I’m posting this in an effort to help out fans of The Office on NBC during the writer’s strike. If the strike goes on for very long it will be a while before we get new episodes. To help with the withdrawal you might consider renting the original British version. If you haven’t considered it, you should. It’s a great show. However, the story of Wernham-Hogg is somewhat different from the wacky antics at Dunder Mifflin.
To help get you up to speed I’m going to lay out a few of the similarities and the differences.
Similarities
Both the British and the US TV shows are are filmed as documentaries covering a branch of a paper company. The British show is set in Slough, Berkshire. The US show is set in Scranton, Pennsylvania. How similar these two cities are I have no idea, but on the TV shows both cities are sometimes referred to with a bit of disdain.
Characters
David Brent is Regional Manager of the Slough branch of the Wernham-Hogg paper company. His incompetence in business is only rivaled by his (imagined) musical talent.
Michael Scott is Regional Manager of the Scranton branch of the Dunder Mifflin paper company. His incompetence seems to know no bounds, but neither does his loyalty.
Gareth Keenan is a self important military wannabe who jumps at any chance for power over his coworkers. Gareth is often the target of pranks and jokes perpetrated by Tim Canterbury. The phrase that best describes Gareth would be “Pathetic Prat”.
Dwight Schrute is a morally superior know-it-all who works at Dunder Mifflin for recreation. Financially he doesn’t need the job since he has inherited the family beet farm. The phrase that best describes Dwight would be “Weird and Creepy”.
Dawn Tinsley and Tim Canterbury are best friends. Tim has a crush on Dawn even though she’s engaged to Lee, a dockworker at Wernham-Hogg. Mutual interests include tormenting Gareth and getting the hell out of Slough.
Jim Halpert and Pam Beesly are best friends. Jim and Pam are now a couple after dumping their significant others. Mutual interests include tormenting Dwight and working as little as possible.
Differences
If you’re a fan of the US Office trying to fill the Thursday night void by watching the original British program, be prepared for these differences. A few of them could come as a surprise.
Format
While both shows focus on a “real” office the type of programs being filmed is different. The British show seems to be an ongoing documentary about the Slough branch of Wernham-Hogg. The US show is more of a reality TV show that follows the lives of the people working at the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin. That may not seem like a big difference, but it adds an element of drama to the British show that is often missing from NBC hit.
Tone
American viewers of The Office have come to expect wacky hijinks, such as Michael leading a raid on another branch of Dunder Mifflin to steal their copier. The British show has more subtle, almost painful, humor. Workers at Wernham-Hogg are faced with the crushing depression of being in dead end jobs, something the NBC show quickly moved to the back burner. Both shows use the strengths of their cast to it’s fullest. Here’s a good example…
- The laughter caused by David Brent often comes from sympathetic embarrassment, a type of comedy that Ricky Gervais is a master of.
- Steve Carell excels as the lovable and clueless goofball. Michael Scott is a fine example of this.
Conclusion
This is a wonderful opportunity to take a look at the roots of The Office. There are differences, but don’t let that stop you. Don’t focus on what’s different. Just enjoy the similarities when they show up. Both the British and American versions of The Office are excellent shows.
I love ‘em both. If I had to choose between them? That’s hard.
That’s what she said.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating it.
Thanksgiving according to Damon Knight and Rod Serling.
I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone (Beth) who responded to my previous article “Book Reviews or Book Discussions?“. Book discussions won in a landslide, but like the 2000 American Presidential Election it’s been overturned. Not by an antiquated electoral college, but by practicality.
Looks like I don’t have enough active readers to start up a discussion about, well, anything. Not yet at least. I’m too damn stubborn to give up though. So I’ll do reviews for now. Once things get rolling and we get some regulars, then we can start up some discussions. I’ll bring this up again in the future, once the site is more active.
Or when Gore is President.
