Inner Office workings

Audiences said goodbye to The Office this past May and now that it's over we're starting to get a look at what might have been. Here's an interesting video that will be included in the DVD/Blu-Ray of the final season that shows some famous actors originally auditions for the roles of Michael, Jim, Pam and the rest of the Dunder Mifflin crew. Watching it, it seems as if they made the right choices to go with the people that they did, but it's still funny to think of how different the show would have been had say Seth Rogen gotten the role of Dwight.

Fall TV Report Card (Thursdays Part 1)

Some of my favorite shows on Thursday got a jump start and premiered last week, so I'll review those now and the ones that debut tonight will be recapped later on.

The Office - After struggling to deal with the loss of Steve Carrell last season, this show promises a renewed sense of focus as it heads into its final season. This first episode nicely sowed some seeds for the end game of several of the key characters like Jim and Dwight, which I appreciated. The humor in the episode though was a mixed bag with a handful of decent lines but still too much wacky, physical humor that has weakened some of the characters (Kevin should be dim, but not THAT dim). This show can never recapture the glory of its early days, but it appears that they are going to do their best to give this cast a proper sendoff that will allow us to still think fondly of the show even after it is gone. Grade: B

Parks and Recreation - Last season ended with Leslie's big victory, winning the race for councilman. So in typical mockumentary fashion, we can't let the characters' wins last for too long as we saw here in the opener. Leslie got a wake up call while visiting Ben in Washington about how much she's been a big fish in a small pond for a long time. The storyline was well done, but didn't produce enough big laughs for me. Meanwhile Ron's attempt at throwing a barbeque went in typical fashion. Oddly enough, Rob Lowe's Chris brought the biggest laughs for me from this subplot. It's so nice to see him really integrate into the world and return to his happy self after being depressed for most of last season. Though their time was brief, April and Andy always bring the laughs and I wish we could have seen more from their time together in the nation's capital. I'm not sure if this worked well as a season premiere, but given the Washington bigwigs that had cameos in the episode, I can see why they went with it. I'll definitely be anxious to see everyone back in Pawnee sooner rather than later. Grade: A-

2012 Fall Television Schedule Announcements (NBC)

I could post all of the news here if I wanted the post to take up the entire length of the blog, so I'll instead make it easy for you guys and direct you to all of the information in the link below from Comingsoon.net:

2012 NBC Fall Lineup

I'll instead spend this space giving my thoughts on NBC's moves. Of all the major networks, I probably watch the most shows on NBC, yet for the past several years they have languished near the bottom of the ratings. I commend them for saving some of the shows that they did, despite less than stellar ratings. Namely keeping Community and Parks and Recreation Parks was given a full season pickup and remains on Thursdays, while Community gets a 13-episode order and gets shunted to Fridays. The Friday move is fine, but I question why they paired it up with Whitney. Those two shows seemingly have nothing in common other than they were both lucky to get renewals. In fact, that was a trend throughout most of NBC's schedule. They slotted several sitcoms, but I thought some of their pairings were odd. For instance, I felt they should have paired Up All Night, which focuses on being young parents with the new sitcom Guys With Kids, which also deals with parenthood. Meanwhile the show that they did pair it up with, Animal Kingdom seems better suited with the single-camera, laugh track free comedies on Thursday nights.

On the drama side of things, the only new show that caught my eye was Revolution, a drama dealing with people living on Earth 15 years after a blackout hit the entire planet. While the premise was intriguing, I feel like we've seen this type of 'event' drama over and over again ever since the success of Lost and none of them have been successful. I've become jaded, but I feel like this one may suffer the same fate: sizable audience for its premiere that vanishes in the subsequent weeks when impatient fans get frustrated when the show doesn't give them answers to the central mythology quickly enough.

Finally, with their reality slate, the biggest news is that NBC's one new hit The Voice will already be returning in the fall. I personally don't watch the show, but I don't blame NBC for wanting to schedule another season so soon given that it's about the only thing in their schedule that consistantly pulls in viewers. Let's just hope that they don't create an overkill backlash like they've done with some of their other hits like Deal or No Deal. If it can remain a hit, hopefully viewers will be willing to stick around and watch some of their other shows as well.

Will Dwight beet it?

Rumors are circulating that Dwight from The Office may be getting his own spinoff show. If true, let's hope its success is closer to Frasier than Joey. Here's more on the story, courtesy of EW.com:

Now this is a spin-off worth cheering over: NBC is giving consideration to a new family comedy that would feature The Office character Dwight Schrute as a farmer.

