Watching The Office

Hey everyone…

I just would like to advise readers and visitors of this site to please expect a few downtimes here, as we move to a better and faster server within the next few days. The site may be inaccessible for a while.

Thanks you for your patience.

Big apologies for the unexpected downtime. 451Press has had major server issues, we had to wait for days until this was resolved.

But it seems everything is fine now. I hope.

I’m just gonna be catching up on some belated news in the next couple of days, don’t be surprised if you read about stuff you should have read about a week ago. It’s just my way of getting right back on track.

Thanks for sticking around!

Breaking news…a few seconds ago Greg Daniels just accepted his Emmy Award for Writing!

Oh, yeah. Rainn Wilson lost to Jeremy Piven. Jenna Fischer lost to Jaime Pressly. But I’m sure both are thrilled to be nominated, nonetheless…they were really up against equally good and talented actors.

I’ll be posting more on this later….the Emmy’s not done yet. We still have Best Comedy and Best Comedy Actor to look forward to.

And Rainn is on right now, in this Don’t Forget The Lyrics bit.

Be back for more…

Update: The Emmy Awards ceremony is done. Sadly The Office ends the night with only one win. :(  I think I just jinxed it with the first title that came to mind when I posted this entry earlier. Heh.  I’ll try and post a few video highlights soon, because even if the show and the actors didn’t win, Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, Jenna Fischer and John Krasinski had some fun and fantastic moments during the awards night, proving once again what great entertainers they all are.

The Office, The Office Emmy, Greg Daniels, Emmy Awards, Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, Jenna Fischer, John Krasinski

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The Office, 451 Press, 451 Press contest

Still on awards…this is rather a belated news but then I thought it would be best to log this in for the archives. After all, a well-deserved recognition such as this one, should not be disregarded, right?

The Office took the People’s Voice award for the Television category in the recently concluded Webby Awards. Angela was there to on behalf of the whole show. Clips of this may be viewed at the NBC website.

Webby Awards, The Office, Angela-The Office

Television Critics Association just recently announced their nomination list for 2007’s best TV shows. And The Office is one of those nominated under OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY. [applause! applause!] It would be good to note that The Office won this same award last year. Will the show win it the second time around? [keeping fingers crossed!] The Office is pitted against equally interesting shows like 30 Rock, Ugly Betty, Entourage and The Daily Show.

Individual achievements, where Steve Carell won last year for Comedy, will be recognized this year, as well. The awards night will be on the 21st of July. The full list may be found here.

TCA is comprised of TV press critics who continually provide us with updates and interesting stories from TV land. It has at least 65 members.

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In another unrelated news… this is my very first entry for WatchingTheOffice. It’s my first day at work! I will try to do a good job with the updates, in the same way that my predecessor did.

Now, go watch some more TV.

The Office, TCA, TCA Nomination, award, 30 Rock, Ugly Betty, Entourage, The Daily Show, Steve Carell

If you were staying up late last night to watch Jenna Fischer appear on Conan, you would have be very dissapointed. The Office star was not able to do the Conan show because she took quite the tumble down a flight of marble stairs. According to sources, she broke her back in four places and had to be hospitalized. She is currently staying in her New York hotel room in order to recover enough to fly back to L.A.

Her publicist said Fischer will make a full recovery in four to six weeks and shouldn’t miss any “Office” production time.

Apparently, both James Gunn her husband and fellow Office pal Angela Kinsey have been with her since the incident.

I have to say that this isn’t any old mishap. Falling down stairs, especially marble stairs, is pretty painful. I fell down carpeted stairs once and broke my tail bone. It still hurts sometimes.
Get well soon, Jenna!

The Office, Jenna Fischer, Conan, NBC

-Anna

Not only do we have some interesting previews of “The Job,” but we have some cool videos on Jenna and John at the NBC’s Upfronts where NBC announced plans for the fall, and a video of Rainn as he appeared on The Today Show yesterday. All of these clips are a bit spoilery, but I’m thinking that all that talk from John and Jenna about the ninja and robot might just be crazy talk.
Thanks to OfficeTally.com for providing the links and to IESB.net for providing most of the videos.

Preview #1 of the Office Finale “The Job.

