The cult sitcom The Office, US version, lands on Netflix today. We tell you why you absolutely have to catch up with this series, if you haven’t already.
The cult sitcom The Office, developed by Greg Daniels, lands on Netflix! This mockumentary series follows the daily life of employees of Dunder Mifflin, a paper sales company in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Impossible not to have already heard of it, whether through lines (“That’s what he / she said”), gags (“Parkour”), Jim Halpert pranks or even memes and gifs that have invaded social networks and of which you may not have known the origin. If you haven’t seen it yet, we’ll tell you why you absolutely have to catch up on this series.
An everyday documentary
If The Office was not the spearhead of mockumentary series, it is the one that democratized the genre and inspired other well-known series such as Parks and Recreation, Modern Family, American Vandal and more recently What We Do In The Shadows.
The mockumentary style, which parodies documentaries, began with Larry David and Curb Your Enthousiasm before being taken up by Ricky Gervais for the British series The Office, which therefore served as a model for Greg Daniels for an American version.
At first glance, following the daily life of employees of a paper sales company in Pennsylvania is not the most exciting and yet behind the scenes of Dunder Mifflin and his gallery of eccentric and whimsical characters is revealed. be thrilling, funny and moving.
The mockumentary style brings precious moments of complicity with the characters when they confide in front of the camera, play with the cameramen or when the film crew follows them into their private lives and reveal their little secrets.
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The Office US is the series that has really played with all the characteristics of the mockumentary style, using all its resources and the humorous and dramatic springs that emerge from it. The film crew will even be visible in the series which ends with the presentation of the documentary, called “The Office: An American Workplace”, and a question and answer session with the characters at a press conference.
The mockumentary style also makes it possible to film the banality of everyday life with a lot of empathy and depth, as Pam aptly reminds us: “There’s a lot of beauty in ordinary things. Isn’t that kinda the point?”.
The Office reminds us that we have to see the bright side of things and know how to appreciate what we already have even if everyday life can be as funny as it is dreary and as happy as it is difficult, like its credits music, at first tense then terribly catchy.
And above all, the daily life of The Office can save your life! In January 2019, the Arizona Daily Star reported that a man in his twenties saved his wife through the “Staying Alive” series and music. Episode 14 of season 5 indeed featured the characters of The Office learning first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation to the rhythm of the Bee Gees’ hit.
Between gags and romance
With The Office, we go through all the emotions: laughter, tears, embarrassment, discomfort, indignation, anger,… All this thanks to an extremely well put together plot and a clever mix between an effective common thread, solid secondary narrative arcs and Memorable gags, winks, private jokes or cult lines.
One of The Office’s funniest running gags is Jim’s pranks. His boredom at the office is matched only by his originality in making Pam laugh and trap her colleagues, especially Dwight, all always with humor. We keep the stapler in the jelly, Dwight’s desk in gift wrap, Jim replaced by an Asian actor, Jim Dwight version and his best prank which comes at the end of the last season, a real final touch.
Jokes and jokes are still relevant and resonate again and again by being repeated on social networks and are now part of the daily life of many fans. Even the borderline remarks of certain characters, in the head Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute, from which the other characters dissociate themselves with sighs, murderous lines or desperate glances in front of the camera.
For his part, Michael, a big fan of YouTube, can not help but try to reproduce some videos that buzz to strut and crate in front of the camera. Each character, with his very particular and exaggerated style, contributes to the choral balance of the series. Without Michael, Dwight, Jim, Pam, Angela, …