Yep, you read that right. Deadline is reporting that Schrute – played by Rainn Wilson — would conceivably return home to the family beet farm and bed-and-breakfast. A backdoor pilot would air later this season and take place at the Schrute Farms. If picked up to series, the show would likely air as part of NBC’s midseason lineup in 2013.

“Paul and Rainn have been joking for years about Dwight’s life on the farm, his family and how ill-suited he is to run a B&B,” a source told Deadline. “A while ago, it started to feel like a show to them. NBC agreed, it’s been further developed to include multiple generations, many cousins and neighbors. At its base it will be about a family farm struggling to survive and a family trying to stay together.”

The pitch is not from Office creator Greg Daniels, who also oversees Parks and Recreations and the NBC comedy pilot Friday Night Dinner. Wilson himself came up with idea, as did The Office executive producer-showrunner Paul Lieberstein. Should NBC go ahead with the spin-off as well as a ninth season for The Office, Wilson is expected to return to the mothership in the fall before moving onto the new show, Deadline says.

This isn’t the first time NBC explored the possibility of an Office spin-off. Parks and Recreation was originally pitched as an Office spinoff until Daniels and SNL vet Michael Schur took it in a different direction and developed it as a mockumentary about small-town government. But even then, Daniels wouldn’t close the door on a spin-off.

“It’s possible that some combination of other Office people could produce it without my giving blood for it,” he told members of the press.

Fall TV Report Card (Returning favorites pt. 2)

The Big Bang Theory: The big question for this show would be how they would address the shocking cliffhanger from last season that saw Raj and Penny seemingly have sex after a night of heavy drinking. I was not crazy about that twist so I was glad to see they copped out of it to begin this year by explaining what exactly happened. The rest of this hour premiere was a good collection of hearty laughs from the expanding cast. The show really felt like it was already in mid-season stride, which was nice to see. The addition of the female cast members has really made this a richer show and prevented it from simply becoming the Sheldon show. This may not be the smartest show, despite being about very smart people, but it's one of the most consistent performers and I look forward to another strong season from this merry band of geeks. Grade: A-

Community: After making a promise through song and dance that this show will be 'less weird' this year (yeah right), the rest of the half hour was spent trying to introduce us to a couple of new recurring characters this season - Michael K. Williams (The Wire) as a tough as nails biology teacher and John Goodman as Greendale's vice dean. Both played imposing forces that will likely cause many problems for the study group and dean, respectively. As is often the case, the show veered into some dark territory that didn't exactly provide a lot of laughs but made for an interesting character study. Here's hoping that as the season progresses, we get fewer character study and more group efforts that showcase the widely talented cast that this show has to offer. Grade: B

Parks and Recreation: You cannot imagine how happy I am to see this show return. This premiere picked up right where things left off last season with Leslie dealing with the prospect of running for city coucil and Ron trying to run away from his evil ex-wife Tammy One (played by Patricia Clarkson), not to be confused with his other evil ex-wife Tammy Two. Because we had a lot of story to get through in the episode, this wasn't their funniest effort, but a strong outing nonetheless. Leslie's breakup with Ben was perfect and extremely heartbreaking. The fact that we learned Tammy One works for the IRS is just brilliant (the one agency even more evil than the library). I was also really happy to see that Andy opted to work as Leslie's assistant rather than with Tom at Entertainment 720 since that will likely yield more comedy gold. The stuff with the revealing photos being sent to everyone's phones was a bit silly, but it also showed that the people that run Pawnee as just as creepy as the people they represent. All in all it's great to be back in Pawnee. Grade: A-

The Office: While news had leaked earlier this summer that James Spader had been added to the cast, we also knew that he would not become the regional manager (his Robert California character actually convinced the Sabre CEO to give him her job). The answer came in the premiere and low and behold, Cornell's own, Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) was chosen. He's probably the best person for it as he has the acting chops and star quality befit of this bigger role and he doesn't have to abandon the qualities that made him a great character to begin with (unlike if say someone like Jim had become the manager). The other big surprise was learning that both Pam and Angela are pregnant. That will likely yield some interesting comedic situations throughout the season. While Steve Carell's presence was missed at times, I thought the show did as well as it could to move forward without him. This is certainly a whole new show now. I feel that there are enough talented people working on the show to still allow the show to remain funny, but it's likely it'll never reach the greatness that it once had. Grade: B