Dear Writers on “The Office”

smkelly8

Staff Writers
The Office
NBC

Dear Writers,

I’ve been getting caught up with The Office and am shocked at its decline. What have you done? Do you realize that you’ve whittled most of the characters down to one dimensional puppets? As one hulu.com commenter put it, watching The Office is now like watching an old friend on life support. I’ll add that the patient is now showing little to no brain activity.

You’ve crossed several comedic lines and wandered into the land of “Not At All Funny.” While it was somewhat funny, to have Oscar speculate that Angela‘s husband was gay, it isn’t funny to have an otherwise likeable character go behind her back and start an affair with her husband. Oscar has a lot of better choices and many of them could be funny. This one isn’t. At all. He’s now a plotting snake in the grass. Just because Angela’s annoying and uptight doesn’t mean she deserves betrayal or that she’s immune to the hurt. How craven do you think your audience is?

It’s preposterous that Andy can sail off on a sentimental journey without the higher ups caring. In many offices there’d be a real power struggle. And Andy as pure buffoon has been such a weak choice anyway. Michael Scott was weird and weak, but he was a terrific sales person and sincerely cared about his colleagues, often too much and therein lay the humor.

Now Jan’s back in her lower form. At the start of the series she was a type A bitch and symbolized a certain business woman. Then she got nutty and it wasn’t funny. It still isn’t and never will be. The episode where she plotted to get David in for a sales meeting didn’t make sense. Everyone knows the CEO doesn’t make sales calls.

Rumor has it we’re in for a series revolving around Dwight. Hmm. That”ll be tough to work because Dwight’s funny on The Office because he’s surrounded by normal people. I can’t envision watching a show where Dwight is the most normal character. But the real issue is we don’t need to see Dwight so much and we don’t need this season to lead us into your next series.

Erin’s always been too cute and too ditzy. That two men are interested in her is hard to see. She is a good fit for Andy and it’s pure puzzlement why the “young Jim-like character” would have any interest in such an airhead. It makes him look questionable.

It’s not like the world of work isn’t inherently funny. It is. There’s a lot you could do. If I were paid to offer some solutions, I think I could do better than what I’ve seen so far.

Where has the good writing gone? Have you hired people from The Big Bang Theory or other non-funny shows for this swan song season?

Sincerely,

SK

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