The Post Super Bowl Letdown

This isn't a sports blog, so you know I'm not referring to disappointed Cardinals disheartened by their down-to-the-wire loss. I had trouble even pretending to care about the team I arbitrarily decided to root for (the Steelers). Even with more interesting teams, the Super Bowl for me is still about wings, beer, commercials (which I'll cover tomorrow), and the show that gets to follow the big event. That post Super Bowl time slot can do a lot for a show. Grey's Anatomy's bomb episode helped make it one of the highest rated shows on TV. Yet despite all the hype, The Office tonight felt more like a fumble, or at least a 5 year penalty.

It started off well enough, with a humorously absurd plot about Dwight setting the office on fire to teach a lesson on fire safety. Seeing everyone smash things to try to get out (or, in Kevin's case, get into the vending machine) made for a pretty hilarious start. But while the rest of the episode had its laughs, nothing worked as well as it should have. I mean, there was a roast of Michael Scott, one of the greatest ideas the show has ever come up with. With so much about him to mock, how could it not be hilarious? Well, by showing a couple of merely ok snippets before making it all serious. Why couldn't we hear the rest of Jim's speech? What did Kevin say? When Angela's roast is the funniest, something went wrong. At least Michael got a few good lines in his final roast of everyone.

I also have to say that Jack Black, Jessica Alba, and Cloris Leachman had probably the lamest guest appearances I've seen in a long time. They were relegated to a weak movie parody that had virtually no relevance to the rest of the episode. The only real jokes involved Jack Black making out with Cloris Leachman while really cheesy music played. You couldn't even tell it was Jessica Alba in her 15 seconds of mini-screen time. It's the kind of movie parody we've seen oh so many times before, except usually much funnier. It was almost like The Office writers were trying to prove to NBC that they have no use for big name guest stars.

The fake movie's only relevance was in maybe sorta not really relating to Pam's parents' marital roles, a storyline that had no place in a Super Bowl episode. Why don't Jim and Pam get to be funny anymore? Writers, make them be funny again. The CPR class was a bit of old-school Office, harking back to the British days or, if you prefer, "Diversity Day," as Michael completely took the class over. I admit I laughed when Dwight started carving up the dummy, but coming right out of the fake fire it meant way too much of Dwight at his craziest.

The whole thing just proved The Office can't handle all the expectations. Now in its 5th season, I'm not sure the show still has any great hour-long episodes in it, and certainly not of post Super Bowl calibre. Seems NBC would have been better giving the spot to 30 Rock, which could have used the exposure and could have come up with a funnier episode. After all, Alec Baldwin's Hulu ad was one of the highlights of the night. With another new episode on Thursday, I have to wonder, "Do we really need three episodes of The Office in one week?"