Author: carowe

Almost everyone has heard of The Office. In 2020 alone, Netflix viewers watched over 57 billion minutes of the office. That is well over 100,000 years in viewing time. Viewers, potentially including you, watched the show to pass the time, relate to the characters, or simply have a laugh.

What may seem like a very simple show of a camera crew filming a documentary about an average Pennsylvania paper company, The Office actually completely changed television.

When The Office initially aired in 2005, reality television was the rage. From The Bachelor to American Idol and The Bachelor, audiences loved the relatability of the reality shows, and in many circumstances, dramas, comedies, and less relatable television were kicked to the curb. Greg Daniels, the writer of the Office, pushed the scale back in 2005. Even when the signs showed that a new comedy was bound to fall flat in the current climate, The Office went on.

The Office brought the ‘mockumentary’ format back to television. In order to succeed in the competitive television market, Greg Daniels knew he needed to do something different. So, he made the comedy relatable with interviews, seemingly ordinary characters, and problems people face on a daily basis. The difference between The Office and reality TV was that The Office was not actually real. The documentary format of the show simply gave the illusion that it was real. Additionally, The Office, unlike many other comedies, does not have a laugh track playing. It is the duty of the audience to know when to laugh and feel sympathetic for the characters, or whatever the case may be. This just adds to the reality aspect of The Office because it is like simply watching a documentary; there are no cues when to react or how to react to certain scenes.

While all viewers still knew that the documentary was actors and actresses acting scripted scenes, the market for the mockumentary boomed. Shortly after The Office, Parks and Rec. and Modern Family followed, each succeeding in a huge way.

The Office didn’t simply succeed because it had a certain relatability that the viewers enjoyed, but The Office pushed comedy forward. Cringe comedy had lost popularity at the time The Office first aired. Once again, that didn’t stop the writers. The show eventually succeeded, but not without faltering first. The Office’s first season was a trainwreck. After trying to replicate the UK version of The Office, one of the main characters, Michael Scott, the regional manager at Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, fell flat. Viewers disliked him on screen, and The Office writers knew they had to pivot. 

Quickly, they conveyed Micahel from a flat copy character based off of the UK version of the show that aired prior to the American version of The Office, Michael built some depth and empathy to contrast with his off-putting, inappropriate personality seen in season 1.

The sheer creativity the writers had put The Office together is incredible. First, they resurrected the show by adding depth to one of the primary characters. Second, the actors were allowed to flourish.

Many of the scenes in The Office, contrary to popular belief, are not scripted. For example, in the episode “Gay Witch Hunt,” Steve Carrel went off script and kissed Oscar Nunez. During the scene, to this day, you can watch the episode and see the shock on most of the cast when the camera panned around to show their reaction. These were their genuine reactions. Oscar Nunez, the actor for Oscar Martinez in the show, accepted the kiss. This ability for actors to use their talents beyond the script really makes The Office special and different from many other shows. 

Lastly, The Office was actually one of the very first shows to be put online for viewers. It was not online right away, but it was quickly moved onto Netflix when Netflix started streaming shows in 2007, two years after The Office originally aired. Especially with its enormous following, the addition of The Office to an online streaming service really pushed for the expansion of online television. 

The Office is a show, whether you’ve seen it or not, you’ve probably heard of it and know many people who have watched all nine seasons. With an incredible number of viewing hours, the masterpiece of a television series goes down as one of the best ever. With steps in the opposite direction of television during its original airing, to revolutionizing how TV shows are made, The Office will not be forgotten any time soon.

I know I read books before second grade. I have photos to prove it. For some reason, every literary memory I have before the second grade is of my mother reading me books. 

At 7:55 pm every night, my sister and I would sprint up the stairs to brush our teeth before our bedtime story. After brushing our teeth, way too quickly to get to our bedtime story quicker, we sprinted across our upstairs hallway to the room my sister Eve and I called the “playroom.” We hopped onto the couch to yell readyyy, the signal that my mom should head upstairs to read to us. Each night, the book was one of the same: The Berenstain Bears. The plot was the same each night, and we often had our mother re-read our favorite books of the series. The main characters, brother and sister bear, went about their day, one of them encountered conflict, and then the conflict is resolved at the end through a lesson learned for brother and sister bear. These books were made enticing through my mother’s storytelling, the elaborate drawings, and the relatability of the characters.

As I got older, my mother transitioned from picture books to the Chronicles of Narnia. The specific set we were using was the exact set that her dad read to her when she was a child. She felt it was part of her duty as a mother to read them to her children too. I could read by the time she started reading me the Chronicles of Narnia, but there was something inherently special about her reading them to me. Because I was still young, I didn’t understand some of the motifs and symbols that C.S. Lewis incorporates.

Before getting to Narnia, however, right at the moment my sister and I were born, my mom started us on our religious journey. While we were young and did not grasp nearly all of what we were being told at the time during church, I vividly remember my mom connecting Narnia to Christianity. Aslan, the wise lion, was representative of God, and C.S. Lewis was actually a Christian himself.

Unsurprisingly, not too long after, I received my first bible ever from Sunday school. It was called a ‘hands-on’ bible and was clearly geared towards children with engaging pictures, more colorful pages, and the text in the NLT (New Living Translation).

From that point on, my mom became less involved in my reading, but the Chronicles of Narnia and fond memories of her warmth as I sat listening to her read tales of the Berenstain Bears are vivid memories to this day.

My mother read to me many years ago aside, I am a very self-directed person. I did, however, take one of my dad’s book recommendations. He recommended I read Harry Potter. To this day, I think I have read that series, finding new details each time, upwards of fifteen or more times. I do not know what I found so appealing about Harry Potter, but those books were my first true love for reading books myself. Previous to that, reading was something I did at school once in a while. Maybe I read the book required to get the Kane County Cougars ticket, or whatever the case may be. Harry Potter allowed me to find a new love for reading that extended beyond school and started to take up lots of my free time. 

I remember reading in my family room, upstairs in a comfortable chair, and not wanting to come down for dinner because I was in the middle of a chapter. Even when the chapter was done, I thought maybe I can finish one more before I get yelled at. 

My love for reading persisted throughout elementary school, permeated into middle school, and died in high school. I can say with great confidence that more than seventy-five percent of the reading I have done since junior high school has been assigned or something that was highly recommended. I have done little to no reading “for pleasure” or for my own enjoyment in years.

When I think about why that is, I always think about a busier schedule in high school with more homework, more- involved sports, and a variety of other thoughts. The reality is, reading is not my primary source of entertainment or something I find myself doing when I have free time. My priorities have changed now, but I don’t think I will ever forget my mother reading to me as a child and I will always remember a shocking amount about the Harry Potter series.

Currently as a senior in high school, I plan to start reading just a little bit more and work my way up to a considerable amount more. It won’t be novels like I used to read, but rather simple reading more for the sake of being better informed. Investment, financial strategy, and philosophy books are on my horizon, but they may be in the form of e-books or podcasts as the world has shifted away from paperbacks. Whatever the case may be, the reader I am today, even if it was many years ago, was definitely influenced by my mom and my dad.

 

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