Preview #2

Preview #3

Jenna and John at the Upfronts clip

Rainn on Today

I have no idea how Jim will react to Pam’s speech of last week, but I’m going to try my hand at some speculations.
Since we’ve been told time and time again that something big is going to happen with Jan and Michael, I’m thinking that either Jan will pretend she is pregnant in order to get Michael to stay with her (she has proven crazier in the past) or she really might be pregnant. Or it could be that offering to interview Michael was just an excuse to get Michael within her reach.
Let’s look at the possible ways in which Jim could respond to Pam’s campfire plea for friendship.
I’m thinking that one option would be for him to somewhat awkwardly to apologize for neglecting her and their past and offering a lame handshake as a symbol of their enduring friendness.
Another option would be for Jim to tell Pam that he appreciated her honesty, but that he is with Karen now and that being friends may not be an option if he goes to New York.
Another option, of course, is that at the end of the finale, we have the two get together and Karen is tossed aside.
Truthfully, I don’t think that Pam and Jim will get together. It would kill the show and I think Pam has developed to a point that getting Jim or any other man right now is not what she’s about.
Anyway, the finale should prove to be exciting, awkward, hilarious and so much more. Expect a full recap of the finale to appear Friday morning.

The Office, Office spoilers, NBC, Jenna Fischer, John Krasinski, Rainn Wilson, The Job, Office finale, Office previews

-Anna

Thanks to Sparkles Gallery for the pics.

Jenna Fischer and her husband James Gunn (Slither) appeared recently at this year’s Saturn Awards. While on the red carpet IESB.net interviewed the couple and we get a few tiny hints at what the season finale of The Office might hold for us. Watch the video by clicking here.

In other news, John Krasinski was spotted, on stage, at Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard’s concert. MeeVee reports…

[At] the concert of Death Cab’s front man Ben Gibbard at the 9:30 Club in D.C. when none other than Jim Halpert himself, yes John Krasinski took to the stage. Ben and John were joking around and having fun. John, armed with a guitar, professed his loved for the band Wilco and sang a little tune. John has been a long time fan of Death Cab and even co-hosted their Directions DVD launch party last year.

Gibbard is also reportly taking his shot at acting in “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men” which was directed and written by Krasinski.

And lastly,
We all know that Rainn Wilson has numerous projects going on this summer as he takes a break from The Office, but what to do first. Cinematical.com reports of all the happenings with Wilson and what he has decided to take on first in his long list of movie deals.

Wilson has decided which one of his many upcoming projects will shoot first; with production beginning this June, he’ll star in The Rocker — a comedy for Fox Atomic that stars Wilson as a modern day Pete Best. Essentially, like Best, he’ll play a drummer who gets the boot from a band right before they hit it big time. Thus, he’s forced to pick up the broken pieces of his career and seek out a second chance at super-stardom.

Wilson will be working on this film along side other projects including, “The Girlfriend Experience,” “Kanan Rhodes: Unkillable Servant of Justice,” and “Bonzai Shadowlands.”

The Office, Jenna Fischer, James Gunn, John Krasinski, Ben Gibbard, The Rocker, Rainn Wilson, Office spoilers

-Anna

LifeintheOffice.com has just reported that the supposed change to hour-long Office episodes will not be happening this coming fall. However, ComingSoon.net reports that…

The network has ordered 30 half-hours of the hit series “The Office,� including five hour-long episodes, and also has increased the season order for “My Name Is Earl� to 25 episodes.

So I guess this means that we’re getting more episodes overall and more hour-long ones. I suppose this is the middle ground. Jumping right to hour-long episodes seems a bit risky for a show like The Office. Perhaps in a few seasons will get more hour-long episodes and fewer half-hour episodes. Some other changes for The Office, according to LifeintheOffice.com is that they will be moving to the 9pm time slot. This means they’ll be taking on such shows as “Grey’s Anatomy” and “CSI.” Do you think The Office can compete? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Some other news before I go….

1. Tuesday, the 15th, Rainn Wilson and Angela Kinsey will be on The Today Show. Jenna Fischer will be on Conan.
2. Thursday, the 17th, Brian Baumgartner and Angela Kinsey will be on The Morning Show on Fox.

Stay tuned this week as I speculate on what will happen during the hour-long season finale of The Office.