I need your opinions
After the posts by Donna and myself, I’ve decided that I should make books a larger part of the site. I’d like to do more posts about books and reading. What I’d like your opinion on is the structure of those posts.
- Should I review books I read?
Or
- Should I open a discussion about a book?
I can see pros and cons for both of those. I’m just not sure what you’d rather see here. That’s why I’m asking you.
What’s the difference?
This is how I imagine these working. If you have other ideas please let me know.
Book Review
- I would choose a book, or let you vote on a book.
- I’d read it and take a few notes.
- I’d come back to the blog and write up a review. It’s pretty straight forward.
Book Discussion
- I would choose a book, or let you vote on a book. That’s the same.
- I’d write a post on the blog to announce what the book is.
- A reading deadline would be set. That way people know when the discussion will start, and will know when to finish the book.
- People that want to join in would, I hope, read the book.
- After the reading deadline I’d come back here and officially open the discussion. I would include some of my opinions and my questions about the book. It wouldn’t be a full review though.
- I would update the post with some, or all, of the relevant comments from the discussion for a period of time. This would make the relevant comments about the book easier to find and make things easier on people taking part. A long list of comments can be hard to follow sometimes.
What do you think?
Does this sound like something you’d be interested in? Do you have any other ideas? I’d appreciate your thoughts on this. I’d really like to make this site something we could all enjoy together.
If you’re subscribed to the feed, either through RSS or E-mail, you may have noticed a strange post. The title was “Temporary Post Used For Style Detection” followed by some weird string of letters and numbers. I can explain what that was.
Pay no attention to that post behind the curtain.
I’m testing out Windows Live Writer, a blog editing program. One of the options is to let it make a temporary post so it can gather information on the styles used on the blog. Apparently it didn’t delete it quick enough and it went out on the feed. It did delete it though, so now that link in the feed leads to the 404 page.
So if you see anything like that in the feed, just ignore it. Nothing to see there.
I thought Donna’s article, What Makes An Author Worth Reading?, was great. Not only did she share her opinions, she let us know how her opinions are formed. I started to leave a comment on the article several times, then I’d think of another point. It eventually got to be too long. So I thought I’d just write a follow up.
Author or Story
I agree that being familiar with an author can give you a good indication how good their new book may be. I don’t necessarily agree that an author is worth reading. I love the Harry Potter books, and I think the entire series is worth reading. Does that mean that all of J.K. Rowling’s books would be worth reading? I kind of doubt it. We won’t know until she has something else published.
Another example from a shared favorite of ours. J.R.R. Tolkien. I’ve read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings too many times to count. I’ve also enjoyed Farmer Giles of Hamm and other stories written by Tolkien. I’m pretty close to being a hardcore Tolkien fan. However, that doesn’t mean I would recommend the entirety of Toliken’s work to someone that enjoyed The Lord of the Rings. Why? Simply put, because I think The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are far too different from his other works.
There are authors that I purchase regularly. Terry Pratchett, Stephen King and Neil Gaiman are on that very short list. There are authors I purchase, because the book is part of a series that I read. There are authors that I will only ever purchase once, because they’ve only written one story that interests me. The last list is probably the longest. Why?
I Choose Story
To me the story is the point. It is the beginning and the end. The alpha and the omega. The story is why I read. Do I read a book because Terry Pratchett, Stephen King or Neil Gaiman wrote it? No. I read their books because I trust them. I trust that they will deliver the goods.
I choose story.
This is a guest article from Donna. Leave some comments and maybe we can get her to be a regular contributor.
Bibliophilia in Action
I’ll be the first to admit to having a long-standing obsession with books. As a child, I read Nancy Drew and The Chronicles of Narnia obsessively. I have traveled with Bilbo and Frodo to the Lonely Mountain and Mordor once a year, every year (starting on their shared birthday) since I was a teenager.
