Sunday 22 January 2012

TV Review: The Office - "Pool Party"


Season 8 - Episode 12
NBC (US)

After last week's excellent A-Plot was let down by a rubbish B-Plot, this week sees a show with an A-Plot by default, which wasn't very good and I don't think many people will ever care about, and a bunch of other unconnected threads and throwaway jokes. This wasn't a bad episode per-se, it just wasn't very interesting at all.

At a pool party at Robert California's soon to be sold house, Andy is unsure whether to propose to his girlfriend Jessica, and Erin decides to try and make him jealous. This is a whole mess of a plot, Andy is in a serious relationship, but still seems to have feelings for (the increasingly stupid - which is really annoying me) Erin. Erin also still has feelings for him, and there's just a bizarre attempt at oneupmanship from her. Outrageously flirting with Dwight (who takes things too far as per usual) to make Andy jealous, she ends up finding the engagement ring that Andy had lost and giving it back to him. It's pointless, very few people are going to care about it, and it's a waste of an A-Plot.

Elsewhere, Jim continuously tries to escape to get back to Pam and the kids. Kathy, Pam's maternity cover, who has done literally fuck all since being introduced, suddenly seems to fancy Jim. Gabe and Ryan get drunk while trying to impress Robert, which culminates with all three of them jumping into the pool (unfortunately Robert being naked). The rest of the characters do very little, but swan around hopelessly, while the funniest part of the episode is Toby trying to pick the best wine from Robert's wine cellar after being invited to take a bottle.

"Pool Party" had a lot of elements, and only a couple of them worked. It was an episode that didn't need to be made, and it's a shame that there's been a few of them this season.

** 1/2

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