• tis the season

    The End of Comedy As We Know It

    So Housewives wasn't the only thing that ended last night. The rest of comedy did too. No more 30 Rock, Parks & Recreation, or The Office until autumn. Let's see where things were left. More »
  • office park

    Five Ways Parks & Recreation Is Different from The Office

    Amy Poehler's Parks & Recreation premiered last night. We thought it was pretty good. Detractors' complaint? It's too much like its older bro, The Office. To which we say: Nonsense! They're so totally different. More »
  • trade roundup

    Fat Women Need Bachelors Too

    Movies get directors, and they also get Matthew McConaughey. The Office actors just got rich, and fat people just got validated, in glorious reality show form. More »
  • ratings

    Last night's Office actually declines, despite Super Bowl boost. [THR]

  • nsfw

    'The Office' Porn Features Almost As Many Couplings As The Actual 'Office'

    Worried that The Office has become mired in too many relationship subplots? Have we got the NSFW version for you! More »
  • casting

    Jessica Alba, Cloris Leachman Join Jack Black as Glitzy 'Office' Temps

    NBC will leave no stunt unplayed in its attempt to own Super Bowl Sunday, with Jessica Alba and Cloris Leachman now confirmed to appear alongside Jack Black in that night's special hour-long Office episode.
  • lists

    The Top 10 Worst Pop Culture Bits Of the Year

    Everyone's doing Top 10 Lists this time of year! About movies and TV and stuff! So I figured I should too. But just one list, that encompasses everything. Everything bad. Enjoy! More »
  • bruce springsteen

    The Boss, 'Office' to Battle 'Wipeout' in Super Bowl of the Soul

    Chalk up another victory for the creative class: ABC's obstacle-course competition hit Wipeout will return for two episodes on Super Bowl Sunday, directly challenging both NBC's halftime show featuring Bruce Springsteen and a special postgame edition of The Office. It's the biggest such counterprogramming battle in five years, and as with everything else pertaining to the network these days, the Peacock might be in trouble.
  • dexter

    WGA Awards Recognize Every Half-Decent Show On TV With Its Own, Worthless Nomination

    The Writers Guild unveiled its 2009 TV nominees this afternoon, revealing a radical shift in taste that rotated only one new drama and two new comedies into the year's Best Series nominations — all replacing old nominees that weren't on the air this year. Let's hear it for attrition!
  • john krasinski

    John Krasinski's Harmonizing with Aimee Mann Not Quite Jim-and-Pam Level

    John Krasinski is a true renaissance man: in addition to his work on The Office, he can count a Sundance directorial debut and a facility for Muppet arms to his credit. Still, one thing that may need a little more work is his incipient singing career, which he humbly debuted this past weekend in Los Angeles.
  • the office

    Supersize This: NBC announced its midseason scheduling moves today, including not just Celebrity Apprentice news but an ER mercy kill on March 12 (the new drama Kings will take over ER's longtime Thursday night berth). And which show gets the plum post-Super Bowl slot? That would be The Office, which is — you guessed it — supersizing to an hour for the occasion. Sorry, Rainn! [THR]
  • the office

    Rainn Wilson As Sick of Super-Sized 'Office' Seasons As You Are

    Though Ricky Gervais's version of The Office folded up shop after two six-episode runs, that wouldn't amount to even half of a current season of the Steve Carell-toplined Office, which is continually pressed into service for hourlong episodes, spinoffs, and expanded seasons by NBC. Though the moves have pumped up ratings for the sitcom, the results are not always well-regarded by critics — or by a burnt-out cast, says Rainn Wilson: More »
  • the office

    Investing Wisely, Office-Style

    Adults don't have Sesame Street, they just have Suze Orman and James Cramer and other financial wizards to turn to for life advice. We're forced to look in other places for common-sense tips during tough economic times, like magazines, prositutes, and of course sitcoms. The most recent episode of The Office presented an instructive example: Dunder Mifflin salesman Jim Halpert bought a house for his new bride-to-be Pam Beasley. Did he make the right call in investing in the Scranton real estate market, and what did he probably pay to make his parents' former residence stay in the Halpert family? Plus, deleted scenes from this week's episode. More »
  • the office

    The Office Should Go Long

    If you've ever seen the full extended versions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, you know how much you missed out in the theaters. It's like that every week now with The Office, whose expanded cast and tendency for short scenes sometimes makes you feel like you're reading a condensed Reader's Digest story. Show creator Greg Daniels helps the situation by posting two of the week's deleted scenes online each week. The cutting room floor material is almost more fun than the actual show, and that's the case in two delightful clips that somehow didn't end up in this week's ep. More »
  • save this series

    What Should Be Canceled Instead Of Pushing Daisies

    As we suggested yesterday and was rumored by the trades, ABC's whimsical dark comedy Pushing Daisies—about a saturnine pie maker who can bring dead people back to life with a single touch—may be facing an unresurrectable demise. In fact, it's very likely the subject of this morning's lead blind item, about a show that's secretly been canceled. The show premiered strong enough last year, but then was perhaps mortally wounded by the writers strike last spring. So it's in danger, yes. Which is a shame because it's got a talented cast (especially its balefully sexy lead Lee Pace and the always chipper and reliable Kristin Chenoweth) and inspired (if a tad too cutesy at times) writing. In fact, there are several other shows that should be canceled before Daisies is. We'll list three of them after the jump. More »
  • the office

    The Office's Deleted Scenes Leave Us Wanting More

    The grass is always greener when it comes to The Office. When the show began running bloated hour-long episodes, viewers complained that the show became too drawn-out and dull. Back to its usual half-hour form, the show just doesn't deliver enough insane Dwight to satisfy our considerable need in that department. With The Office rounding into form after moving some characters off the show, these deleted scenes capture the small moments of Dunder Mifflin that warm our hearts. More »
  • the office

    Great Moments In FCC Baiting Presents: 'The Office' Training Call

    On The Office last night, we learned that Dunder Mifflin customer service rep Kelly Kapoor threw an America's Got Talent finale party, where she gave out personalized gift mugs featuring every worker's face over a blue star. (In a nice touch, you can purchase said mugs at the NBC online store. We'll take six Phyllises—something about her smile puts us in the mood for warm beverages.) More »
  • short ends

    Jokers Galore

    · It's The Office Joker-off! Creed wins. Shivverrrrr... More »
  • the office

    Must The Office Be So Serious?

