Bookmark and Share

Sunday 2nd May 2021

6728/19648
Slept in til 6.50am. What luxury.
Sadly we had to go and get the kids, but you know, without kids I would have seen waking up before 7am as a disaster, not a wonderful holiday.

We're watching the American Office again. It's the second time during lockdown, which is maybe a bit much, but my wife had watched quite a lot of it on her own before I came on board, so we're just going back over the early series. Which are very good. There's a lot more depth to it than in the UK version, mainly due to the huge amount of episodes, but Michael Scott is a bit more engaging and likeable than David Brent. Maybe David Brent would have had more depth if they'd done more episodes. I really like both versions of the Office, but the US one is better (for me), at least for the first four or so series.
I have thought this before (and maybe even blogged about it, maybe even during lockdown) but I think you could do a reboot of the Office with Dwight as the "hero" and Jim and Pam as the villains (also true of the UK version). Dwight might be a bit of a nerd, but he is essentially bullied by the other two and it wouldn't be hard to spin the whole series to make it entirely sympathetic to him. It's no Jedward Deadwood, but I'd like to reshoot the whole thing and just tweak it (you might not even need to change the script) to point up what selfish, lazy, self-obsessed idiots Jim and Pam are. Jim, trying to break-up an engagement, Pam selfishly stringing along two guys and then breaking the heart of her fiance by dumping him at the last minute. Even as you're watching the real version there's an element of "C'mon guys, stop dicking people around" and "If you hate this job so much then leave." Dwight loves the job and wants to do his best and doesn't look down on this career as somehow betraying some greater purpose. And that's why he gets bullied. Jim and Pam are monsters.
Luckily I am pretty good mates with Stephen Merchant and so I reckon he could take some constructive criticism and be happy to let me reshoot all of this. And maybe redo the second series of Extras, so they're all still extras, I'll give him a ring.... it went to voice mail. I left this blog as a message.


Bookmark and Share



Subscribe to my Substack here
See RHLSTP on tour Guests and ticket links here
Help us make more podcasts by becoming a badger You get loads of extras if you do.
To join Richard's Substack (and get a lot of emails) visit:

richardherring.substack.com