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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: April 10, 2008
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: The Office, “Dinner Party” (Season 4, Episode 13) [Watch it on Netflix]
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: For the most part, what differentiated the U.S. version of The Office from its British counterpart was that the U.S. version, lasting many, many more episodes longer, grew into something more sympathetic to its own characters than the unbearably awkward, dark-hearted UK version.
Season 4’s “Dinner Party,” then,” stands as a significant exception. This would be the first episode back from the 2007-8 writers’ strike, and the show sure got things off to a harsh start. In the episode, Michael Scott invites couples Jim and Pam and Andy and Angela over to his and Jan’s home for a dinner party, and right from the break, it’s so much worse than you could imagine.
Jan’s clearly incredibly bitter at what her life has become, from corporate executive to miserable candle-seller. She clearly despises Michael, and even as desperate as Michael is to make people like him at all times, he’s pretty close to hating her as well. With poor Pam and Jim caught in the crossfire, Michael and Jan enact a PG-13 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, with a neon St. Pauli Girl sign standing in for the dead child. Jim sums it up pretty perfectly, after a truly disastrous game of Celebrity:
“Michael and Jan seem to be playing their own separate game, and it’s called Let’s See How Uncomfortable We Can Make Our Guests. And they’re both winning.”
[You can watch “Dinner Party” on Netflix.]
Joe Reid (@joereid) is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. You can find him leaving flowers for Mrs. Landingham at the corner of 18th and Potomac.
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