I noticed a lot of sentiment on Facebook over the series finale of The Office, which aired last Thursday. While I enjoyed the series for most of its duration, I was disappointed with the finale.
The show breaks the bounds of believability for me whenever it portrays the co-workers as a tight group of friends. There are certainly workplaces where deep relationships are forged, but on The Office, it almost always comes off as contrived and inconsistent with the characters' personalities. The show often portrays the co-workers as being closer to each other than any other friends or family they may have, which always ruins my suspension of disbelief. There is no way that a Stanley or an Angela or a Phyllis would give up part of their weekend to attend a co-worker's daughter's first baptism.
And the culmination of this inconsistency occurred near the end of the series finale. Dwight and Angela, two of the show's most unfriendly and socially awkward characters, just got married and--instead of going on their honeymoon--went back to the office to hang out with their co-workers. At which point Angela says the most ridiculous line ever spoken on television:
"Oh, the honeymoon can wait until tomorrow. We wanted to hang out with you guys. I mean, when are we all going to be here together again?"
I'm sorry, but even the most friendly and amicable of co-workers would not push back a honeymoon to hang out at the office, let alone these two characters. Again, it felt contrived and inconsistent, created solely for the purpose of bringing the cast together for a final sendoff. This completely broke the "mockumentary" style that the show was filmed in, and confirmed my suspicions that the show had outlived itself.
The show breaks the bounds of believability for me whenever it portrays the co-workers as a tight group of friends. There are certainly workplaces where deep relationships are forged, but on The Office, it almost always comes off as contrived and inconsistent with the characters' personalities. The show often portrays the co-workers as being closer to each other than any other friends or family they may have, which always ruins my suspension of disbelief. There is no way that a Stanley or an Angela or a Phyllis would give up part of their weekend to attend a co-worker's daughter's first baptism.
And the culmination of this inconsistency occurred near the end of the series finale. Dwight and Angela, two of the show's most unfriendly and socially awkward characters, just got married and--instead of going on their honeymoon--went back to the office to hang out with their co-workers. At which point Angela says the most ridiculous line ever spoken on television:
"Oh, the honeymoon can wait until tomorrow. We wanted to hang out with you guys. I mean, when are we all going to be here together again?"
I'm sorry, but even the most friendly and amicable of co-workers would not push back a honeymoon to hang out at the office, let alone these two characters. Again, it felt contrived and inconsistent, created solely for the purpose of bringing the cast together for a final sendoff. This completely broke the "mockumentary" style that the show was filmed in, and confirmed my suspicions that the show had outlived itself.