The Office is a British comedy sitcom created and starring Ricky Gervais. It is the inspiration of the American version of the show. The first season is six episodes long and each episode isn’t too long, at around 30 minutes each. If you have seen the American version first (or vice versa), then the season will be very familiar since the American version is a carbon copy of a lot of the plot beats, however, the British version has better pacing and scene transition, so it flows better.
The show takes place at a paper company where the premise is that a film crew is around gathering footage to make a documentary. It’s a framing device, giving an excuse on the characters to break the fourth wall by talking about the events and their own views. Nevertheless, it works well and the show is headlined by Ricky Gervais’ character, David Brent. He is a near middle aged manager of the Slough branch, where he finds out that either his branch or another branch is going to be absorbed by the other. David himself is quite the character, we immediately get a grasp of his personality: he’s rude, self-satisfied, and completely inappropriate. He’s oblivious to all this though and we see that his receptionist, Dawn, gets it the worst.
Rounding out the main cast are Gareth, David’s supposed right hand man; and salesman Tim. Initially, Tim seems timid and keeps to himself, but that’s just him showing how bored and dissatisfied he is with his own current situation. Soon after, we see Tim is quite the prankster and he has a natural rivalry with Gareth. Gareth is the victim of most, if not all, of Tim’s (usually harmless) pranks, and they inject quite a bit of much needed fun humor (as opposed to cringe humor) into the show.
The season mainly deals with how David reacts to the downsize dilemma he is put into. He is a weak man, unwilling to do the hard things as he prefers people to like him. However, he’s a cruel and petty person, easily insulting others but when it is done to him, he sulks and acts like a child. He’s basically the worst kind of boss, since he doesn’t even do anything as a manager. He’s childish, has to get the last word and wants to show off but doesn’t have the skills to back it up. With that said, there are moments where he is genuinely funny (instead of just laughing at him).
The show does excel at making several characters someone that you would hate to meet and interact with in real life, but okay with watching them make another character’s life miserable. Case in point is David’s close friend, who is even more bull-headed, insensitive, prideful and just plain stupid than he is. David gives him a free pass, and the pair’s actions are intolerable, but also you can’t help but keep watching to see if they would get their just desserts.
In line with David’s sense of humor, this does spill to the rest of the show too. There are some where there is surprising crudeness and outright sexual references, more so than you would expect of a normal sitcom. It doesn’t stop there given that there is even a scene where a character pulls out a giant inflatable sex organ and plays around with it.
David cannot read the mood, and he can’t help but gloat whenever something good happens to him. That can make him insufferable (more so his colleagues, but still bad as a viewer). It does feel unfair when good things happen to him while others are suffering. Then again, maybe he doesn’t quite deserve some of the embarrassments that he has to face, although pretty much all of those are his own doing. The season doesn’t really achieve much, it’s basically establishing the setting and fleshing out the characters. Even when there is some promise of developments, the season finale effectively regresses everything back to where it was.
Overall, the first season of The Office is average. It introduces several quirky characters, although it targets ones which are more unlikable rather than anything. As a result, it can be hard to empathize with the characters, made the worse with the low number of episodes and short running time. Nevertheless, David Brent is an unforgettable character, along with Gareth and Tim, the trio makes the show.
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