In high school, I explored many of the “classics” – Austen, the Brontes, Dickens, Dostoevsky, James, Joyce, Thackeray, Tolstoy, Twain – I tore through anything and everything I could lay my hands on. Thomas Mann intrigued me so much that I took two classes about his novels while in college, and even considered learning German just so I could read his work in the “authentic” language.
Since then, my tastes have grown much more pedestrian. In my late twenties, mysteries held a great appeal for me. Agatha Christie was a minor fixation for a while, but soon Ngaio Marsh took over. It was at that point that I formed the habit of reading an author’s works repeatedly in chronological order – from “A Man Lay Dead” (1934) through “Light Thickens” (1982), I spent 3 years of my life memorizing every nuance of Marsh’s Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn.
The Boy Who Lived
My obsession with the Potter universe outstripped all my other prior obsessions by a significant amount…
And then we had The Boy Who Lived. My obsession with the Potter universe outstripped all my other prior obsessions by a significant amount, and affected my life more profoundly than I would have thought possible. Admittedly, Jo Rowling’s writing is less than perfect (“the treetops were gilded with gold” still drives me up the wall – what else would they be gilded with?), but her sense of humor and the integrity of her storytelling are truly memorable.
Now that it’s over though, what’s a Potter-obsessed girl to do? I can, and will, continue to re-read the series, talk about it with my friends, and look back on some of the developments (especially in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”) with regret. Eventually however, there will come a time when I need something else to read.
I’ve started my search, and so far, have been sorely disappointed. Scott Westerfeld’s trilogy (“Uglies,” “Pretties,” and “Specials”) was nicely subversive and reasonably interesting, though I have to say I ended up feeling a bit disappointed with the ending. Good guys win, and bad guys really aren’t bad guys after all – not much subtlety there, and absolutely no re-read value.
Plum Bad
A friend recommended Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series as being entertaining. I’ve read a few, but to be honest, I have a hard time getting past her lazy writing and non-existent editing.
A character starts eating cold leftover pasta in one paragraph, yet a few sentences later, he’s finishing up his sandwich?
Though she gives credit to an editor, her writing shows all the signs of being slapped together with little thought for characterization, grammatical correctness, or even continuity. She frequently contradicts her own minor facts (A character starts eating cold leftover pasta in one paragraph, yet a few sentences later, he’s finishing up his sandwich?). Her characters are inconsistent, unbelievable, unintelligible caricatures (a tough-talking street punk with a ghetto vocabulary from the first book is a smooth, literate pillar of society later in the series). I find myself getting angry with her publishers for foisting this mess on the public. I am amazed that anyone can be getting paid to “edit” her work; I can only assume they’re afraid to kill the goose that laid the golden egg by correcting the egregious errors that crop up on almost every page she writes.
Worst of all, I cannot imagine anyone churning out this kind of sloppy, hackneyed garbage and not being heartily ashamed of herself. Is Ms. Evanovich so clueless that she actually thinks her writing is good? Yet she is apparently “working on” (I use the term loosely) the 16th book in the series, and if past sales are any indication, will make a tidy sum off of it.
The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
This has got me wondering – what makes an author worth reading? And what does the author owe to the reading public?
Naturally, the story is of paramount importance. No matter how skillfully something is crafted or how carefully it’s edited, if the story fails to engage or move its intended audience, it’s not worth committing to paper.
Characters have to be believable. They have to be “real” enough to care about. That doesn’t mean, however, obviously fictional characters can’t be worthwhile. I’ve just finished reading Gregory Maquire’s “Wicked”, and his Elphaba is one of the most consistently sympathetic characters I’ve encountered. She’s just quirky enough to keep you guessing; it’s impossible not to get drawn into the story of her life.
It really boils down to integrity. If an author is focused on producing their best, if they concentrate on doing justice to their story, it will be worth reading. If, on the other hand, all they care about is churning out a product to make a quick buck, that will be obvious too. While I can’t presume to tell anyone else what to buy or not to buy, I can at least say that I intend to continue to patronize those authors who make an honest effort and shun those who are just in it for the money.
