Many people have heard and watched the show “The Office”. It is hilarious in terms of comedy, the characters have unique personalities, and the ridiculousness in certain scenes add that flavour of random humor. While personally I have not really watched the show, the few episodes I did see were hilarious. That was why when I took a look into “Conference Room, Five Minutes” by Shea Serrano, I thought it was going to be filled with inside jokes and showing other hilarious stuff about the show that I didn’t know about. The whole thing was not exactly what I expected it to be.
For one, the review started off with something that seemed to start off seriously, but then ended with a joke. The first part literally ended with the quote that states, “And then finally, after what feels like seven days but was really only like 20 seconds, God answers you, and God says, “ . . . or you can shove it up your butt.” For me, this was an opportunity to learn more about the show, but this first impression made me view it as either off-putting or just downright puzzling. Even though “The Office” does hold a lot of crude humor, this throws things off balance and it made me have a harder time continuing to read the next ten essays.
The next part describes in very deep detail a scene from one episode which was a basketball play. It is interesting, but I was left wondering what the whole point of it was. The text did give a good description of all the different characters that participated in this particular shot from “The Office”, but it still left me confused. In truth, it made me wonder if spending the past 30 minutes reading an entire report of a scene that I don’t know if I’m even gonna watch was worth it.
Going over the next few essays, it provided much more detail into the show that made it sound more intriguing and hilarious. The one episode “Prison Mike” with the funny imagery and details within made it sound much more comedic and makes me want to try watching this particular part. The Dwight Club, The Perfect Heist, The Olympiad, There Are No Accidents, To Me You Are Perfect, and Is Jim Halpert Hot all add uniqueness and great interest into looking more in-depth of the show. But again, some moments in these essays seemed a bit weird, exaggerated, and made me feel more turned off on trying to look more into “The Office”.
One thing that in truth added into the confusion, was the footnotes. While some were helpful, a lot of it seemed more gibberish and nonsensical. The usage of LOL, and sometimes looked to be random comments made one who does not know the show all that much seemed disoriented. A part of me almost wanted to know what was going through the mind of the author when writing those footnotes out. Also, I questioned if many of them were even needed as it distracted me a lot in trying to focus on what was currently going on in the essays.
But despite the many things that to me seemed more like flaws, it did hold some wonderful moments. The one on the character Pam participating in an art show, was one of the few episodes that I did watch. The ending was done beautifully as the author put it and I couldn’t agree more. While many of the rest I’m still left questioning and perplexed, this essay does give an in-depth look into one of the most famous and popular shows on Netflix.
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