annakovsky | Check out my icon - STEVE WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?

I can't believe Jenna Fischer and James Gunn are splitting. Between that and Owen Wilson's suicide attempt, I don't even know, man. (Last night I was getting a pedicure and reading the most recent People magazine cover article about said suicide attempt. The article concluded that depression probably played a role. STOP THE PRESSES.) I always feel like such an idiot when celebrity news genuinely gets me down, but geez, I'm not made of stone here.

In more cheerful celebrity news, Stephen Colbert is the subject of an excellent Vanity Fair article, with pictures that -- well, no Sunday School teacher should look like this, let's just say. Sweet mother of mercy.

This new promo for The Office has made me SO PSYCHED for next season, you guys (VERY SPOILERY). Here's some brief Office meta that I've been thinking about over the summer, re: the show and fandom.

Post-"The Job" fic has been such a wasteland, I have to say, especially compared to post-"Casino Night." I mean, it makes sense -- just the thought of trying to write first date fic makes me about fall asleep where I sit, but it's still kind of sad. All summer I've been trying to think about ways I could write Jim/Pam fic and make it interesting for myself, but I have come up with nothing -- I've already written established relationship fic, and I don't really want to write about them breaking up, so... yeah. The only thing I can think of to try to get some conflict in there without depressing the hell out of me is to have them either a) attacked by zombies, or b) meet up with Xander Harris or something. Haha.

You know, I rarely think that the show missteps, but I have to say, as the show has gone on, I think they made a mistake with the character of Jim, as compared to Tim in the UK version. Tim is not cool at all -- he's short and not that attractive and 30 years old but still living with his parents. You totally understand why Dawn stays with Lee -- even Tim's Nana wouldn't kick Lee out of bed, ha. Whereas Jim -- well, Jim is a hipster, who wasn't cool in high school but realized in his 20s that with the right haircut and a working knowledge of indie bands out of Montreal, he could fake it. (Hee, I once saw an older fan citing Jim's hair as evidence he didn't care about fashion, which was vaguely hilarious.) And Jim in season 2 is practically genetically engineered to be your perfect boyfriend, so Pam staying with Roy makes a lot less sense. Of course, Jim in season 3 turns into every whiney ex-boyfriend you've ever had (in May, my brother the mathematician told me, "Jim Halpert is no Bob Vance." Haha. He's not wrong. He also said that Jim's half the man Dwight is, which I think you could definitely make a case for) -- which, by the way, I really hope they spend some time in season 4 redeeming the character of Jim Halpert after he was such a douche to Karen and Pam all year. Uh - where was I? Oh yeah, so Jim being cool not only throws off the Jim/Pam dynamic, it also really throws off the Jim/Dwight dynamic. When you watch the UK version, Tim is almost always really on the verge of losing his temper with Gareth. He's often just about to freak out at Gareth for how annoying he's being -- whereas I don't think I've ever seen Jim really on the verge of yelling at Dwight or at Andy. Jim always seems kind of coolly detached. And after awhile of coolly detached pranks, well, Jim starts seeming kind of like an asshole, the cool kid tormenting the dorks for no good reason. (Possibly my favorite sequence from the entire show is in "Conflict Resolution" when they're listing all of Jim's pranks on Dwight, and Jim's face falls as he realizes that he's kind of a huge dick. Too bad that self-realization didn't last into season 3.) I think the dynamic's gotten worse as the show's sort of institutionalized the pranks as cold opens, and has gotten away from the normal-person-being-annoyed-by-drudgery-of-job-and-insanity-of-coworkers aspects of the show. Anyway, I hope in season 4 they try to correct that dynamic a little bit, because honestly, at this point my sympathy is more with Dwight than Jim a lot of the time.

I was watching deleted scenes from "Gay Witch Hunt" and other episodes last night, and I gotta tell you. Back in season 2, I took Michael's man crush on Ryan as being only sort of gay - that Michael was mostly straight but weird about Ryan. But in Gay Witch Hunt Michael is SO terrified of anyone thinking he's gay that ever since then I've pretty much read him as closeted. And whoo boy, there are a lot of Michael/Ryan deleted scenes. (Speaking of closeted, you know who would have an awkward, closeted gay encounter in, say, a public restroom? Michael Scott and "Stephen Colbert" the character.)