Biography: Donna Lafferty is an avid reader (well, duh). She is co-administrator of
Knockturn Alley (www.knockturn.org), author and presenter of The Grand Unified Horcrux Theory (presented May 20, 2007 at
Phoenix Rising). She owns a day spa in Bloomington, Indiana, plays the trombone, and spends way too much time on the computer.
I’ve been a Stephen King fan for almost as long as I could read. That’s my sister’s fault. She’s a fan of his books, so I was introduced to his stories as a kid. I could relate to his books because I was a kid. A lot of the main characters in his stories are kids. Even more often, the monsters are things that scare kids. So his stories made a lot of sense to me.
The long and short of it.
Stephen King can write huge books. It and The Stand are pretty good examples of his longer works. He also writes some damn good short stories. The best example of those are probably in Skeleton Crew. That’s his second collection of short stories. Don’t get me wrong, his other short story collections are great. I just like Skeleton Crew.
“It’s digging in to what Steve King does, and trying not to screw it up.” — Frank Darabont, Director of The Mist
One of the longer stories in Skeleton Crew was The Mist. That is a creepy story, and a good example of the kind of childhood fears he uses so well. You never know what’s out there when a thick fog rolls in. Of course a child’s imagination, and Stephen King’s, will populate that unseen world. Some things are best left unseen.
The Mist by Stephen King has been made into a movie. As much as I gripe about stories I love being butchered on the big screen, I’m not too worried about this one. Stephen King, and his fans, have been blessed when it comes to film adaptations of his work. Some truly great movies have been made from his stories. I’m really looking forward to it since I watched a video of the director talking about Stephen King films on the movie’s site. That guy knows what he’s doing.
Check out the site and watch the trailer. This movie looks like a Stephen King story. It can’t get better than that.
You might remember my predictions about Heroes from a previous post I made. If not, here are the basics.
Which one will be Takezo Kensei?
My predictions about Hiro.
My biggest theory has been both confirmed and busted. After seeing the end of last season I believed that Hiro would become Takezo Kensei. With his powers and his knowledge of the great samurai’s adventures it would be easy for him to do. Not to mention the fact the Future Hiro was scary good with a sword. That kind of expertise can only come from practice in battle. It would also explain the connection that Hiro seems to have with the sword and the Takezo Kensei legends.
My predictions about the man who calls himself Takezo Kensei.
If the gaijin decides to abandon the role of Kensei I believe he will become a villain. With his healing abilities he may be nearly immortal. It’s possible that he will live long enough to play a major role in the modern day struggle. He may even be the main villain. We haven’t really met the man that scares Molly so much, maybe it’s the man we know as Kensei.
I was right. Well, mostly. It turns out that Matt Parkman’s dad Maury is the Nightmare Man. He has the same mental abilities that Matt does, they’re just more developed. He was part of the Group of Twelve, just like Linderman, Kaito Nakamura and the Petrellis. There was someone else though. The man in charge. The man behind the recent murders of the older Heroes.
The gaijin known as Kensei.
It seems Kensei, now calling himself Adam Monroe, is the one who brought the old Heroes together. He was the one who convinced them to use their powers. He was also the one who eventually corrupted them and turned them. Linderman’s plans to “save” the world came from Adam. Linderman was only following in his footsteps.
Hiro is Kensei
Under the cherry blossoms where they first kissed Yaeko tells Hiro that he is Takezo Kensei. When he tells her that he must leave she tells him something else. She will make sure that the tales of Kensei are known. So that the little boy called Hiro Nakamura will have stories to help him sleep.
Hiro is Takezo Kensei and Adam Monroe is the main villain.
Gimp 2.4 has been released. On top of that Gimp.org has had a makeover. Lookin’ good.
Maybe I’ll play around with the new release and give you my thoughts in a later post.
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