The Office: Series 1

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Dan Owen reviews

The Office: Series 1
Distributed by
BBC

    Cover

  • Cert:
  • Cat.no: BBCDVD 1115
  • Running time: 176 minutes
  • Year: 2001
  • Pressing: 2002
  • Region(s): 2, PAL
  • Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo)
  • Languages: English
  • Subtitles: English
  • Widescreen: 1.78:1
  • 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
  • Macrovision: Yes
  • Disc Format: 2 * DVD 9
  • Price: £19.99
  • Extras:”How I Made ‘The Office’, By Rick Gervais” Documentary, “TheStaff Training Video”, Deleted Scenes.

    Directors/Writers:

      Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant

Music:

    Big George

Cast:

    David Brent: Ricky Gervais
    Gareth Keenan: Mackenzie Crook
    Tim Canterbury: Martin Freeman
    Dawn Tinsley: Lucy Davis
    Dave Finch: Ralph Inneson
    Jennifer Taylor-Clark: Stirling Gallacher
    Keith: Ewan Macintosh
    Lee: Joel Beckett

CastThe Officehas quickly become one of the best home-grown comedies inthe past ten years, perhaps even in British history – taking its placeamongst the likes of “Only Fools And Horses”, “Fawlty Towers”, “MontyPython”, “Blackadder” and all the other shows that are synonymous withclassic belly-laughs.

Ricky Gervais (right) has been a talented writer and actor on the periphery ofthe business for many years – as a London radio DJ and contributor toChannel 4’s “The 11 O’Clock Show”, that led to the short-lived C4chat-show “Meet Ricky Gervais” in 2000. (Ricky: “I wanted a second seriesbut Channel 4 wanted something different – ratings!”)

But it’s with the BBC in The Office that Gervais, together withco-writer Steve Merchant, launched himself into the big league. Thefirst series of the show debuted in 2001 with a genuinely unique set-up:a “mockumentary” comedy. The fabulous conceit behind the show is thatthe office workers of paper merchants Wernham Hogg are the stars of afly-on-the-wall documentary following their working lives.

There is no studio audience, no canned laughter and very few excursionsbeyond the office environment. Instead the show is a note-perfect saluteto the filmmaking style of various reality documentaries currently stillin vogue – such as Airport and Cruise Ship.

CastThe comedy is delivered through the idiosyncratic nature of officeworking life (which a growing chunk of the UK populace can relate to),and the finely drawn characters. Gervais stars as David Brent – amonstrous office manager who’s inept at his job but eager for popularityfrom his ineffectual staff.

In Brent, Gervais has carved himself a classic character that can bementioned in the same breath as Basil Fawlty. He’s that good. Ahideously deluded boss with no staff management skills but an underlyinggood nature and eagerness to “entertain” his workforce. Watching Gervaisperform is an absolute joy – with his ticks and mannerisms catapultingthe squirm factor of the show into the stratosphere. A work of sheercomedic genius.

The Office doesn’t rest on its laurels with David Brent, however. Italso has a fantastic supporting line-up of actors; Mackenzie Crook‘s (right)Gareth is a nerdy “assistant to the manager” with military aspirations,Martin Freeman‘s Tim is a popular office jack-the-lad with no careerconfidence and a romantic eye on Lucy Davis‘ sweet-natured receptionistDawn. (DVDfever Ed: “How can someone as talent-free as JasperCarrott spawn someone so gorgeous as Lucy Davis?”)

Most of the six episodes continue the underlying theme of this firstseries – the possibility that their branch at Slough may be closed downand face staff redundancies. The six episodes from the first series areas follows:

CastEpisode 1: David Brent learns that his branch of the paper merchantsmight be closed down. But he promises his staff, that under his regimethere will be no redundancies. A perfect start to the series – with thecharacters already fully-formed and Ricky Gervais doing an outstandingjob as David Brent. Plenty of memorable quips and keen asides to camera.

