indy4

I've been avoiding this thread for fear of spoilers.  Now that the series is over, here are my thoughts on the last few episodes, and the finale specifically.

For me, The Office started declininig after the Writer's Strike (middle of season 4), and despite a few dips and bumps, that trend has continued.  It flatlined sometime in the 7th or 8th season, but it was pretty low when it flatlined.  I still was a devoted follower, out of a sense of obligation and tradition more than anything else.  It became a show that was good for one-liners and clever gags, but most of the character arcs became completely unbelievable, and some of the characters became pretty unlikeable.  Also, the major dramatic subplots of the last few seasons have been so fast-paced (especially relative to the ingeniously slow development of the Jim/Pam story) that unexpected dramatic turns are just not very interesting anymore.

To me, these last few episodes mostly just continued that flatline.  The season finale was a slight uptick just for all the nostalgia-- Devon's and Michael's return especially--and the bittersweet sense of finality.  But there are elements of the story that just are too unbelivable, and characters that are just too unlikable, to really have an impact.

So overall--an enjoyable finale, although like the other recent seasons, I don't think it was very good.  I am sad to see this show come to an end, mostly because of the great 3.5 seasons, but at the same time I recognize that it massively overstayed its welcome.

 

The Office 9x16 Moving On - Uh, what was this?  Something was off about this episode, and when 20 minutes had passed and was over I realized it was a double-length one.  Looking it up on wikipedia, I see it was intended to be a single episode, but NBC asked them to make it an hour for some reason.  So basically they kept in all the parts they would have cut for time, and maybe then added more stuff too, I dunno.  Anyways, you can definitely feel the bloat!  The parts with Angela and Dwight on the farm were funny and cute, and no surprise they made out at the end.

 

Pam not wanting to work in Philadelphia was no surprise.  This season is really testing Jim's values - soon he's going to have to choose between this job and Pam and his kids (the choice will be obvious).  Oh, Bob Odenkirk was BRILLIANT at both parodying Michael Scott, and being unique in his own righ at the same time.  All his scenes were great.

 

The Andy/Erin/Pete subplot was the weak part, and just felt sooo dragged on and unrealistic.  Gabe was pretty funny though.  The minor subplot with Toby and Nellie, and him visiting the Scranton Strangler was pretty funny.  I guess the right guy is behind bars afterall, and there will be no late season surprise about the real Scranton Strangler.  Oh well.

 

The button at the end of the episode with the ad on Oscar's computer showing "The Office: An American Workplace" airing in May is surely setting up a season finale about the documentary footage airing and the character's reaction to it!

 

I thought the same thing--then a friend told me that this was actually meant to be a pilot for a spin-off about Dwight!  It wasn't recieved very well though, so they decided against it.  But that explains why it felt so out-of-place, and why it created so many loose threads.

This is the response I got

"Thank you for your inquiry. Unfortunately no, although you might want to  consider contacting the Marine Band to see if it already exists on an album or as a download."

A few that come to mind:

- Intersection Scene from WotW and "Hidden Treasures and the City of Gold" from KotCS

- American Journey is full of stuff from Far and Away, The Patriot and Saving Private Ryan

- The Conspirators from JFK and "Dennis Steals the Embryo" from Jurassic Park

- the percussion section of "Spyders" and "Chase Through Coruscant"

- a section of "Catch Me If You Can" and "Across the stars" from AtoC

- a motif from War Horse is similar to Window to the Past and a motif rom Dance of the Witches

The pros definitely outweigh the cons for the consumer, it's more the businesses that Kendall was talking about.  Although labels are incentivized to release CDs in smaller units (ie 1000) to encourage people to buy them, so that could be a pretty big con depending on the consumer/release.

Thanks for sharing!  I just listened to the sample, and I might get this later on.  It's the kind of piece of music that is complex enough that different recordings are bound to bring out different instruments, and soloistic enough that there can be significantly different interpretations of a line.