At the risk of getting very repetitive we’ll quickly revisit our season long question: Which Michael Scott did we see in the latest Office installment, “Scott’s Tots?” Well-meaning but confused and ill-prepared Michael or malicious, self-absorbed, cripplingly myopic Michael? Well, as usual, and probably as it should be, we were served some of both. But, as we’ll see, we at least ended with the more preferable of the two.
I didn’t mind this episode, but it also didn’t seem especially funny. Whereas I was in a social environment when I initially viewed “Mafia” from earlier this season, and even laughed heartily at it, I knew very quickly that episode wasn’t that humorous, at least not that good. On other hand, I watched “Scott’s Tots” alone at 2 in the morning which, I admit, could have been a detriment (I did, however, enjoy some leftover birthday ice cream cake, so, despite the hour, I still managed to fulfill my Office watching pre-requisite of either ice cream or NY pizza (and when I say NY Pizza I don’t mean “NY Pizza,” the moniker that every pizza place outside of NY throws onto its marquee in hopes of tricking the consumer into thinking their product is comparable to the thin, crispy, cheesy, heavenly Big Apple standard, and not what it really is, an inferior copy. Rule of thumb: if some pizza joint beyond the tri-state area bills their product as “NY Pizza,” you’re probably going to be disappointed. Also, unless they serve slices, it’s not NY Pizza. And now back to our regularly scheduled blogging)); perhaps I wouldn’t feel so ambivalent about it had I watched before midnight with a crowd. Still, my intuition says that it would have been the same. Not particularly hilarious, but, actually, a nice little episode, and the kind of more authentic offering that has been sorely needed of late.
At this point, midway through its sixth season, it seems that with every episode of The Office we are taking the temperature of the series, gauging if it’s on the decline, on the way back up, or holding steady. It’s unfair, and ultimately a disservice to the show and the viewer. However, it’s the truth, and it’s going to continue, especially because this is a show that has exceeded expectations and reached rare levels of brilliance but has also always seemed to be walking a tightrope. Can the show continue once Pam and Jim get together? Will it lose it’s direction after Pam and Jim get married? Will the magic chemistry between the ensemble cast run out? Or will the writers no longer be able to supply interesting but plausible office-related storylines? Even though the show has been so consistently damn good, there’s still this pervading feeling that all the inventive writing and superior acting could disappear one week, never to return. While we have not actually been faced with this reality, we learned last night that the employees of Dunder Mifflin are very much in this predicament, as it seems all but certain that the company will file for bankruptcy. While we have been fearing a sudden, painful demise of The Office, the characters are now fearful of a sudden, painful demise of their office. It’s a new storyline that hopefully, while putting the employees on the chopping block, allows the show to continue to flourish.
After feeling like I was in the minority with my 
Jumped The Snark 