The Office, NBC, Angela Kinsey, Rainn Wilson, Brian Baumgartner, Office season finale

-Anna

First order of business…

It looks like the majority of you do not like the prospect of Karen remaining on The Office. I find it interesting that Pam has earned herself so much loyalty, while Karen, despite her congenial behavior is still scorned simply because she exists at all. Ah well.

Now onto some Office interviews. Below are blurbs and links from 3 interviews with different Office cast members. First up is an interview that IGN did with Brian Baumgartner who plays Kevin.

IGN TV: Are you comfortable with the improvisational aspects of the show?

Baumgartner: Yeah, with my background in theater in terms of ensemble and creating material, I’m totally comfortable with. The show is a hundred percent scripted, but in all of the scenes we are given some freedom. We can change certain words, to extend scenes longer. Every episode is obviously a little different, but we are definitely given the ability to add and change things. As long as the story stays the same.

Here we have an interview via TV Guide with Oscar Nunez, who plays Oscar of course.

TVGuide.com: When did the Office writers officially tell you Oscar would be gay?

Oscar Nuñez: It was toward the end of the first season. At first, it started as a rumor. The actors started saying, “Oscar might be gay” when we’d read the scripts, and I was like, “Really?” Then, lo and behold, there was a script where Oscar was gay. [Executive producer] Greg Daniels came up to me and said, “Hey, Oscar, would you mind if your character was gay?” I’m like, “Greg, there’s a script already written. I’ve seen it. Thanks for asking me now.” But I didn’t mind.

Lastly, we have an interview done by The Vancouver Sun with Rainn Wilson who plays Dwight.

If Steve Carell’s Michael Scott is the prototype terrible boss, Wilson’s Dwight qualifies as the prototype irritating office worker. This is a character Wilson loves to play and is determined to keep fresh.

“The struggle is not to go into auto pilot with him but to try and challenge myself to find different ways to allow his character and his comedy to come through the material. I’ve got several more years playing that big, annoying doofus, so I’ve got to find ways to keep me interested in it and to keep having new surprises coming from him.”

Don’t forget about tonight’s Office episode, “Beach Games.” It was directed by Harold Ramis and is going to be a supersized episode. This is the second to last episode of the season.

The Office, Rainn Wilson, Oscar Nunez, Brian Baumgartner, Beach Games

-Anna

WARNING: This post contains spoilers.

Rashida Jones, who plays Karen on The Office, will be here for Season 4. I originally thought that if Rashida would be back for season 4 then that would mean that her pilot “The Rules for Starting Over” did not get picked up by FOX. But as someone over at Netscape.com has just posted, that pilot did get picked up by FOX. I’m not sure what this means for Karen on The Office or how much we’ll see of her, but I’m glad that she’s staying. I used to not like the character of Karen simply because it messed with Pam and Jim, but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of Pam and Jim never getting together. I think they are great friends, but may have grown apart romantically.
Here’s what OfficeTally.com found out about the whole season finale situation…

The scoop: There’s an opening at Dunder Mifflin corporate, and Michael (Steve Carell), Jim (John Krasinski) and girlfriend Karen (Rashida Jones) all want it. “Somebody does take the job,� cocreator Greg Daniels tells Us (best bet: Jim). “We’ll see more of the New York offices next year.�

Office crush: Fans rooting for Jim and Pam (Jenna Fischer) to revisit romance may be disappointed: Jones is back for Season 4, and, says Daniels, “Pam is on a journey of self-discovery. Her happiness may be more about her self-realization.�

So it looks like the world of The Office will be expanding quite a bit. If Jim does get the corporate job, it makes one wonder about how that will work with him and Karen. I guess New York isn’t too far from Scranton. The comment that Pam is on a journey of self-discovery was an interesting one. Perhaps getting another boyfriend is not in the cards for The Office receptionist. I would like it if, through this self-realization, Pam stops glancing longily at Jim and starts being or at least acting more like a independent woman whose happiness does not rely on a guy. That’s my opinion anyway.

Season 4 might just prove to be a very interesting and a very different season. I do find it interesting that with this kind of comedy where absurdity is rampant, that they would choose to include such meaningful storylines such as Pam journey of self-discovery. But I suppose the big-wigs at NBC and the writers for The Office are smart enough to know that comedy alone will not carry a show.

Tell me what you guys think about Karen staying. Are you for it or against it? Vote on the poll below and I’ll post results tomorrow.

