Andy and Kevin jamming in the warehouse in "Pam's Replacement". Photo courtesy of NBC.
Though the show may seem to be fishing for laughs now more than ever before, The Office’s “Pam’s Replacement” succeeded in most of its attempted jokes, no matter how outlandish.
Pam is surreptitiously paired with Dwight to expose Jim’s apparent attraction to the new temp who will be taking over for Pam while she is on maternity leave. Andy, Darryl and Kevin have formed a band that jams in the warehouse and is being invaded by Robert California, who subsequently evicts them from their own band by bringing in his own musician cohorts. Meanwhile, gimmicks arise in each of their respective storylines, contributing to – rather than detracting from as in past episodes – the overall unity and quality of the episode. And because of this, “Pam’s Replacement” worked.
I’ve spent many an Idiot Vox complaining that The Office is too much of a caricature of what it once was. Rather than portraying a real group of people functioning in a standard office setting with boredom and awkwardness, The Office of late has taken on a completely new approach – that of the classic sitcom. And rarely does this effort work. We see failed shows every season, some good and some bad. There really is no rhyme or reason to what does well in the Nielsen ratings. Typical comedies that garner some audience with no apparent explanation (I’m looking at you, Two and a Half Men) continue to exist while others that actually have potential fail miserably. But The Office, while still falling into the NBC Thursday line-up of quirky mockumentary comedies, has taken itself out of this stereotype and fallen into the one that most other network comedies fall under.
And for the past few episodes, few seasons even, this transition has not really worked. And the only time The Office has truly made amends for its exaggerated plots has been in more emotional episodes – from "Goodbye, Michael" to "The Incentive" (though to a lesser extent). Yet “Pam’s Replacement” was a strange deviation. Despite the weirdness of the episode as a whole, the characters brought a freshness to the story that couldn’t be outweighed by hyperbole.
Little moments sprinkled throughout the episode were filled with clever jokes and character incorporation. In the teaser, Andy asks Erin to tell him that he has an important call while he’s in a meeting with a client so that Andy can prove how dedicated he is to his customers. But Erin pushes the effort to the limit by saying Andy’s mother has died and setting Darryl up on line two pretending to be a cop to keep the charade alive. A farfetched, clearly concocted effort on the part of the writers that really had nothing to do with the rest of the story, yet it was one of the more interesting moments of the episode. Also great was Kelly’s explanation of the matchmaker test ,which she called “very powerful” in testing to see if a man is interested in a woman. By circumventing the real question and instead asking who the guy would set the girl up with among his friends, it is possible to surmise whether he thinks she’s good looking or not. Ridiculous maybe, but a cute – very Kelly – gimmick that ultimately succeeded.
The best moment of the episode, though, was when Jim finally gives a confession outside the drugstore where Dwight has decided to check his honesty by testing his blood pressure. Jim admits the truth, “that I had feelings for a coworker today that I haven't had in years,” and follows up in a clincher that confirmed the excellence of the script for “Pam’s Replacement": "In my defense he was grabbing my crotch quite aggressively at the time.” After all, Dwight does have quite the effect on Jim.
Persistently bland episodes of The Office nowadays may only be dotted between by the occasional clever episode. Luckily, after such a long wait, “Pam’s Replacement” is proof that this isn’t just a pipe dream.