Anyone else think that The Office...

[metabike]

...really has gone downhill this season? Not much of a TV guy and I started watching the show by accident last year and became a regular. This season it seems like the writing is so much like every other lame sitcom, i.e. the subtleness of the humor has been replaced by every line having to be laugh. The episode premises have also gotten ridiculous, for example, Jim & Pam being clients of Dwight's beet farm Bed & Breakfast. All that's left is to finish it off is to have some crossover connection with another NBC show, maybe Earl can get a work release job at the Scranton branch. I gave it 3 episodes this year and for me, it's 3 strikes and The Office is out.

[Relaxer]

I think the problem is the hour-long episodes. When it was 30 minutes (meaning, about 20 minutes of actual show), the writers had to be more disciplined with their stories to cram it all in. With an hour, they're trying to do too much. I agree that the whole B'n'B thing was played out too long, and the whole driving into the lake the week before was just d-u-m.

I appreciate the fact that they're trying to flesh out the other characters, but the story-telling has gotten lazy. I really hope they bring back the half-hour episodes.

Meanwhile, 30 Rock is slowly taking the Office's place as the funnies show on TV.

[CyLowe97]

They've gone the Homer Simpson Just-How-Over-the-Top-Clueless-Can-We-Write-Him route with Michael Scott on the Office. I'm waiting for him to stick a fork in a light socket and wonder why he got shocked, then do it again.

To their credit, the Kelly relationship with the guy from the warehouse is pretty funny. He laid some serious mojo on her that got her to stop talking for a minute. That was cool.

And the hour episodes are really just separate half hour episodes. Maybe just too much at one clip.

I agree that 30 Rock is the best show on that lineup at the moment. Earl just got too over the top last season and last week was just unwatchable. Here's hoping Scrubs can go out strong this season....

[Relaxer]

I think they lost an opportunity to make Michael a more realistic character. They've always managed to negate the question of "How is it that a Michael Scott or Dwight Schrute could still be employed?" by demonstrating that they're excellent salesmen.

But this season, we've seen them groveling to former clients with gift baskets (and coming up totally empty) and we've seen Michael take a second job as a telemarketer. If they'd showed them having some kind of success in these endeavors (like when they showed Dwight in a sell-off versus the Infinity computer -- whatever happened to that story line by the way?), it would make them more realistic, and therefore endearing, characters. Seriously, given what Ryan has had to put up with this season, why has he not fired Michael?

You said it just right. They're going too far in the jerk***** Homer direction. It might score some cheap laughs, but it gives the show a MUCH shorter shelf life.

[daredevil]

I was spoiled by the BBC version. Never liked NBC's.