The Office, Rashida Jones, Karen, Office season finale, Jenna Fischer, John Krasinski, Pam Beesley, Jim Halpert

-Anna

Click here for video #1

Click here for video #2

The Office, Office spoilers, Office videos, Beach Games, NBC

-Anna

My last post spoke about 2 possible endings to the season finale of The Office. One had Karen leaving and one had Karen staying. Each of these endings would obviously have other consequences for other storylines in the show. Officetally.com explains…

I can’t believe your Office scoop about Karen and the two endings! Aaah! Does this mean no one knows yet whether Pam and Jim get together?

Precisely. In one ending, they get together. In one, they don’t. However, I can tell you that Pam will grow a spine and say some things she’s been dying to say (are you not loving the new, ballsy, tire-changin’ Pam?!) and that Jim will have to make a choice between them. Brian Baumgartner of Scrantonicity fame (they rule!) dishes: “Kevin plays a crucial role in determining: Pam or Karen?� Gaaah! Brian also confirms that they’ve shot “several endings,� adding, “We honestly don’t know for sure what will happen at the end. There’s a job opening at corporate, and there are several people from the Scranton branch who are vying for that job in New York.� I’m told Karen and Jim are two of the three people who want that position, which is why Rashida (Karen) was spotted shooting scenes in New York with John (Jim) just last week.

That would be interesting wouldn’t it. I’m actually rooting for Karen. I’m starting to like her more than Pam.

In other speculation/spoiler news for The Office…

Gustavo in Provo, Utah: Do you know if Jan is pregnant on The Office? I think she’s pregnant by Michael.

There are big developments coming on the Man front. Angela Kinsey tells us, “There’s a big new twist for Michael and Jan. It’s really funny. They just keep getting a little more bent. I love that storyline, actually.�

Dani in Great Neck, New York: Any Office romance news?

Dwangela is dwiiirrrty. Angela Kinsey says this of her recent make-out scene with the Schruter: “One of the writers, Mike Schur, told me that after he watched that scene being filmed, he realized that Dwight and Angela have probably made out all over the office at different times, after hours, and it sort of makes us all look at the office in a new way. So I think they’re gonna have some more rendezvous moments—absolutely!�

So I guess The Office will be focusing a lot on all of these dysfunctional relationships it has created. I’ll tell you though that if Jan happens to be carrying Michael’s baby, I will feel horrible for that baby. Jan, I believe, has some serious issues and Michael can’t function like a normal adult to save his life. I’m somewhat thinking though that this won’t be the case with these two. I don’t know what will be the case though. Jan is too weird to speculate what will happen between her and Michael. Maybe she’ll start stalking Michael or something.

Thanks again to OfficeTally.com for the info.

The Office, Office spoilers, Office season finale, Michael Scott, Jan Levinson, Pam Beesley, Jim Halpert, Karen

-Anna

So, we all know that Rashida Jones, who plays Karen on The Office, is shooting a pilot for Fox called “The Rules for Starting Over.” We all thought that this would definitely mean that Karen would somehow leave The Office, but according to OfficeTally.com, there is also a good chance that Karen could stay.
Here’s what they had to say…

Sources [say] that The Office is shooting two endings to the current season—one in which Rashida Jones (Karen) leaves the show, and one in which she stays—because it is not yet known whether Rashida is back next season.

But why is everything up the air about this “Is Karen leaving or not” situation? Apparently, there is a chance that this new pilot for “The Rules for Starting Over” may not get picked up by FOX. If that happens, then Rashida’s character will remain on The Office.

To be honest, I hope the pilot doesn’t get picked up. The character of Karen has grown on me and I’m not sure I want her to leave. Jenna Fischer’s character, Pam, has become somewhat annoying as of late and to be honest, she blew it with Jim. She didn’t have the guts to do what she really wanted and now she’s suffering for it. That’s life. Karen on the other hand, to me, has become sort of an endearing character. She’s no Pam, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. So, in the end, I kind of want Karen to stay.
But neither Rashida or fans will know what will happen until late next week.

One more tidbit of news relating to The Office…
OfficeTally.com reports that…

The Office may be expanding to a full hour next season. Word is, NBC execs are seriously considering a lengthier Office on Thursday nights (perhaps signaling a move of Scrubs to ABC).

Exciting huh?

The Office, Rashida Jones, Office spoilers, NBC

-Anna