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A review by adamcetra
The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s: An Oral History by Andy Greene
3.0
Thank you to Edelweiis and the publisher for providing an eGalley in exchange for my honest review.
Quick review: Google the oral history of the dinner party episode. If you like that article, you will like this book. On the other hand, you can pretty much read any of the book's big revelations in subsequent articles if you follow, for example, Uproxx on Facebook.
Full review: Let me preface by saying that I'm the kind of person that has watched The Office beginning to end countless times. If I don't know what to watch, I put it on. If I'm cleaning, etc, it's on. So this book was made for someone like me, which is why this turned into sort of a rant. Not sorry lol.
Overall, this is definitely a worthwhile and fun read. I learned a lot of stuff that I didn't know, and seeing the behind the scenes stuff was incredibly interesting. Although some things are just conjecture presented as fact (ex: Steve Carrell wanting to stay past season 7. It's just a bald claim made by someone tangentially involved, not, say, Steve Carrell himself.) The best parts of this book are those that just progress through the making of a season.
On the other hand, I don't like that it's mostly cobbled together from past interviews. For example, a guy like Brian Baumgartner flat out said he would've been available, but Greene seemingly didn't bother interviewing him and just used old quotes, apparently without extending the courtesy of asking if it was okay. It makes the whole thing feel a little ... disingenuous?
Greene also definitely spends a lot of time on some boring subjects. However, a big issue for me had to be the editorializing and sometimes, downright bashing. If I'm picking up this book, I'm almost definitely a super fan. I don't want to be told by the author, who rarely jumps in to comment and styles himself as simply a presenter of information, that entire seasons, relationships, characters, plotlines, etc., "don't work." Anyone who is actually tuned into the fandom knows that none of those are "majority" views. And I didn't like being told that ALL of these things didn't work, when you would be hard pressed to find an actual fan who agrees with more than a couple of characters, plotlines, etc, on this book's extensive list of things that don't work.*
On that note, I bring you the worst part of this book: Miles Freaking McNutt. McNutt is one of the worst TV reviewers out there. I had no idea who he was before this book, and I am, frankly, baffled by his inclusion. He writes for The AV Club (which I otherwise LOVE). Of course, I looked him up after reading this book, and I realized that he wrote a laughably terribly positive review of the Game of Thrones finale for The AV Club that I had read before (where he calls himself an "expert," as he did with all of his GOT reviews to differentiate from their non-book reader reviews). He's presented as only liking the second season of The Office, and I feel like he only pops in to support the author's editorializing that certain plotlines, characters, etc, don't work. His comments are included only a handful of times, but they're so awful, I literally took an entire star off of this review because of him.
*It's also funny to me personally that, on the opposite end of the spectrum, the Niagara episodes, which for me are the worst episodes of the series, only saved by Michael/Dwight shenanigans, are presented as being the greatest. (Yes, I recognize that is a minority view haha.) And that the author doesn't seem to recognize the "unreality" and plotholes of those episodes (ex: the coworkers that Pam basically didn't want at the wedding at all an episode ago literally taking it over, while dancing to freaking Chris Brown), which is a missed opportunity to juxtapose with other quotes in the book regarding the show's rules about preserving its realism.
Quick review: Google the oral history of the dinner party episode. If you like that article, you will like this book. On the other hand, you can pretty much read any of the book's big revelations in subsequent articles if you follow, for example, Uproxx on Facebook.
Full review: Let me preface by saying that I'm the kind of person that has watched The Office beginning to end countless times. If I don't know what to watch, I put it on. If I'm cleaning, etc, it's on. So this book was made for someone like me, which is why this turned into sort of a rant. Not sorry lol.
Overall, this is definitely a worthwhile and fun read. I learned a lot of stuff that I didn't know, and seeing the behind the scenes stuff was incredibly interesting. Although some things are just conjecture presented as fact (ex: Steve Carrell wanting to stay past season 7. It's just a bald claim made by someone tangentially involved, not, say, Steve Carrell himself.) The best parts of this book are those that just progress through the making of a season.
On the other hand, I don't like that it's mostly cobbled together from past interviews. For example, a guy like Brian Baumgartner flat out said he would've been available, but Greene seemingly didn't bother interviewing him and just used old quotes, apparently without extending the courtesy of asking if it was okay. It makes the whole thing feel a little ... disingenuous?
Greene also definitely spends a lot of time on some boring subjects. However, a big issue for me had to be the editorializing and sometimes, downright bashing. If I'm picking up this book, I'm almost definitely a super fan. I don't want to be told by the author, who rarely jumps in to comment and styles himself as simply a presenter of information, that entire seasons, relationships, characters, plotlines, etc., "don't work." Anyone who is actually tuned into the fandom knows that none of those are "majority" views. And I didn't like being told that ALL of these things didn't work, when you would be hard pressed to find an actual fan who agrees with more than a couple of characters, plotlines, etc, on this book's extensive list of things that don't work.*
On that note, I bring you the worst part of this book: Miles Freaking McNutt. McNutt is one of the worst TV reviewers out there. I had no idea who he was before this book, and I am, frankly, baffled by his inclusion. He writes for The AV Club (which I otherwise LOVE). Of course, I looked him up after reading this book, and I realized that he wrote a laughably terribly positive review of the Game of Thrones finale for The AV Club that I had read before (where he calls himself an "expert," as he did with all of his GOT reviews to differentiate from their non-book reader reviews). He's presented as only liking the second season of The Office, and I feel like he only pops in to support the author's editorializing that certain plotlines, characters, etc, don't work. His comments are included only a handful of times, but they're so awful, I literally took an entire star off of this review because of him.
*It's also funny to me personally that, on the opposite end of the spectrum, the Niagara episodes, which for me are the worst episodes of the series, only saved by Michael/Dwight shenanigans, are presented as being the greatest. (Yes, I recognize that is a minority view haha.) And that the author doesn't seem to recognize the "unreality" and plotholes of those episodes (ex: the coworkers that Pam basically didn't want at the wedding at all an episode ago literally taking it over, while dancing to freaking Chris Brown), which is a missed opportunity to juxtapose with other quotes in the book regarding the show's rules about preserving its realism.