The Office Season 5 Episodes
29.01.2019
Last season left Office fans gasping and worked up for more -- and so, the most anticipated season of the Emmy-winning comedy starring Golden Globe winner Steve Carell is finally on the clock. New and poignant foolishness continues to plague the world of the unwary Dunder Mifflin 9-to-5'ers. As Dwight gets trained as a fire marshal, trouble occurs at the office. Michael requests his employees roast him. Meanwhile, the workers watch a bootleg video instead of working. The fifth season of 'The Office' begins with Pam at art school in New York, Ryan returning to Dunder-Mifflin, Dwight and Angela having an affair behind Andy’s back, and Michael meeting the apparent woman of his dreams in new human-resources head Holly. Pam eventually comes back from art school, gets engaged to Jim and gets pregnant, while Holly and Michael enjoy a short but intense relationship before she’s transferred out of town.
Note: Full spoilers for follow. Looking back at my review of The Office's Season 7, I concluded with the hope that the writing staff would plan the next year out ahead of time because having a destination in mind (in last year's case, sending off Michael Scott) seemed to have done the show some good.
Too bad they didn't take that advice. Instead of a heading in a single, coherent direction in Season 8, the stories and the characters were all over the map. Season 7 ended without revealing the next branch manager of Dunder Mifflin Scranton, but the question was answered soon enough in the season premiere, 'The List,' with Andy sitting in the corner office.
The choice wasn't out of left field, and it had some potential to bring a new flavor to the show – the insecure manager who is in over his head and knows it, rather than the incompetent manager who desperately wants to be one of the guys – but instead of properly cultivating Andy as a manager, they decided to have him share the spotlight with James Spader's Robert California, who wore out his welcome early on (as I feared he might). Even when Andy did try to flex his managerial muscles, as in 'Garden Party' and 'Gettysburg,' the storylines were too absurd to accept as legitimate character development, yet not funny enough to make it worth pushing the reality of the show to an ever more extreme degree. Speaking of 'Garden Party' and 'Gettysburg,' there were quite a few outings that took the characters away from the office this year, including an entire arc set in Tallahassee, Florida (more on that storyline later).
The Office Season 5 Episode 2
I suspect the motivation behind this was to change things up and keep them fresh, but it didn't always work. There were times, like in 'Pool Party' when it felt like I was watching a different series – an Office spinoff, maybe – instead of the show I know and used to love. It wasn't always a problem with the locations themselves, but with the writing. By the time Andy and Erin crashed a stranger's bachelorette party to break up with his bland girlfriend, I wished they'd been part of a different show. I haven't made it a secret that I'm not much of a fan of the Andy and Erin relationship. Last season, Andy pined for Erin while she was dating Gabe, so I guess it was Erin's turn to carry the torch.
The Office Season 5 Episodes
The writers fell back on the old love-triangle trope, giving Andy a girlfriend, but they didn't bother to give her any personality or defining characteristics. So I wasn't rooting for either side, really. There was also a potential romantic entanglement between Andy and Robert's wife (guest star Maura Tierney) in 'Mrs. California,' but that went nowhere.