An 'Office' Episode Sampler
Five episodes to get started.
There's little chance you don't know what The Office is. If you owned a television in the late aughts, you inevitably had it tuned to NBC occasionally, where you saw their barrage of ads for their biggest comedy hit. It's the show that launched Steve Carell (and others - where would the world be without John Krasinski's IF?), the show that launched countless poor imitations, and the show that launched its own subgenre of watch-along podcasts.
It ended more than a decade ago and you still can't even go to a minor league baseball game without it being Office Night.
You definitely know that it follows the employees at the lowly Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, led by troublemaking boss Michael Scott, played by Steve Carell. You probably know Assistant to the Regional Manager Dwight Schrute's (Rainn Wilson) idiosyncrasies (yes, I used to own a shirt that promoted his 3 favorite Bs: Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica), Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam's (Jenna Fischer) better-than-most-sitcoms romance, and the quirks and goofiness from the entire repertory cast.
But maybe, just maybe, you still haven't actually seen the show. If that's the case, you can get ready with these five sample episodes from the show's first six seasons.
“Diversity Day” (Season 1, Episode 2)
The Office is, of course, based on the UK series of the same name, and the pilot episode is just a rewrite of that show's first episode. That means that their second episode, "Diversity Day," is the first original script written for the American series.
What a way to start.
When Michael recites a Chris Rock routine and repeats Rock's use of the n-word (for good reason, you could never have your main character do that now, especially not in your first real episode), the office has to undergo diversity training. As is his nature, Michael feels the need to take it over and improve it. He makes everyone place an index card reading different "races" on their foreheads, ranging from Jewish to Italian to Jamaican to Black to Martin Luther King Jr., and says, "I want you to treat other people like the race that is on their forehead. I want you to really go for it." As you can expect, it's filled with more than a few boundary-pushing and line-crossing jokes.
Right from the jump, it shows Michael's incompetence, the daily trouble his office has to endure, and the show's sense of humor.
Paul Feig, a director and executive producer on the series, probably puts it best when, in Andy Greene's oral history book The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s, he says, "'Diversity Day' was the episode where I was like, 'This show is genius.' But, at the same time, I kept thinking, 'I don't know if they're going to keep it on, because it's really mean.' But that's why it's funny."
“Christmas Party” (Season 2, Episode 10)
I've probably seen this one more than any other because it's the first Christmas episode, which also means it's the first one on the four-episode DVD called The Office: Secret Santa Pack. I've had that disc since it came out and for many years I put it on every holiday season.
I think there's something so sweet and genuine about a Secret Santa gift exchange at work. I've genuinely grown closer to coworkers because I've learned more about them (and vice versa) by participating. Unfortunately for the folks at Dunder Mifflin, there's no chance something will stay short and sweet when Michael Scott is your boss. Because of his man crush on intern Ryan, he can't hold himself to the $20 limit and purchases a $400 iPod (anybody else miss iPods?) When he's disappointed in the reasonably priced gift he receives, he decides to turn the whole thing into a "Yankee Swap” - also known as "White Elephant" or "Dirty Santa."
I've chosen this episode for a couple of reasons. First, it's one of the more realistic Michael meltdowns because I could see an egomaniac actually doing this. It's also a situation that gets the entire office sitting around in one circle, so we get a lot of fun full ensemble stuff. Finally, when Jim buys Pam a really thoughtful gift, it's just a little sample of great things to come - both in the show and on this list.
“Traveling Salesmen” (Season 3, Episode 13)
Most of these episodes are centered around Michael and his shenanigans because, whether anyone wants to admit it or not, he made the show what it was.
But something I always appreciated about the character of Michael Scott is that he is actually a very good salesman. You watch the show and think, "How would this guy ever get this job? He's a terrible boss in every conceivable way!" and you are correct in saying that. But on the rare occasion that Michael gets to show off his sales skills, it all makes sense. It grounds the show in some way.
This is one of those times. Michael decides that the sales team will split into pairs for the day and travel out to sales calls. Jim and Dwight are paired and although we do get some of their classic back-and-forth, we learn that, when it comes to work, they really are the yin to each other's yang. Stanley and Ryan team up and Ryan's embarrassment leads to Stanley's great full-bodied laugh. Phyllis and Karen spend the day going out for makeovers and...well...all I have to say is that Rashida Jones was criminally underused on this show and thank God she got Parks and Rec.
But it's when Michael goes out with Andy that we really see what he can do. He's so impressive, in fact, that Andy compliments him with the highest honor a paper salesman can receive: "This guy could sell paper to a tree."
“Fun Run” (Season 4, Episodes 1 and 2)
This episode, the Season 4 premiere, has the third-best opening scene in the entire series. (In case you're wondering, Kevin's Famous Chili and Michael, Dwight, and Andy's parkouring take the gold and silver medals - you'll see what I mean when you get there.) It's simple: Michael hits Meredith with his car.
But it's what follows in this two-part episode that makes it so memorable. To raise money in Meredith's honor (she's not dead) for rabies research (you'll see), he organizes a charity 5K he calls Michael Scott's Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun-Run Race For the Cure. He uses over half the money raised on a giant check he can present to a nurse (spoiler: she's not a nurse), nobody cares about the race at all, and Michael nearly dies from his attempt at carbo-loading, which in his mind just means eating a bunch of fettucini alfredo right before running. He's slurping it up without taking a breath. It's disgusting.
But despite all this nonsense, the best part of the episode is that Jim and Pam's three-season-long will they/won't they is now over and they can finally be together. It's the most endearing relationship in a show often built on people humiliating each other and their love for each other is a breath of fresh air.
“Scott’s Tots” (Season 6, Episode 12)
This was the first episode of The Office that I ever saw. This was back when airplanes didn't have a tv in every seat and instead just a screen that dropped from the ceiling every five or six rows and showed the plane safety video, a family-friendly blockbuster movie, a sitcom episode or two, and either an hour-long procedural or an HGTV-type reality show across your five-hour flight. Remember this? On one of those flights, I was introduced to the show with this episode.
And what an episode to start with. It's one of the show's biggest doozies and acts as a great litmus test for the series. If you don't like this episode, you'll never like the show's sense of humor.
Ten years ago, Michael promised an entire third-grade class that he would pay for their college tuition if they promised to graduate high school. Why would he do such a reckless thing? As he puts it in the episode, "I thought I would be (a millionaire) by the time I was 30, but I wasn't even close. And then I thought maybe by the time I was 40, but by 40, I had less money than when I was 30."
In the episode, he has to break the news to the group of graduating seniors, affectionately referred to as "Scott's Tots." I won't spoil how it goes down, but it's one of the darker things I've ever seen in a typically light-hearted sitcom. I guess that's one thing that set The Office apart from its contemporaries - it wasn't afraid to go there.
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