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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
46
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Jul 25, 2013
Season 3 Review:
A masterful two-hour finale to an already exceptional program. [21 Oct 2004]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 3 Review:
Whether it's Brent's starry-eyed foppishness, Dawn's artistic daydreams or Gareth's organizational stiffness, these are characters we don't see on American TV. They're not accomplished, clever or distinctive. But they're so well-observed, and so subtly personified, that it's as if we're finding amusement in people we know. [21 Oct 2004]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 3 Review:
Thanks to a finale that is, by turns, hysterical, excruciating and even poignant, this series--about a blowhard branch manager (Ricky Gervais) who gets sacked from his job at a struggling paper company--gets to quit while it's way, way ahead. [18 Oct 2004]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 3 Review:
Brilliant. [21 Oct 2004]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 3 Review:
The special stays true to the tone and searing wit of the original series and makes for a spectacularly funny coda to "The Office." [18 Oct 2004]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 3 Review:
Supremely satisfying. [21 Oct 2004]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 3 Review:
A masterful series finale. [21 Oct 2004]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 3 Review:
Easily one of the funniest shows of the year. [21 Oct 2004]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 3 Review:
Like the series that preceded it, The Office Special is brilliant. [21 Oct 2004]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 3 Review:
It's hard to imagine any other comedy series putting such a fitting cap on its run. [21 Oct 2004]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 3 Review:
As he did in the series, Gervais imbues Brent with a kind of idiotic cleverness that is both silly and devastating. [21 Oct 2004]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 3 Review:
A fully satisfying and fitting TV finale, and a show that really should be seen. It's acted as well as it's written and directed, which means it's just about perfect. [21 Oct 2004]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Gervais' show is so unusual, and his performance as David Brent is so painfully specific -- and sometimes just so flat-out painful -- it's hard to imagine how anyone else can make it work. [23 Jan 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 2 Review:
The six-episode first season of "The Office" was so dark, so wicked, so brilliant that it was hard to imagine Gervais and Merchant topping themselves. But they have. By slowly chipping away at David's power base, they've made him even more desperate, petulant and bullying. (The less funny David gets, the funnier the show is.) [10 Oct 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 1 Review:
A scream, in the biting Britcom tradition of "Fawlty Towers" and the best depiction of middle management hell since Mike Judge's cult classic "Office Space." [23 Jan 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 1 Review:
The first time you watch the show, you really don’t believe what you’re seeing. Each moment feels so real, it’s hard to tell if the actors are improvising brilliantly or just delivering their lines with incredible conviction. Like the best moments of 'This Is Spinal Tap' or 'Waiting for Guffman,' 'The Office' offers up breathtaking slices of deadpan humor and amazing comic timing.
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Jul 25, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Fascinating and outrageously witty ... the best new sitcom to hit American television since Larry David's similarly inspired "Curb Your Enthusiasm." ... An instant classic. [23 Jan 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 2 Review:
Television's funniest show. ... On a less carefully written show, the [mockumentary] conceit would almost certainly pall after a few episodes. 'The Office' is instead addictive, less because viewers grow to love David and his batty employees than because the show refuses to let those characters grow too lovable.
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Jul 25, 2013
Season 2 Review:
The laughs are still there ... But the show begins to take on ominous overtones, a kind of small-scale tragedy in the making as it plots the apparent path of a little dictator's downfall. [10 Oct 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 2 Review:
David Brent, brilliantly conceived and played by Gervais, remains among the most wonderfully annoying characters in modern TV comedy. [12 Oct 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 2 Review:
Never have lives of quiet desperation been so laugh-out-loud funny as in "The Office." [10 Oct 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 1 Review:
It takes a little while to get into it (episode two clinched it for me), but once you get used to the accents and dry humor, you're hooked. [23 Jan 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 1 Review:
"The Office" is everything television comedy can and ought to be but almost never is. ... The result is subtle, searing and laugh-bitterly-out-loud funny, like a series of the darkest Dilbert strips strung together and given human dimension and narrative shape. [30 Jan 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 2 Review:
It is depressing, brilliant, hysterical, excruciating, full of irony, and nothing you'd ever expect to find on American network TV. Rather than sweetening the workplace with fantasies of a home away from home, "The Office" heightens the reality and disconnection of corporate life until it is absurdly funny. The show doesn't touch your heart so much as tickle your spleen. [9 Oct 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 2 Review:
"The Office" makes you cringe in delight and heave with giggles when you see the absurdity of it all. [23 Oct 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 2 Review:
It takes a while to get into the rhythms of Gervais' writing and seemingly improvised acting, but once you've become a fan, it's the kind of show you can watch over and over. [10 Oct 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 3 Review:
What's most satisfying about "The Office" is that, despite the sharpest humor this side of "The Larry Sanders Show," it has an ultimately sympathetic take on the cubicle-dwellers of the world, and that outlook is derived from a million tiny observations about personal decency (and lack thereof). [21 Oct 2004]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Mike Judge, creator of "Beavis and Butt-head," made a darn good try at a seriously funny workplace comedy with his 1999 film "Office Space," but Gervais and Merchant have even greater success. "The Office" is hilarious in a very hip and flippant way. [30 Jan 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 2 Review:
"The Office" is hilarious, but it is an acquired taste as it serves up comedy of the uncomfortable. [10 Oct 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 1 Review:
It's a wonderful, subversive concept, and by failing to romanticize the players, "Office" remains true to its ghastly, funny self. [23 Jan 2003]
Flak MagazineJul 3, 2013
Season 3 Review:
For the most part, the special continues with the show's distinctive brand of brutal, punchline-free, squirm-inducing humor. Ultimately, though, it gives us what the first and second seasons did not, a happy ending. This optimistic conclusion could be seen as a loss of nerve. I prefer to see it as chance for release.
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Jul 25, 2013
Season 2 Review:
It takes a real artist's eye to concentrate reality so realistically, and a true wit to pull it off in a sitcom that makes you gasp as frequently as it makes you laugh. [10 Oct 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 2 Review:
Dark, sly, ironic, subtle, brilliant. ... A taste for British humor comes in handy in watching "The Office," though. If you're bothered by deliberate (but tongue-in-cheek) bad taste, raging political incorrectness, sexual innuendo or comedy involving large sexual toys, or if you just don't get satire, "The Office" may not be right for you. [24 Oct 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 2 Review:
It's dependent almost entirely on characters rather than plot - but, with such recognizable characters, "The Office" works beautifully. [10 Oct 2003]
Jul 25, 2013
Season 2 Review:
Larry David is obnoxious in "Curb Your Enthusiasm" but very funny. Gervais' David is just obnoxious. ... It's the sort of comedy that only certain people can get, like the way dogs can hear sounds human can't. I'm ashamed to say, I couldn't take it more than one dinner hour. [19 Oct 2003]
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