'Office' Season Five Opener a Winner

"The Office" shouldn't still be here. It's based on a British show that lasted two short seasons (plus a classic Christmas special). The American version is going into its fifth season and still somehow going pretty strong. The season opener wasn't as good as the best of the first three seasons, but it's still one of the best shows on television. No comedy since "Seinfeld" was still this good five years in.

The mock-umentary format shouldn't work anymore - and it's mainly been abandoned. There are still the weird "I'm the cameraman and I'm standing behind these other people watching everything" camera angles. And a couple of times each "Office" episode a character actually notices the camera (In the season five opener, the best one has the engaged and cheating Angela Martin suddenly glancing at the camera and ducking out during a "moment" with Dwight Schrute).

And the Brits focused on their equivalents of Michael, Jim and Dwight. A great, convoluted trio, but they are only good for about 20 episodes or so. The brilliant part of the American "Office" is the host of inane but believable secondary characters.

I have to believe nobody actually works under a boss as bumbling and inept as Michael Scott, but anyone who has worked an office job has worked with the deadpan, dull but juvenile Kevin and the obnoxious but well-meaning Andy Bernard.

Like the dozens of established residents of the "Simpsons" universe, these "Office" co-workers continue to make the show so consistently entertaining. "Everybody Loves Raymond" may have had some good writing, but the monotonous focus on Ray and four family members got really old.

In this regard, "The Office" season five opener doesn't disappoint. The timid, matronly Phyllis Lapin spars with Dwight over her weight (all the funnier because Dwight's no Kate Moss). In a "Real World"-style confessional moment, Stanley Hudson holds up a photo of himself back in younger days with an Afro when he was "fighting the power." There are also great bits that don't even involve an actor. Dwight fills the vending machine with fruits and vegetables. You'll miss it if you blink, but the camera flashes past the snack machine midway through the episode to show rotting fruit buzzing with bugs.

Unfortunately, the larger plot is not as strong. The Scranton branch is engaged in a companywide weight-loss contest that makes Kelly Kapoor pass out on her strict cleansing diet, forces the staff into the warehouse every week to weigh in and, in fine "Office" fashion, drives Michael to offend pretty much everyone.
The overall gag grows pretty old by the end of the hourlong season opener. And the secondary plot is a little too much like the beginning of season three, when the heart-broken Jim Halpert went to Stamford and helped introduce a raft of new characters. This year, it's Pam Beesly's turn to skip town and go to art school for the summer in New York.

Here's hoping Pam comes back to Scranton like Jim did, instead of incubating a crappy new spinoff like "A Different World."

I've given away enough jokes in this review, so I will pass on one final spoiler. Let me just say that even if you stop caring about the weight-loss gag, stick it out for the end of "The Office." It's worth it.