Speaking of the DVDs, dude, did you guys see all the Jim & Andy scenes cut from Product Recall? GOLDEN. Also, there's one point where Jim, like, rubs Andy's back. HELLO. Why hasn't anyone written THAT?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I have SO MANY conflicted feelings about the show coming back. All along, part of me has been wishing that The Job had been the series finale. The summer vacation promo has gotten me excited to see everyone else on the show, but I'm still not sure about Jim and Pam. They'll have to make me care about him again, and Pam...she's probably my favorite fictional character EVER, but something about her TH in the promo felt waaaay too much like fandom's FNB, who is just happy to has a man who'll buy her a house with an upstairs terrace and needs to be persuaded by Jim to apply to art school.

I want to just trust the writers, what with them all being AWESOME, but I can't stop worrying that it's going to turn into the Douchebag Halpert [and his sidekick, Doormat Beesly!] Variety Half-Hour.

Yeah, I know what you mean - I really, really don't know how they're going to pull off an interesting Jim/Pam after this. So... I hope they can.

(Dude, okay, I KNOW, right? On the TH in the promo. I almost hated Pam a little bit - and I LOVE Pam, she's my favorite! But, I don't know, that contrasted with Karen being dumped and crying, and... yeah. You totally hit the nail on the head with fandom's FNB, that's totally why I felt that way. You know, I still really ship Jim/Pam, and I was really pleased with The Job, but in some ways I almost wish that Pam had just gone off into the sunset on her own, fulfilled in and of herself, you know?)

The writers almost always pull this stuff off, though, so, fingers crossed?

I almost wish that Pam had just gone off into the sunset on her own, fulfilled in and of herself, you know?

That's the worst thing about this show. The best possible thing for Pam would be if she were gone and happily living some other life, but because the show is what it is, she has to stay in Scranton, and she has to be working with Jim, and with their history and the fact that they sit seven feet away from each other all day, she'll never be free of him. And I don't exactly WANT her to be, because I love them, and I don't think the show could have balanced it any better than the end of The Job did, but it's going to be so tricky for them to pull off in the long run.

[Did that even make sense? I am saying a lot of things today.]

Yes, TOTALLY - I hate that that's the way the show has to be, in a way, because the happy ending for both Jim and Pam would be not working at Dunder Mifflin, but by definition they can't have that, so. Yeah.

(Hahaha, your icon omg.)

Ohmygosh, thank you both so much for saying that. I'm totally comment butting, but I thought I was the only one a little weirded out by Pam in the promo. It just bothered me that she did all this growing last season and then was wearing her hair down because of JIM. Um, NO. Maybe I'm being way too feminista about this since an episode hasn't even aired, but that just irked me.

COMMENT BUTT AWAY. Thank god the promo was full of awesome from everyone else, because I couldn't stand either one of them. And yeah, maybe I am reading too much into it, but they could have had them talk about anything, and Pam says all her talk about change was just talk until Jim made her take action. WHERE WOULD SHE BE WITHOUT HIM?

Umm, not to uh, further comment butt, but I really don't think that's what Pam meant. I mean, she was just talking about her hair, right? It sounds like Jim was just teasing her...don't get me wrong, I'm a feminist, but...I didn't see anything wrong with what she said? (I'm Ron Burgundy?) I do see what you all are saying about her seeming a bit door mattish, but that WAS just a little glimpse. I'm sure it was all in good fun, and she didn't just do it for Jim. But I mean, haven't we gussied ourselves up, even a little, for a guy? Is that really so bad? She did it last season, too. She just sounds giddy to me, is all.

....I'm sorry, lol I just love Pamelas. I really don't think she's letting Jim influence her too much or make all her haircare (or other) decisions, lol. I realllly think it's taken out of context, but either way it's just a tiny little snippet! They probably thought that the Jim/Pam stuff was what people wanted to hear about, so they put that in to be like, "Ooh, they are together!" I don't think she meant all the change talk was just talk, just specifically the expression, "The new Pam is letting her hair down." And Jim thought it was funny/cute. That's it. Umm. I come in peace, lol. But that's just my take on it. *waves*

<--- icon added for light-hearted feel, hahaha

Check out my icon - STEVE WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject