I‘m a huge Simpsons junkie - smartest show on TV, even if it might never hit the seasons 4-8 peaks of consistency - and I’m really looking forward to the Simpsons movie, but with a bit of trepidation - what if it just becomes some extended shaggy-dog story (not that that couldn’t be funny) on the order of Saddlesore Galactica (Worst. Episode. Ever.)?

Still, even this little snippet on the plot from the NY Times made me laugh:

The plot seems to involve the town of Springfield dealing with an environmental disaster that Homer accidentally starts. (Also, for some reason, Homer has a beloved pet pig.)

In anticipation, here’s 101 jobs of Homer Simpson:

So Patty turns out to be the gay Simpsons character. Not surprising, really, since this would involve the least changing of backstory. It’s kind of sad that the running joke that Selma gets all the dates (despite them being identical twins) is ending this way, though.

Ken Tucker’s blog has a post relating to the Patty marriage episode where he talks about how the show jabbed at religious institutions, which made me think: “the Simpsons” is one of the only shows on TV to consistently grapple with religion. Throughout the show religion is always present, whether it’s in Homer deciding not to go to church or Lisa becoming a Buddhist. Even the minor jokes can centre on religion - when Marge has her skiing accident and Homer is deciding where to send her, the ambulance changes its destination from Beth Israel to St Mary’s to Springfield Presbyterian in Goldilockian fashion.

(Incidentally, I didn’t know Tucker wasn’t writing for Entertainment Weekly any more - I really need to catch up on my EW reading.)

That willingness to actually debate religion’s role and concomitant moral issues, as opposed to neutrally pretending it doesn’t exist as most shows do, is one of the finest aspects of the Simpsons. And while it mocks religious pieties, it never ends up being condescending. It’s probably why religious magazines like Christianity Today can debate the depiction of Ned Flanders.

Tangential link: SpringfieldIsForGayLoversofMarriage.com | The Religious Life of an Animated Sitcom

Having just watched the clips on NBC’s website, the American remake of “The Office” looks to me like an awful idea. For one, it’s too shiny. By this I mean - the clips have a certain overly polished sheen, whereas the original version had that brilliantly awkward mockumentary feel to it. And for another, it just seems to be trying too hard to hammer in the “office life is terrible” theme. Of course, you can’t judge a show by a few clips, but this does not look promising for a show whose original incarnation I love.

I’m no Britcom snob - anyone who knows comedic history can see the American antecedents in “The Office” (This is Spinal Tap, clearly). But the American remakes of “Coupling” and “Men Behaving Badly” were terrible. And they were on NBC too, if I recall correctly…

So Google gets it right:

Hell yeah, I meant “the office” BBC.

Tangential link: my review of the original “Office”

Just (re-)watched all three seasons of “The Office”, Ricky Gervais’ and Stephen Merchant’s amazing comedy. The show is a mockumentary about a nondescript paper merchant in Slough, and it’s spot-on about the levels of jealousy that occur when the stakes are small, as they are in office politics - all these petite fiefdoms and petty jealousies and puffed-up self-important egos ruling over empires of cubicles and staplers. (Question: when Scott Adams - of Dilbert fame - watches “The Office”, does he feel a deep sense of being owned? Not that Dilbert is bad. But “The Office” is that good.)

“The Office” is strongly reminiscent of Christopher Guest’s classic mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap in that it undercuts the very people it purports to depict, except that “The Office” makes one a lot more uncomfortable. That discomfort is rooted in its office setting - anyone who’s worked in an office would have found moments in the show that hit a bit close to home. And therein lies its genius. “The Office” is painful enough to be funny, but not enough to revulse, a style of comedy of discomfort that’s really hard to achieve.

That painfulness comes from countering a lot of television comedy conventions: “The Office” derives much of its humour from awkward silences, particularly following yet another David Brent (Gervais) faux pas, and from actors glancing away instead of facing the camera. Which is why we never get the sense that these are actors inhibiting roles - their uncomfortable responses are what you’d expect from regular people: long pauses, comic mistiming.

The titular office is populated by Brent, the boss and self-styled entertainer (after his sacking, he releases a hilarious soft-focus music video of “If You Don’t Know Me By Now”); Gareth, the Territorial Army man who’s utterly devoid of irony or the ability to read sarcasm; Tim, the wry voice of knowing weariness (his droll rolling of eyes into the camera is a comedic treat); and Dawn, the receptionist who Tim clearly is in love with, but who has a jerk of a fiance. Other characters, notably Keith the dry accountant, round up the supporting cast, but the show focuses mostly on these four leads.

Much of the humour of “The Office” comes from the contrast between Brent’s image of himself as the ideal boss, and the pathetic leader he really is. Hence we see numerous self-aggrandising claims undercut by wry B-roll shots, and we have hilarious moments such as Brent singing his own composition (”Freelove Freeway”) at a motivational talk. Yet, as noted in the commentary, while Gervais’ blowhard character is the ostensible focus of the show, the relationship between Tim and Dawn (Lucy Davis) are the true heart of the show, driving its plot. Perhaps the classic example of this would be the last episode of season 2, where Tim rips off of the mike and runs in for one last chance to tell Dawn he loves her before she leaves for Florida and there’s pure silence, not even the background hum or whirr of the office machinery: breaking out of the knowing satire on the tedium of office life to a moment that actually means something.

And Brent, for all his Napoleonic tendencies, comes across as sympathetic in the end, showing that the very fact of viewing a man’s life on camera - even on a camera that is clearly being played to - can cause us to sympathise with him. (This phenomenon, of course, will be familiar to fans of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”.) Clearly Brent means well and wants to be a good leader, even if his own evaluation of his charm is far removed from reality, and even if his desire to be liked can cause him to do pathetic things (at one office party, he does a dance in order to one-up Neil, his more popular boss, but ends up looking like a deranged orang utan) or to lash out.

“The Office” is scrupulously uncompromising about the depressing nature of spending 8 hours a day under the harsh sterile flourescent lights of offices, and its satirical style may not be to everyone’s taste. But no less an assessor of comedy than David Letterman called it “possibly the greatest television programme of all time”, and from this vantage point it’s hard to disagree - if there’s one detracting thing, it’s that the show only has 14 episodes, counting the Christmas specials, but they are 14 perfectly-crafted episodes.

There are some times you watch TV and you realise you’re watching lightning being bottled in front of your eyes. The entire fourth season of the Simpsons was one of them: every week you tuned in, knowing full well that a classic would be unveiled before your eyes. This was the season the Simpsons really hit its stride, and there’s a great run of classic Simpsons episodes: “A Streetcar Named Marge”, “Marge vs the Monorail”, “Lisa’s First Word”, and “Mr Plow”, among others. Part of this was the recognition of that the secondary characters could carry episodes: “Selma’s Choice” focused on Selma babysitting Bart and Lisa and finally deciding she didn’t want kids, settling for Jub-Jub the iguana instead. Part of it was the willingness to throw in huge production numbers - “A Streetcar Named Marge” alone has both the sidesplitting “Oh, Streetcar!” musical number and Maggie’s Great Escape-style flight from the Ayn Rand School for Tots. And the greatest part of it was, quite simply, a writing team that was on fire combined with vocal talent that was settling into its prodigious range.

The DVD commentaries really add to the value of the DVD for Simpsons obsessives. Al Jean and Mike Reiss are running the show (before they left to start The Critic), and their anecdotes are both entertaining and informative about how much thought goes into the Simpsons, particularly visual aspects such as shadows. Conan O’Brien’s presence as the first new writer on the staff leads to lots of amusing anecdotes in the commentaries - apparently (and we can tell this from his show, in part) he’s one of the funniest men around, and even when put in a crappy office he couldn’t stop doing his schtick. James L. Brooks comes across as the great TV guru, coming up, for instance with Homer’s “dying” speech to Bart in “Homer’s Triple Bypass”. And the commentaries make clear just how constantly the Simpsons uses parodies and references - from the obvious references to Citizen Kane and The Godfather, down to Little Nemo. But this was clearly a step forward in the series’ progress, building on Season 3 to create a season in which almost every show was a classic. A

The Simpsons: Season 4 Episode guide