OFFICE MEMO

So I watched the 'Leverage' episode "The Office Job" Monday morning once I got home from work and I think the original assessment will still work.

The documentary being produced within that episode would be the same company that has been airing the documentary series about the 'The Office' in Scranton that sells Dunder-Mifflin paper products.

The company being examined was the Good-Cheer greeting card company in Massachusetts, which was a small, formerly family-owned business that was the life-blood for that town's economy for so many decades. I was hoping the greeting card company was a subsidiary of Dunder-Mifflin - that in order to keep the interest in their series high after so many years in the cable hinterlands (where Michael Scott couldn't even find it in his local listings), the video-makers decided to branch out and look at some new people working for the company. 

Is that a Bigfoot stance?

But.. not a problem.

Good-Cheer was being bought out by the Hearfelt card company, which was a stand-in for Hallmark, obviously. I would have preferred a nameless corporate giant (or at least a company bigger than Good-Cheer) whose representatives never do show up, because I thought that factor didn't work at all. Even after all was right with their world, there was no way Heartfelt could have felt confident enough to buy the biz, even if the rep was as big a fan of football as the company's owner. Everything should have been wrapped up long before the Heartfelt reps made their appearance. (And of course, being a nameless company, we could have then figured it was Dunder-Mifflin coming to negotiate the take-over.)

But again... no problem-o.

Having the production company be the same as the one making 'The Office' (which must be its name because it has been name-checked in several other shows) is good enough for me to make an unofficial link.

And it would have been an attempt by that company to make a pilot episode for a new series, since I think within the Toobworld reality, the time is coming fast for their version of 'The Office' to end. So they hired a new director (a Werner Herzog wannabe), but used mostly the same format (only this time, the camera crew was more intrusive.)

However, they played it safe and didn't break any new ground with the topic of their documentary.  So I have a feeling that this is one pilot for a TV show within a TV show that won't get picked up next Fall......

I'm just glad the writers for this episode didn't take the easy way out and staff that office with caricatures for all the characters from 'The Office'. Although the owner of the company was a bit doltish, he wasn't insufferable like Michael Scott. And we certainly didn't need a Creed clone or a variation on the Kelly & Ryan relationship. And there can be only one Dwight... hopefully.

It would have played hob with the believability of both companies existing in the same TV dimension. (Although there was a black guy at his desk who may not have looked like Stanley, but certainly acted like him.)

BCnU!