people enjoy,” Mr. Novak recalled. “And he said, ‘All I’m interested in is what’s in the middle.’ Which was all I’m interested in too. I don’t see the value in quote-unquote brilliant things that people don’t like, and I don’t see the value in things that people like that I don’t respect. It was also just a funny thing to do in a meeting, to draw a Venn diagram. I hadn’t seen one of those things since sixth grade. And I liked this one very much.”

What attracted him to “The Office,” Mr. Novak said, besides the possibility of steady employment, was the idea that he would be part of a show that was “aspiring to do something truly great.”

“Most things on television weren’t, at that time,” he said. “Most things were aspiring to be mediocre. They were imitating shows too, but they weren’t even imitating good shows. At least we were aspiring to be like the best of the best.”

Mr. Novak has written some of the most memorable episodes of “The Office,” including “Chair Model,” last season’s gem in which Michael, the regional manager of the Scranton, Pa., branch of Dunder-Mifflin, falls in love with a woman in an office-supply catalog; “Safety Training,” the third-season episode that featured an inflatable castle in the office parking lot and watermelons being tossed off the office roof; and “Diversity Day,” the program’s first broadcast episode that was not an almost direct copy of a British “Office” script.

“That was B. J.’s first script, and it was a classic right away,” said Oscar Nuñez, who plays Oscar Martinez on “The Office.” The episode featured an exercise in which the office workers taped index cards to their foreheads, each with the name of an ethnic group written on it, and then had to experience how others reacted to them upon seeing their race.

Mr. Novak said that initial script was fun because, for the first time, he was encouraged to write “whatever I thought was funny.” It was the opposite of an earlier writing experience, for a sitcom called “Raising Dad,” he said, when he would sometimes get a real laugh from writers for a line, “and they wouldn’t even consider putting it on the screen.”

That WB show, he added, “had a different mandate. They weren’t writing for their peers, they weren’t writing for themselves. They were writing for the network, or what they thought the network wanted.”

Mr. Novak contrasts that with his current experience. “If there is a best joke of the day, it will be in the show, unless there is not time for it,” he said. “It will never be because people thought they couldn’t pull it off or they had other priorities.”

 

[abomb]

Good stuff Krep.

 

[Kel Varnsen]

Good stuff Krep.

I can't wait for this show tonight...my real office has sucked this week, so I'm looking forward to the tv version.

 

[SuperSpck]

Spoiler

Good episode. Loved adding tension to Pam and Jim's relationship and the engagement totally caught me off guard. Also think the way the re-integrated Ryan into the show was very funny. Dwight seems to have more of an edge so far. Thoughts?

 

[Assface]

It's here!

 

[O]

Spoiler

I always knew Angela was a ****.

 

[dogpoo32]

Good start to the season!

 

[arthurracoon]

Awesome episode!

The first 20 minutes especially were hilarious

Spoiler

When it came out that Kevin wasn't mentally ******** and Stanley was doing the leg exercises.

Also, wasn't expecting Jim's proposal at all

It's nice to have the office back on.

 

[BirdMan21]

Just a great show....so happy the season is going again.

 

[abomb]

Here is Ascii Shrute;
http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/downloads/emoticon_dwight.pdf

 

[thirty-two]

Hey what do you guys think about adding "spoliers" to the title and that way we can talk freely about the episode instead of putting everything behind spoilers?

 

[Chaplin]

I think after a show airs, nobody who hasn't seen the show yet should go into a thread about that show. Spoiler tags are great for movie threads, where it costs money to view, but tv is free. If the episode has aired and you haven't seen it yet, then don't go into the thread. Seems pretty simple. It works for sports, why wouldn't it work here?

 

[arthurracoon]

I think after a show airs, nobody who hasn't seen the show yet should go into a thread about that show. Spoiler tags are great for movie threads, where it costs money to view, but tv is free. If the episode has aired and you haven't seen it yet, then don't go into the thread. Seems pretty simple. It works for sports, why wouldn't it work here?

yea, I dont go into a show thread if I havent seen the most recent episode yet

 

[Bada0Bing]

Loved it. It's amazing how fast 40 minutes can go by.

I was totally caught off-guard by Jim too. My wife actually gasp'd she was so surprised.

 

[thirty-two]

Btw, Michael falling down the stairs (twice) still makes me laugh when I think about it.

BTW, I'm changing the title of this thread to add a spoiler warning. Seems like 98% of the people that post on this thread have actually watched the episode, so I think we're safe.

 

[arthurracoon]

funny episode yesterday

 

[Bada0Bing]

funny episode yesterday

Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen an unfunny one. Jim with the stopwatch was classic.

 

[arthurracoon]

and Ryan is not only the "fire" guy, but now is also the "hired" guy

 

[Assface]

Jim talking about Battlestar Galactica was awesome. Rainn Wilson does such a great job as Dwight.

 

[dogpoo32]

Jim talking about Battlestar Galactica was awesome. Rainn Wilson does such a great job as Dwight.

That was pretty hilarious. Andy helped make that scene too.

 

[BirdMan21]

"Where is my *************!?" -Michael

 

[thirty-two]

OMG that hug between Michael and Holly was just PERFECT. They are my new favorite couple!!!!!!!

And so sad for Pam/Jim

Also LOL to the scene with Andy putting his baby picture next to Phylis' and all his reactions!!!

Great episode!!!

 

[D-Dogg]

I love Holly.

I fell in love with her first on The Wire though. My wife and I call her Beadie Holly.

She's got a wonderful smile.