Stephen Merchant

This is the book made of the scripts of the 1st series - to use in conjunction with the video, as both are complementary! The dialogues are very funny and will make you laugh and/ or cry. You also get attached to the characters, the office romance being a nice sub-plot, the enmity between workers, the ambitious characters and the know-it-all manager: we can all somehow think of our office environment and apply a character to a colleague or manager. Like the 'Dilbert' series, the series is show more denouncing the boredom of office work and leads it to a more sarcastic level. Beware: this is 'British' humour as in sarcastic/ironic, i.e. not for the faint-hearted. show less

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1078916.html

I caught most of the first series of The Office (the BBC original, not any subsequent version) on TV, and of course found it cringingly hilarious - appalled moments of recognition combined with surrealism (eg the stapler in the jelly). Rereading the scripts (which are nicely illustrated with screencaps from the series, particularly catching people's expressions at crucial moments) brought back fond memories.

But totally and utterly fails the Bechdel test.

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1078916.html

I haven't seen any of the second series, and in fact I think that dramatically it works a bit better - the two parallel love affairs of Tim and Dawn, and David Brent with himself, give itmore of an emotional edge - it is a situation comedy, of course, but the characters, unusually, do change and develop (or regress) by the end of the series.

Highly recommended. But totally and utterly fails the Bechdel test.

Two series