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A few weeks ago I wrote a post outlining predictions for the season 4 finale of The Office. After last night’s AMAZING hour long show, I wanted to revisit those predictions to see how I did, what I missed, and maybe make a few predictions for season 5. I don’t want to spoil the season finale for anyone who hasn’t had a chance to watch it yet, so I’ll put the rest of this post behind a break. For those of you who didn’t catch the hour long episode, you can still watch it online, legal and free, at both Hulu and NBC.

Continue reading “The Office Season 4 Finale: How’d I Do?”

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Season 4 of The Office is inching towards another season finale. So far the season has been an interesting one, starting the year with hour-long episodes (well, really 2 episodes back-to-back, but don’t tell anyone that) and a writer’s strike in the middle. Because of the loss of a few episodes during the writer’s strike I feel like portions of the storyline have been moved forward too quickly, as they lack the subtlety of other seasons. These not-so-sublte plotlines have brought me to the following conclusions:

• Ryan will be fired from corporate. His drug addiction (be it cocaine, speed, meth…who knows?) is an obvious sign of a downward spiral. His removal from corporate will be due justice for his pompous and superficial attitude towards the people gave him the opportunity to move up the ranks so quickly. Hopefully this will land him back in Scranton as a temp. I would love for Michael to be able to lay into him for being such a jerk.
• Jim and Pam will not get engaged. The season finale would have been an amazing time for Jim & Pam to get engaged if it had not been for Jim showing us the ring already. Something will happen to postpone the engagement. I do not believe J&P will break up, as they are the only real romance in the entire show. This isn’t a real prediction, but I’m thinking someone close to Jim or Pam will die and they will be too distracted to focus on romance. What show is complete without a good emotional death close to one of the main characters?
• Michael will get back together with Jan. She disappeared way too quickly without much explanation, and Michael has been failing miserably as a bachelor. Scott (the Wegner, not Michael) brought up a good point, too. Michael’s single life storyline is already getting played out a bit. They can’t keep relying on his social awkwardness with single women to keep the show interesting.
• The love triangle: Dwight, Andy, and Angela. Dwight just got his mack on with an amazon woman, so we know he has game. But we also know that the only person in the world that is right for Dwight is Angela. Andy has been a non-character for a long time, so it isn’t going to take much to convince the audience that it is time for those two awkward lovebirds to get back together. Andy has too much fun as a single guy anyway.
• Going back to the whole Jim and Pam thing, Roy has been gone for way too long. Maybe he will be the cause of putting off the engagement. I don’t think Pam will have second thoughts about Jim and go for Roy again, but there might be other elements of Roy’s story that will distract Pam long enough to keep an engagement out of season 4.
• This last point isn’t as much of a prediction as it is a wish. I want to see more of the secondary characters more! I feel characters like Creed, Kelly, Oscar, and Kevin have been left out for a long time. I know these are not plot-enhancing characters, but they added so much to the humor. Maybe they have been what has been missing since we came back from the writer’s strike.

Ok this is getting rather long. Agree, disagree, or just add your own opinions in the comments. You know you love The Office as much as I do!

Oh, and I realize that we are too close to the finale for ALL of this to come true, but I think a good portion of it will apply to the end of season 4.

A while ago my friend showed me a few episodes from the Planet Earth DVD series, and I fell in love with them. It’s a five-disc series put out by BBC, that explores extraordinary wildlife all over the globe. The filming style follows the animals which illustrates in animals’ behavior as well. I think it’s safe to say that the series is probably the most complete and high-resolution collection of wildlife footage that exists to date.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend giving it a try. And if you have seen it, you should check out Blue Planet, which is a similar documentary series that catalogs the wildlife in our oceans.

I just watched about 5 minutes of the TV show “MXC,” which, if you’re not familiar, is pretty funny. The premise is that they take footage of a Japanese game-show where they compete in ridiculous stunts. Then, we add American commentary spoofing whatever is really going on, reminiscent of Mystery Science Theater 2000.

What brings me to post, though, is the underlying irony of it all. If you look at the Japanese economy, industry, and entertainment, you’ll notice that they are in fact emulating the American market. Because of their growing free market, the Japanese are in an era where the middle-class have more money, and so their lifestyles are influenced by that of America. You can see it in their clothing, their technology, and even the vacations they take. Most specifically, you can see it in their television programming.

So what strikes me as funny here, is that the Japanese make television programming that mirrors Hollywood, but we dub it over and it becomes a comedy in the States. I think if we put the same cheesy dubbing on some of our own shows, they might be equally popular. Moral of the story: the reality TV content put out today is garbage.

Related Rant: How there exists an Americanized version of the “Planet Earth” series, because the United States as a whole just wouldn’t understand a British narrator.

For the most part, I’ve been unaffected by the writer’s strike. I don’t have a lot of time for TV during the semester, save The Office on Thursdays. Losing The Office was a major blow, but I didn’t realize how bad things really were until I got home for the holidays.

My parents have Tivo at home, and it’s generally chock-full of mindless programming to keep you entertained (read: comatose) for hours. But the only programs still recorded are movies, reality TV, and the news. It’s pretty sad.

So what does this mean for the entertainment industry as a whole? Well foremost, it’s unfortunate for all of the people striking, and also those that lost their jobs because there’s no more work. But people just haven’t been watching as much live TV as a result. It’s an opportunity for people to catch up on all those old movies, previous seasons of sitcoms, and even blogs and video blogs.

With the downplay of traditional TV, I think this is a great time for amateur-based video blogs, and content of all sorts. This is a big opportunity for applications like Miro that aggregate alternative content. Although a few shows are coming back, there’s still no end in sight for this strike. This could be the beginning of a major shift in how we get our media entertainment.