Episode 2: An attractive young woman called Donna arrives in the officeon work experience. Meanwhile, a manipulated pornographic image of Brentsends shockwaves through the staff. A very satisfying episode heldtogether by Brent’s hilarious ineptness with his staff, and everybody’svain efforts to woo the sexy Donna…

Episode 3: It’s Tim’s birthday, but the celebrations are soonovershadowed by the annual Wernham Hogg Quiz Night – which Brent and hiscohort “Finchy” (right) have never lost. A good episode, but one that seems farmore concerned with story and occasionally forgets to balance it withlaughs. However, Ralph Ineson’s turn as chauvinist Finchy is a nugget ofpure gold.

CastEpisode 4: A management consultant arrives to give the staff a specialtraining day, much to Brent’s chagrin. An excellent episode thatparodies the entire style of office training days across the country;with Peter Purvis’ cheesy 80s video a real highlight, though even thispales next to Brent’s show-stopping turn with his guitar…

Episode 5: Even though some of the staff may be made redundant, Brentdecides to take on a new secretary. Naturally, he chooses the prettiestwoman… Another fine episode, particularly with Brent’s interviewingtechniques for the position of new secretary – all but ignoring the maleinterviewee to letch around the female candidate for all he’s worth.Excellent.

Episode 6: It’s judgement day on whether the Slough branch is to bedownsized and combined with the Swindon branch of the company. Amarvellous end to the series as the merger situation reaches a head andBrent is forced to make some tough decisions. A fantastic episode with afantastic end sequence at the “end of financial year office party”.

I can’t recommend “The Office” highly enough. The second series recentlyplayed to huge acclaim – but that’s not to say the first series was ashaky start. Far from it. It’s rare that a new comedy series hits theground running so quickly – but literally from the first scene you cantell this show is a high-quality, groundbreaking breath of fresh air.

Long may it continue to prompt real office discussions the nextmorning…

CastThe Office arrives as a double-disk DVD set in a fold-outcardboard holder tucked inside a cardboard protective sleeve. Theartwork is minimalist and stylish; with a wonderful poem about Slough onthe inside cover.

The animated menu screens are beautiful – retaining the cover art’sminimalist approach with a bleached white screen carved with pencildrawings of office paraphernalia and easy-to-navigate options. Verygood, although faster loading times between screens would have beenappreciated.

The image transfer retains the original broadcast’s 16:9 widescreenratio, and is exquisite. The level of detail and crispness to the imagesare excellent and far outstrip the digital satellite picture quality theBBC broadcast in 2001. Fabulous work.

Sadly, the sound is merely a Dolby Stereo track. It would have been niceto have had a 5.1 mix, or even a Pro-Logic effort would have sufficed.Still, “The Office” is essentially dialogue driven and the centrespeaker does a good job of getting the gags across in pristine quality.

CastThe extra material is incredible sparse for a double-disk DVD set, withDisk 2s entire contents being just the following:

How I Made ‘The Office’, by Ricky Gervais: this is a very funnydocumentary presented by Ricky Gervais and (unseen in the first series, butmade a cameo as Oggy in the second)co-writer Stephen Merchant. There’s input from the supporting cast, pluslots of scenes from the BBC “Pilot” episode and “Pre-Pilot” filmed bythe crew (with Brent far more insidious than he would eventuallybecome). Packed full of insights, bloopers, behind-the-scenes footageand evidence that Gervais is (in real life) an unhinged buffoon…

Deleted Scenes: a nice collection of cut scenes – most erroneous, butsome fairly enlightening. The problem with this extra is that selectinga scene results in a static screen with text to “set the scene” beforethe scene is played. This wouldn’t be so bad, but the static text isdisplayed for an eternity before th actual scene is played back.Extremely frustrating.

The Staff Training Video: this is the naff training video fromEpisode 5, presented by Peter Purvis, and is presented here in all itscheesy 80’s glory. A hilarious bonus for those who have endured suchvideos in their own workplace. Excellent.

Overall, a great visual transfer with disapprovingly non-immersivesound. The extra features are of high quality, but are far too sparse.Why weren’t the Pre-Pilot and Pilot episodes made available for fullviewing? Likewise the bloopers.

Still, The Office DVD deserves a place on your shelf purely because ofthe fist-class episodes themselves. Let’s just hope that the even bettersecond series will provide more expansive extra features.

FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS


OVERALL
Review copyright © Dan Owen, 2002.

Visit the officialThe Officewebsite.

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