If The Office sometimes fails because it is irreparably scatterbrained, then “Doomsday” at least stayed on track. But while the focus may have been on target, one thing was completely off – the authenticity.
There is really nothing particularly unique about “Doomsday”. Hair-brained schemes ensue – as is the norm – and characters put themselves in awkward situations – as is also the norm. But what was unusual was the ridiculousness of the story.
Robert California arrives in Scranton to tell Andy and his fellow Dunder Miffliners that Sabre will settle for nothing less than perfection, ultimately asking them to make no mistakes, ever. As Dwight, the eternal head of policing any office activity, determines, the only way to maintain perfection is to make the office “accountable” for their actions – namely their mistakes. But when his Accountability Booster scheme threatens jobs and turns the entire office against him, Dwight is forced to deactivate the program, putting all things right again.
Overall, the notion that "mistakes" need to be eliminated is something that could not be effectively enforced in any office, much less The Office. This made this episode – above all else – unrealistic. Mistakes are the groundwork for future improvement, and the way that “Doomsday” conducted itself was to say otherwise.
The Office employees never made the argument that their effort was what was important. Phyllis might have made a passing comment, but there was no overarching case to that effect. So the question was very simple: How can we eliminate this program so we need not be perfect anymore?
The real issue of this episode was not whether Dwight was wrong in implementing a system to keep the office functioning and mistake-free, the issue was why the employees reacted in such a strange way. Their protest should not have been against the concrete aspect of potentially being fired, because the problem was that they weren’t being respected as people who have the right to make and fix errors. Instead, they whined and yelled at Dwight for picking on them. And petulant children never win – maybe in primetime television, but not in reality.
As Andy, Pam, Kevin and Erin went to Schrute Farms to reason with Dwight, and Jim headed off to meet Robert California to thwart any incoming emails tattling on employees who made mistakes at work, the only thing that made sense was the sectioning off of characters for a common cause. Unlike in past episodes where each character would carry his own subplot, “Doomsday” stuck to a particular notion of The Office turmoil, creating cohesiveness.
If not for the infantilism of the characters and the impracticality of the story, this episode might have been a reminder that reality can exist in a made up world – a concept The Office of old knew and embraced. Factoring in all the over-the-top effort, however, it’s hard to feel that same connection.