The Office Review: Episode 9.16, "Moving On"

"Dwight brings Angela with him on a mission to clean his elderly Aunt Shirley."

...that's how anyone reading this episode's description was greeted. "This is why you'll want to tune in to this episode", the guy who wrote the description seems to say, quite delusionally. "Dwight and Angela are washing an old person, guys!!" I generally assume it's a pretty thankless task, having to write these descriptions, but once or twice a season they get the thoroughly enviable task of having to compress a lot of weirdness down into one sentence, and that's when they can say to themselves, "This is what makes it all worth it." And though this isn't quite as viscerally exciting (and filthy sounding) as last season's "Darryl teaches Nellie how to eat a taco", it definitely gets points for oddness!

The scary thing is that it ends up being one of the most important plots in an episode overstuffed with plots. Despite going up against Pam's job interview, and Andy's continued breakdown of his personal and professional likability, and Toby finally taking the Scranton Strangler case by the horns because apparently that's what people want, the extended storyline about aunt cleanin' manages to be just important. Is this the sort of thing we could've looked forward to every week if The Farm had been picked up as a series? Would we have eventually gotten an episode about Dwight teaching his wacky Nazi uncle to eat a taco too, for the universe is ultimately cyclical?

(Potential spoilers and whatnot after the cut!)

The Office Review: Episode 9.15, "Couples Discount"

I'd like to wish you a belated Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Valentine's Day used to be predictably painful for me, but then I got a girlfriend (hi Tails!), so now I can be one of the relationshippy bourgeoisie, cruelly mocking the downtrodden proletariat of the single. Ah, yes - such a wonderful and thoroughly heartwarming holiday. And I couldn't be more thrilled that they moved it ahead a week this year, to February 7!

....okay, yeah, it's a little weird to have a V-Day episode a week early when NBC will actually be airing an episode on the 14th anyway. As confusing holiday-related scheduling goes it's really minor, to be fair. Zombie Community will evidently be airing its Halloween episode next week, surely the result of some sort of deeply subversive, meta, and/or postmodern commentary on the very concept of sitcom holiday episodes and NOT the result of being screwed over by the network, repeatedly. I guess I shouldn't complain about this too much. Yet, I will. If they're going to be airing an episode of The Office next week anyway, then why didn't they plan around that a bit better when they made their decision to pair up "Couples Discount" and "Vandalism"? Of course, I'm surely incapable of understanding the deep complexities it takes to schedule programming. Maybe they thought it would just be awkward to air a Valentine's episode of something on the same night as a Halloween episode of something else?

Yeah. Because "Couples Discount" would've totally been the awkward part of that equation. Totally.

(Possible spoilers and such below the cut!)

The Office Reviews: 9.13 and 9.14, "Junior Salesman" and "Vandalism"

Be honest, NBC. You chose to burn both of these episodes on the same night because they're both big disappointments, right?

...

Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay, thanks. That's all I needed to know. alright. Buh-bye.

No, but I'll try my hardest to be sympathetic. I'm aware that wrestling the show into series finale-worthy submission requires grappling with an awkward assortment of plot points of various degrees of seriousness; there's the down-to-earth Jim/Pam-type stuff from the early seasons, and then there's the overt broadness from later seasons. Naturally, finding a balance between the two that isn't alienating either way is more difficult than it might sound at first. Could I do it? No, I admit that I would be hopelessly inept in such an endeavor. The problem is that this writing crew has already been able to prove that it's NOT earlier in the season, which makes it all the more depressing when they do fail. C'mon, guys! You were on the right track, in theory!

But, no. It's time to throw silly things like tonal consistency out the window, and careen drunkenly between various things they technically have to get done this season but don't really care all that much about. That's just as good, right?

(I should probably take this opportunity to throw in a spoiler warning for the stuff after the cut!)

Insomnia

I've suffered from recurring bouts of insomnia all my life; the most recent was just over a week ago. Despite dealing with it for as far back as I can remember, I've never really gotten used to it. It's always just about the worst thing ever. As the sleep deprivation builds and builds, it starts feeling a lot like a particularly dark and surreal nightmare, one I obviously can't wake from, even as I desperately wish I could. When it gets particularly bad, it feels like an actual physical presence looming over me, isolating me from everything I hold dear in the world, confining me to my bed and yet ensuring that I'm too unnerved to sleep, such that it may stretch out the delicious torment of its prey for yet another day.

In this handy visual aid, the part of Insomnia is played by an otherworldly, bloodthirsty giant purple octopus who likes trapping poor, defenseless skunky foxes in some sort of malevolent (but oddly Yoshi's Islandy) alternate dimension.

....it made sense when I was heavily sleep deprived, you see.

Why even share it? I guess I just like what a mindless and irrational portrayal of my emotional state at that point in time was. When something in my life beats me down, the shit I create gets CONFUSING, and I think it's kind of interesting to analyze in retrospect. For me, anyway. And I'm one-quarter of my readership, so what I say is interesting goes!