With the imminent return of new TV episodes as part of the networks’ Fall lineup, it’s worth looking back at one of the roots of a big time current hit. Before there was the NBC cult classic in the making, there was the original BBC “The Office”. One of the most appealing aspects of “The Office” is that the show (both BBC and NBC) use a fake documentary filming approach to follow the antics of an office of paper retailers–and the mostly believable situations are hilarious. But there have been some changes from BBC to NBC. For those who followed the evolution during the show’s transition from British to American TV, you can’t help notice overall change in tone. In the BBC version, the overall tone is a more crude (generally not appropriate for children), and the humor is definitely much more dry–and I would recommend using subtitles to be sure you catch all the subtle jokes. Beyond tone and drollness, perhaps the biggest change is to the character of the boss. NBC’s boss (Michael Scott) is a sort of lovable incompetent who often does a pretty good job as a salesman, while the BBC boss (David Brent) is almost totally unsympathetic and far beyond occasional incompetence (he goes so far as to try to sell out his own employees in order to get a promotion). Still, there are strong common threads of false political correctness and general boss-seeks-approval-from-employees. Here’s a (rated G) clip–”have a laugh, yeah”.
