The Office (Season 1)

The first season of The Office is infamously different than all of the other seasons of the show, as it's far more based off of its UK counterpart. It's darker, more satirical, and the characters are far less sympathetic. Sadly, I don't think it pulls it off all that well most of the time.

There isn't much of a story to the first season of The Office. It's just an episodic series about a bunch of normal people working in a normal office. There's the boss Michael Scott (Steve Carell), the "assistant" Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), there's Jim Halpert (John Krakinski), and the secretary Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer). Jim hates his job and spends most of his time pranking Dwight, when he's not fawning over Pam in spite of the fact that she's engaged. For most of the show, Michael Scott is the main focus as the boss, and while he's an endearing and fleshed-out character in the later seasons, in Season 1, he's just kind of annoying. They tried to make Michael Scott more like David Brent, but it doesn't really play to Steve Carrell's strengths.

There are only six episodes in this season and most of them are fairly average. The mockumentary style is well-executed, the acting is good, and the show gets laughs out of me fairly frequently, but it's rarely anything spectacular. This is probably because for most of this season, it really does feel like the show runners are trying to emulate the UK version of the show, to the point where the pilot episode is a beat-for-beat recreation of the UK pilot. The UK version of the pilot is great and all, but they copy it so blatantly to the point where it feels like an inferior version. The season finale also retreads the same "Hot Girl" storyline that the UK series had as well. It's a big shame, because this season is at its best when it's allowed to try something new, which isn't more evident outside of the second episode of the season:

Diversity Day: This is easily the strongest episode of the season, mostly because it tries to do something new. Michael Scott is way more endearing here because it's made clear that his intentions are just even if he ends up accidentally offending everyone. The jokes are sharp and the entire cast is utilized incredibly well. There's a reason this is cited as one of the show's finest moments.

Overall, Season 1 could be a great first season if they just stopped copying the UK series. Instead, it feels like a poor-man's version of the show, with not enough strong episodes to make it stand out as a good season, even with the great cast and production values.

2/5 Stars