Review of the Season 4 Premiere of The Office

The newest episode of The Office premiered tonight, and the show's debuting this season with more fire than it's had in years.

The first episode of the 4th season starts with office manager Michael Scott hitting Meredith Palmer with his car, in a shocking sequence that somehow stayed funny. Who knew that vehicular negligence was so funny (don't mention that to Paris Hilton)?

Of course, the plot centers around Michael trying to rectify his mistake in his usual heavy handed manner, with plenty of quotes that are bound to be showing up instantly on Facebook walls all over the country. "I'm not superstitious," Scott says at one point, "I'm just a little stitious," before a hilarious interoffice discussion on religion.

The other plot of this episode introduced the nagging question of whether Jim and Pam are finally dating or not. Karen, Jim's girlfriend from the last season, seems to have left the show, and Jim and Pam make passing remarks that could be construed as romantic planning, much to the overbearing interest of office pervert Kevin, whose deadpan delivery provides some of the show's best moments this week.

The Jim-Pam-will-they-won't-they thing is now more of a have-they-haven't-they thing, and then we find out that they have; perhaps wisely, they're concealing from the office, and that will ostensibly be the way that the show keeps the heat moving on the whole "unrequited romance" factor, which got overbearing towards the end of the last season, to the point where my decidedly un-masochistic roommate stormed out of the room in the middle of the last episode, declaring, "man, chicks are going to eat this crap up."

The show's writers seem to have recognized this and reapproached the romance in a lighter tone, while still keeping the romantic mystery that keeps the storyline intriguing. The focus is back on the comedy, and that's certainly a good thing. Every character has their moments, and fans of every actor will find plenty to love in the hour long premiere. There are a lot of good side moments, such as Pam seeing Michael nude and the whole office running a 5K for "rabies doctors." It's way more relaxed than last season, and simultaneously, pleasantly busy.

My other big beef with the show over the last season was the hyperbolic situations that Michael Scott ended up in; it seemed like he was getting to be a cartoon of himself, kind of on the same lines as Homer Simpson in the newer episodes of the Simpsons. Thankfully, he's a bit more toned down, and his sympathetic qualities shine through, such as the scene where he seems to genuinely empathize with Angela after her cat dies (at which point he decides that The Office is cursed).

There's a lot more of a free flowing feel to the show's dialog, and it feels like every one has been injected with a big syringe of freshen-the-hell-up-or-get-cancelled. It'll be interesting to see if the writers and actors in this genuinely funny sitcom can keep the wheels moving for the rest of the season.