BBC's The Office - complete series

The complete series 1 & 2 and the special.

I was more familiar with the American Office when I finally came to watch the entirety of the British Office. I can't help but draw some initial comparisons in reviewing the British series.

The British Office (featuring Ricky Gervais as David Brent) and the American Office (featuring Steve Carell as Michael Scott) are like different sides of the same coin, which is to say, for Canadians, they are about as similar as the Queen and a giant elk. They have the same premise - a documentary crew films the everyday goings in an average office - the execution of each is very different. While the American office is a traditional sitcom (heavy on caricature, joke based humour, very much tied to the office set), the original British Office is not a sitcom. It feels like a documentary. It is produced to feel like the scenes we see were cobbled out of a great mass of footage - that the story we see unfold was found while sifting through endless hours of daily footage. The characters and their situations seem real. Indeed, Gervais describes the character of David Brent as a "regular bloke" and that's how he's played - as a simple human being who happens to be desperate for attention.

I don't have office experience but from a relational standpoint they make office life look like being stuck in high school for ever - which is dismally sad. Trapped in a boring and unfulfilling environment, the workers tolerate abuse and all kinds of offensive behaviour and think of ways to "have a laugh" in order to cope with their situation. David Brent, as a management figure, empathises with the drudgery of office work and perhaps rightly believes that boosting morale is a key facet of his job, but his over confident self-absorption prevents him from reading the real needs of his employees and from seeing himself as the social hanger-on that he really is.

The brilliance of the show is that we get 360 degree views of the key characters when the show follows the office workers to the pub and to other venues where they continue to share their unpleasant lives, even when they no longer have to. We see that souls and hope have been crushed to the point where keeping on with the same drudgery is preferable to the hard work of pursuing real dreams and passions. When life sucks one isn't concerned with large pleasures - the smallest, cheapest happiness will suffice to get us to the next day. Ironically - it's "boss from hell" David Brent's vital pursuit of his passions and dreams (to be an entertainer) which make him such a horrible manager - and at the same time make him so sympathetic (and tragic).

While series 1 and 2 chronicle life in the office the special unfolds several years after the series has aired. True to form it's presented as a "where are they now" special that reunites those no longer with the company with those who remain and culminates in an office Christmas party attended by all the principal characters. The brilliance of the special makes the entire series stronger as we are treated to a study in consequences - having been recorded and broadcast the employees of The Office have been forced to endure the world's judgment of them.

Ultimately the complete British Office shows us the journey of a handful of people who, through participation in the phenomena of documentary story-telling, come to see themselves for who they really are. This self-awareness leads them to small and large revelations about what they truly want from life and gives them courage to act.