The Office Series 1 (Wide Screen) > Reviews > The Office From Hell

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Advantages:	extra footage, deleted scenes, interviews, seeing the man who wrote most of The Office in the flesh, and having all six episodes of the first series within easy reach !
Disadvantages:	You might spasm too much with laughing

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The Office is the one of the first DVD's I rushed out to get - and one of the only things I am happy to watch time after time. Written in the style of a documentary, it's a comedy with no jokes. The Office is quite simply genius.

Anyone who has ever worked in an office will be able to identify with the characters and situation. Set in a fictional paper merchants in Slough, the whole thing is filmed with cameras constantly present, documentary style. The defining characteristic of The Office for me is that nothing really happens. There are no elaborate plots. It's just another day in the office ...

David Brent (Ricky Gervais) is the boss and a more noxious irritating smarmy man you couldn't hope to meet. Not only does he think he's a good boss, he also thinks he's the funniest, coolest, most in-touch boss there has ever been. He's actually such an appalling human being that you can find yourself watching the programme through your fingers. It makes you cringe. It's humiliating, embarrassing, and the frightening thing is that the character is so real, such a mixture of existing bosses you have known and hated, that he is much worse than simply a fictional character invented for a sitcom. You can truly believe this man exists.

Team Leader, Gareth (Mackenzie Crook) is a skinny, weedy guy (Mackenzie's own words) who thinks of himself as David's right hand man. He was once in the territorial army, and his knowledge of how to get out of difficult situations provides lots of surreal humour. Gareth is the sort of man who doesn't like people borrowing his stapler without permission. When given the job of finding out who it was that sent a joke email depicting the boss in a compromising situation around the office, he turns a room into an Investigation Room (complete with several door signs beginning with Interregation Room and finally settling on Gareth Keenan Investigates!) and begins to interview everyone in the Office. Although he is a jobsworth, he is very easily to wind up (putting his personal possessions in jelly always works) and actually reveals a very vulnerable side when he cries in David's office at one point during the first series. I feel sorry for him, although he's quite obviously a knob, which I think might be the point.

Tim (Martin Freeman) is the Office Everyman. He's the character you identify yourself with, as the poor relatively normal chap stuck in the middle of all this. The camera shows us his thoughts and feelings about everyone else as events unfold. He's genuinely funny and intelligent. So why is he still working for Wernham and Hogg? He needs the cash, primarily, I expect... and then there is Dawn.

Dawn is played by Lucy Davis (Jasper Carrot's daughter.) She's the lowly receptionist, treated appallingly by David Brent, and engaged to a man who isn't exactly every girl's dream. There are romantic sparks between Dawn and Tim, but as Dawn is engaged this makes the whole situation very fragile and by the end of the first series I defy you not to be desperate for them to just get together. If there is an ongoing plot that lasts for more than one single episode, this is probably it.

DVD extras:

These include deleted scenes, with a commentary from Ricky Gervais (who co-wrote the script) and Stephen Merchant (who reminds me very much of a cross between Tim and Gareth, if such a thing is possible). They talk about why they didn't use the scenes after playing them.

A 50-minute documentary about the making of the office with interview snippets with Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Mackenzie Crook, (who now signs his autographs "I could catch a monkey - Gareth") Lucy Davis and Martin Freeman. This includes footage of the pilot and pre-pilot episodes. Well worth buying on DVD just for this! If you are a fan of The Office you can't afford NOT to see this.

The DVD costs £19.99 (amazon price £14.99) Worth every penny!

My favourite surreal bit from the whole series:

Tim: (After being asked by Gareth to guess what he's thinking about)
Something to do with the army?
Gareth: No. I was thinking, will there ever be a boy born, that can swim faster than a shark?

The Office (Series 2) is currently shown at 10pm, Monday nights, BBC 2.

Techie Stuff:

Studio: BBC Worldwide Publishing
DVD Release Date: 14 October, 2002
Run Time: 176 minutes

Edition Details:
• Region 2 encoding (Europe, Middle East & Japan only)
• Widescreen, PAL
• Number of discs: 2
• ASIN: B000063W2U
• Catalogue Number: BBCDVD1115