    The Office still offers plenty of laughs, but a certain reckless need to humiliate the characters has been missing from the show lately. This week that will change when the show's Halloween episode will feature a Dark turn from office perv Creed. The full episode preview, along with the latest information on Angela and Andy's nuptials, comes after the jump. More »
  • ricky gervais

    Handbags and Gladrags: If the presidential election doesn't work out for Sarah Palin, Ricky Gervais thinks she has a future in television comedy. Comparing her to the role he played in the UK version of The Office, he says, "Sarah Palin is David Brent. She is! There's so much comedy value in watching her talk." Certainly, we can't think of an Office moment as awkward as that Katie Couric interview — but does that make John McCain her Gareth? In other news, Gervais is playing hard-to-get when it comes to the Oscars, which he has been tipped to host. "I don't think I'd get the freedom I needed," he told the BBC. Executive producer Bill Condon, if we even hear you so much as mention the words, "Howie Mandel"... [Yahoo]
  • television

    Television's Mid-Fall Report Card

    It is already October 15th! How did that happen? I guess you could say that the Earth rotated around the sun a specific number of times and that days winnowed into nights which bled into days and so on and so on in the circle game. I think that's it. So, how have we been spending these ever-marching autumn hours? Watching TV, of course! Lots and lots of TV. Some has been good (Mad Men, The Daily Show), some has been bad (90210), and some has just been puzzling (Two and a Half Men?). So as we approach the ever-important November Sweeps Week—when networks set their ad rates based on inflated, extraordinary episodes that don't actually reflect typical week-in, week-out quality—let's take a second to give a quarter term report card. How has television been faring, you know, quality-wise (because we already know that ratings are in the toilet)? We'll analyze after the jump. More »
  • the office

    Jim and Pam Sittin’ In A Tree…

    Our country is self-destructing before our very eyes. Banks are collapsing, wars are raging, politicians are canceling their appearances on Letterman, but at least we can still rely on true love. That’s right, on last night’s hour-long season premiere of The Office, we finally got the satisfaction of seeing ... um, well, something that can only be described as an epic spoiler. Fans of The Office who dutifully tuned into NBC last night, please follow along after the jump to continue the conversation. Those of you who DVR'd it, well, you might want to continue along to another post. More »
  • television

    Thursday Night TV Ratings Mimic Recent Economic Trends

    While news outlets are churning out Top Story after Top Story right now, regular network television is being woefully ignored. Indeed the economy is not the only thing plummeting into a seemingly bottomless pit whose nadir is nothing less than the icy waters of the river Styx. Television is also epic failing all over the place, as evidenced by last night's ratings. Every Thursday night show (the busiest night for TV)—every show!—that had its season premiere last night, dropped, some precipitously, from last year's premiere numbers. More »
  • short ends

    'Short Ends?' That's What She Said!

    · This montage of every "That's what she said" from The Office is a little long but guaranteed to put a smile on your face. (3...2...1...) [YouTube] More »
  • imdb

    Free to Good Home: IMDb yesterday uncorked about 6,000 movie and TV titles available for free viewing via Hulu, including recent episodes of The Office, 24 and Battlestar Galactica; site officials also noted that new episodes of some series — 30 Rock among them — will be available in advance of their airdates this fall. Not so with the site's full-length features, however, which, beyond classics like The Night of the Hunter and Some Like it Hot, include Dude, Where's My Car?, Liar Liar and The Scorpion King, finally testing the critical consensus that their makers can't give these films away. We shall see! [IMDb via NYT]
  • separated at net worth

    CNBC's Jim Goldman is not "The Office's" Andy Bernard

    It's difficult to get an interview with Steve Jobs. When you finally get one, the temptation surely is to play nice in hopes that you'll get another. But did CNBC's Jim Goldman have to ask such sycophantic questions? After rattling off statistics straight from Apple PR, Goldman asks Jobs, "How surprising is it for you that Mac momentum continues to grow at this level at this time? I mean there's an enormous amount of longevity here." Goldman's slick business-suit looks and his suck-up tone immediately reminded me of one of Goldman's quasi-coworkers at NBC Universal — Dunder-Mifflin's Andy Bernard, played by Ed Helms in NBC's "The Office." Check out the "Best of Andy Bernard" clip below and see if you agree. More »
  • fall tv preview

    How To Talk About Fall Television (That You Might Not Be Watching)

    That slight crisp in the air this morning signals to us that autumn is fast approaching, with its hayrides and pumpkin picking and legion of miserable children tromping off to their imagined doom. But also it means television, sweet and glorious non-off-season TV like Gossip Girl and, um... other... shows. Many other shows! So many, in fact, that you can't—even with the aid of DVR techmologies—be expected to watch them all. But in this increasingly (for the past few hundred years) pop-driven culture, it's important that you are least able to talk about the zeitgeistiest shows out there, so after the jump we'll give you a few key talking points for some of the most buzzed about series soon to be (or, in a few cases, that already are) flickering on your idiot box. More »